The Interpreter of Facts
- Harold W. Horowitz, MDNew York, New York harold.horowitz@med.nyu.edu
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
- KEYWORDS:
- PIECE OF MY MIND (YOUNG RK, ED)
I remember feeling dumbfounded; perhaps dumb is a better way of putting it. A subintern, soon to be medical school graduate, I often sat in awe listening to Dr H, my medicine attending physician, as he expounded on various topics. One day he might be teaching about the streptococcal M types associated with pharyngitis and their relationship to rheumatic heart disease. The next day, while I was still trying to digest the information from the prior day, he would be lecturing about the interpretation of hepatitis B serology. Dr H seemed to possess knowledge beyond the scope of mortal me. Indeed, I had just subscribed to my first medical periodicals, so that I too could become a walking textbook, or at least become familiar with some of the literature that he and others were citing. Back then, we did not talk too much about “nonmedical” things like getting interpreters for …
