Coffee Conversations...

Coffee is a great bonding agent. Discoveries, friendships, opinions and hell has been made across that cup of caffeine. I am proud to admit I am a big fan of coffee, a tad overindulgent infact, and millions will raise their mugs in admitting the same.

AL and I caught up last evening after a long time. He's an MD, a plastic surgeon passed out of JHU and UCSF respectively. We work together occasionally. Random conversations about the weather channeled towards scientific research and his work ( Disclaimer: Some of the facts stated are directly from conversational ditties, the authenticity of them will soon be verified. They were taken for granted because they were from a highly qualified individual). AL is here on a 2 year resident fellowship to study the effect of specific genes in the cause and effect of atherosclerosis (clogging of the blood vessels due to fat accumulation). He then gets back to UCSF as a resident fellow. He was telling me about his addiction towards research-which according to him is like gambling. When you win some, You play more..when you lose some, ou play more to make up for the loss and win some. His only regret after getting back to the emergency, is that he would be putting in 84 hrs of work every week as opposed to the 60 he does now. Why? a simple example- Sewing back a cut hand will take 14 hours to rejoin 3 blood vessels, 5 nerves, tendons, ligaments and muscles. Then, theres the risk of internal clotting, which would involve repeating the entire procedure. As part of his future plans, he wanted to do a sub speciality in pediatric craniofacial surgery. In infants born with deformed head shapes, it is actually possible to split the skill which spreads out, and parts can be cut and rearranged. wow!!Conversations drifted to alcohol and drug rehabilitation- something I am really passionate about. AL opines rehabilitation is of two types-One following any addiction, another before it. I concur with him.

Needless to say, I savored those 20 minutes after 5 and my coffee ofcourse!!