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Ten years ago, my wife went into labor, while due on Nov 1. Through the wonder of science, she spent three weeks in suspended labor, and through the wonder of science, the human being she birthed, unable to breathe on his own, was breathed for by an apparatus. Today ... 1/n
... that human being, shot into this world unbreathing, literally fitting in my hand, now hits his head on doorways (Fig. 1). We all giggle at it, and you don't want to sit next to him on an aeroplane, but please, allow me a moment to speak on our relationship with science 2/n
I committed a sin against authenticity in my original post, referreing to "the wonder of science." I apologize. But it is not science's wonder that has afforded us almost 18 years of relative joy versus the loss and despair we'd have felt without it. It's something else ... 3/n
Our faith in science and our investment in science, and our nation's century of return on that investment, gave us an outcome that was not before possible. Science didn't save that kid from fate. We did. We invested in science as a pathway to truth and understanding, and .... 4/n
The "cutting edge of science" made medications to suspend that labor, treatments to prepare his lungs for a ventilator, an understanding of how to nourish him through his veins and - God bless the day - through his nose. How to bring him out of arrest. And yet ... 5/n
... the "cutting edge of science" isn't a wave of knowledge. It's the cumulative reach of a society that invested in the methods to bring us there. Every decision that favored reason over superstition, evidence over impulse, analysis over panic. 6/n
The cutting edge of science was driven by a much larger force than the formidable brains that we trained and attracted to our shores over time: it was driven by a shared commitment to find truth, and MORE IMPORTANTLY, to use truth, in our progress. 7/n
Today's sea of bullshit doesn't undermine what happens tomorrow or next month or some political fortunes. It undermines generations of investment and generations of return. I've seen it; I've held it; I've cried in the face of it. We were given a gift by people long dead ... 8/n
... most of them weren't scientists but folks who put something - let's call it faith, shall we - into a system of instruments to find truth and to regulate and hold accountable the truth-seekers - let's call that science, shall we - and that these truths would ... 9/n
... empower practitioners to perform rational, informed, empowered acts that I, to this day, refer to as "miracles," that brought wonder and salvation and reward and comfort. 10/11
I wish I could thank science for 18 years we thought we'd never get to enjoy like this. But to be honest we owe our deepest gratitude to those who didn't do science, but instead believed in it. /fin
Addendum: PICU/NICU nurses are absolutely the best expression of humanity we can muster.
