Dooley Noted: 1/12/2014 I remember watching my professors while obtaining my doctorate degree. I remember starting my anatomy master’s degree, thinking I still had so little figured out. I wanted to know it all – and I wanted to know it RIGHT NOW. As I taught an NKT seminar this weekend, I saw the overwhelmed face of each student. They said things to me like this: “I want to know what you know.” “I want … Read more
Dooley Noted: 1/11/2014 The pelvic floor (read: pelvic diaphragm) is a group of muscles that prevent your abdominal and pelvic organs from bottoming out. They also help you breathe, cough, copulate, urinate, defecate, and give birth. Common symptoms, when the pelvic floor is too tense: – painful sex – difficulty in starting urine stream – constipation – urinating like a jet stream Common symptoms, when the pelvic floor is too loose: – incontinence – impotence … Read more
Dooley Noted: 1/10/2014 Last night, I dissected a submandibular triangle. This is the space right below the chin and off to the side. A bevy of important structures exist in this space, which is half the size of the palm. As I inched my face closer and closer to the cadaver, I saw only a nerve strand I was aiming to find. As I pieced everything around it away, I realized I had been dissecting … Read more
Dooley Noted: 1/9/2014 One of my thesis advisors had the exact opposite personality as I. He was tough without tenderness, and he rarely smiled. Since I’m a bouncy, bubbly, energetic type in the lab, he pulled me to the side one day to offer his advice. Advisor: “Dooley, stop smiling so much.” Dooley: “Why, sir?” Advisor: “It shows weakness. You can’t show them weakness.” He was a phenomenal anatomist. So, I tried to teach his … Read more
Dooley Noted: 1/8/2014 I can run for days. Let me loose with a pair of sneakers, and I can, quite literally, run until I am told to stop. I have no pain upon running. I have the endurance to run. But ask me to do 20 solid hardstyle push-ups, each looking exactly the same as the previous one, and you’ll spot differences. They are hard for me. I don’t have pushing strength endurance. The right … Read more
Dooley Noted: 1/7/2013 Last May, I started working at a new practice location. In the restroom, a note sits on the toilet: “To flush, press knob for three full seconds.” The first week, I failed to hold the handle. As the flush failed, my brain learned to hold the handle down. In subsequent months, I started noticing how I held the handle down on every toilet I used – 6 or 7 times a day, … Read more
Dooley Noted: 1/6/2014 Never once in my entire 35 years have my parents told me I was special. They love me with all their hearts, don’t get me wrong. But they never insisted I was a stand-out human. They never told me how awesome I was. They never told me how I had unique talents or gifts. They never made me think the world owed me a single thing. And I’m thankful. Guess what? You’re … Read more
Dooley Noted: 1/4/2014 I used to loathe getting my hair washed at the salon when I was young. Extending my head back for prolonged periods would make me dizzy and very uncomfortable. Having the neck in prolonged hyperextension has potential danger. If you look at the anatomy in the picture, the vertebral artery passes right through the sides of cervical (neck) vertebrae. It then takes two 90 degree turns to ascend up the spinal cord … Read more
Dooley Noted: 1/3/2014 When I was a child in Indiana, snow days were the epic dream. No classes. No homework. Trekking out in snow. Game shows. Hot cocoa. It was like a bonus vacation. Now that I’m grown, I work several jobs that I adore. I was more than ready to get back to work after the holidays. Then, Mother Nature got in the way and dumped snow into my city. Einstein Med closed for … Read more
Dooley Noted: 1/2/2014 In the past few weeks, I’ve read copious opinion pieces about goal setting instead of making resolutions. I finally figured out the difference in 2011, when I made a resolution to write a daily post about health, life, and longevity. Over 1,000 posts later, that daily resolution (aka Dooley Noted) turned into a daily habit that is now entering its fourth year. The problem that arises with resolutions is the lack of … Read more