成蹊

My congratulations to JW, who won the VC Exemplary Teaching Award 2007.

And I am amazed to find that he named me as one of the mentors from whom he shaped his teaching method. It sounds like Warren Buffet thanks Benjamin Graham for the teaching on how to make money in stock market.

The good news is our Buffet of medicine is still active in clinical practice and teaching. Every morning when I observe him being surrounded by a crowd of medical students, I could believe our graduates would not be all that bad.

PS. Yes, as you recognize, that's not only teaching - but mentorship. But it is for this very reason, I have much reservation on the faculty mentorship program, which assigns each group of students to an elderly with nondescript facial appearance and obscure personality. We need role models - and a few high flying ones would do.

TW

Had a chat with TW over the phone in the Saturday afternoon.

It is always warm to talk to your friend - especially if you have not seen each other for some time, and more so if your friend is a cut higher in the brain and often gives you illumination.

And TW is no doubt the most intelligent person whom I ever make acquaintance with.

There was a time when TW and I made our private study on the stock market. While I was working with Benjamin Graham's Security Analysis and Philip Fisher's Common Stock and Uncommon Profit, TW simply made her own pick by what she called "intuition" - and she was often right.

As Hercule Poirot said: Les femmes ... observe subconsciously a thousand little details, without knowing that they are doing so. Their subconscious mind adds these little things together - and they call the result intuition.

PS. Don't be mistaken. In addition to being a shrewd investigator, TW is also a double-gold-medalist of my medical school, an eminent physician, and a critical practitioner of top fashion !

Tobacco

Appreciating the press conference of the World No-Tobacco Day. I can hardly believe the function roots from the WHO.

"Over 50% of the smokers fail to quit - says a large survey."

But if the survey asks only active smokers, they should have either never tried to quit or failed to do so - otherwise they would not be active smokers.

And there comes a (private) specialist in respiratory medicine who, in front of huge commercial logos, gives us a lecture on the need of drug treatment to help quitting the tobacco. Oh, I've almost mistaken the scene as an advertisement for the election of American president.

How could the world's leading establishment of medicine allow all these to happen ? Did the organization make such a dramatic involution in the recent years ? Is it because of that remarkable secretary ? (I must admit I am thoroughly biased after the horrifying mess she made in the SARS epidemic.)

PS. KL, my previous office room-mate, always says: Give me a hypothesis, and I can show you are right (or wrong, if you prefer).

Reply

(Reprint from my facebook communication with an elective student.)

Dear James,

I am not sure what you guys could learn from here. It may feel good to sail with someone in a charted sea, but the journey would not be fruitful if you do not have a map yourself.

Take care,

Szeto

**********************

On a second thought, James - and many students - do have a map at hand all through the trip. The dilemma is, during the voyage, whether they should look out the window and enjoy the scene, or hide their heads under the map when the sailor is trying to control the rocking boat !

Sugar

The cake tastes sweet without much glucose and sucrose because it has lots of HFCS.

Oh, HFCS stands for high fructose corn syrup - a common sweetener we use in bakery and soft drinks, and a classical story of how (pseudo)science could pull our own legs ...

Many decades ago, people began to realize ordinary sugar - glucose and sucrose -could increase blood glucose level, and is probably no good for large scale public use. (Diabetes was a big name !) The search for a natural sweetener that would not rise blood glucose level (that much) eventually gives the answer fructose - which comes from fruits and vegetables, is equally sweet as glucose, and the final product has a long shelf life. That's how HFCS came along.

Yes, it remains controversial how much does HFCS contribute to the epidemics of obesity and insulin resistance. Nonetheless, everything sweet has a cost (alas, contains calorie if not carcinogen), and the fat you get remain the same no matter what's written on the label.

Sweet

And, how many of those who voted for this ordinance in the Legislative Council could understand those labels ?

That's the eternal problem of democracy: A policy with trivial benefit to many but tremendous cost to a few would get through - even though the overall effect is negative. We see an exaggerating case here, because the so-called benefit is quite imaginary.

Well, even if you (think you) could read all those chemistry terms, let me give you a simple blind: This piece of cake contains 100-gram carbohydrate, it has minimal glucose and sucrose, absolutely free of saccharine or aspartame. Sounds good (and tastes sweet), eh ?

I shall show you where the catch is tomorrow.

Label

From now we have to put bilingual label about the ingredient of all packed food.

You may say: Why, we ought to know what we eat; it is of course a good move to promote public health.

In that case, why do we only ask for labels on, say, packed sandwiches but accept chain-stores selling hamburgers or fried chickens without regulation ? Many of us should remember the famous story a few years ago: Many local nuns discovered to their horror that the french fries from a famous Hamburger maker are not suitable for Buddhist because the potatoes are actually fried in animal oil - and there was never a label what so ever.

No, don't get me wrong. I'm not asking for more laws here - it ruins the free market. After all, as Marcus Cicero said: the more law, the less justice.

PS. A more cost effective way to promote public health, I believe, is to ensure the expire date on all packed food to be placed on an eye-catching place - and in, say, Arial 40 font. At least it could prevent some immediate deaths from food poisoning - a not-too-rare happening after consuming bargain purchase from some supermarkets !