Wednesday, September 15, 2010

More on an interesting teaching technique

Doc Rowe saw my post and wrote back with the below, which he gave permission to post.

Lee, saw your blog about Dr. Clatworthy and me. He actually pulled the same technique you do to me in push hands. As we progressed he led me on and I figured I finally got him. I said "newborn babies can't tolerate cold!" -got ya. He looked at me and said "why is that?" I looked at him and admitted I didn't have the foggiest idea, never actually thought about it, it just was. He said "bull sh..t you, damn well better find out."



Ten years later, after long days in the lab and extensive studying I presented a number of research studies at national meetings and published a series of articles on newborn thermoregulation in the medical literature and wrote the article in the standard textbook of Pediatric Surgery on temperature control of the newborn surgical patient.


What my boss didn't know was that after every dueling session I sat down and wrote down the troubling questions that we uncovered in my trusty notebook and they formed the basis for much of my research and the basis for my NIH grants on how the newborn responds to life threatening challenges. Much to my embarrassment I became internationally recognized as the pioneer in the field of newborn surgical physiology. You know I fell a little awkward about talking about this stuff but the above is a true story and illustrate the profound and life changing effect a true teacher can have on his student. Marc
 
Marc gave me one of those little notebooks, which he calls an auxilary brain, and I tote it with me from time to time when I sit with him. He's one of those guys that if he's talking you should be listening and taking notes.

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