jjablkowski's blog

Since the early 1990s we have shaped our medical practices in various ways, such as with evidence-based medicine, translational medicine, narrative medicine, evolutionary medicine, personalized medicine, and precision medicine. Now there is an emerging subset of the personalized and precision approaches on the horizon: chronomedicine. This medical practice recognizes that there are optimal times and less than optimal or even hazardous times for certain medical interventions. 

I always thought that the primum non nocere injunction to physicians came from the fertile minds of Galen or Hippocrates, but I discovered that the elegant English version, first, do no harm, is attributed to Dr Thomas Sydenham (1624–1689), author of Observationes Medicae, a textbook of bedside practice and observations. Published in 1676, this book was used for 200 years, reminding physicians that every medical decision carries the potential for harm. 

Happy 60th birthday to the writers, editors, designers, and all others who create the BC Medical Journal! This journal forms a common bond for the doctors of our province. In addition to presenting valued medical articles, the journal’s humanistic messages come through the often light-hearted editorials, and by way of submissions from my fellow physicians to the Letters, Premise, Good Doctor, and Special Feature sections. These sections offer readers medical history, biographies, comments about medical practice, and even humor.

My beloved wife is in the unreachable depths of her dementia. She often wakes up in the middle of the night with moans and groans of unexplained etiology. She is being looked after by our highly valued caregivers, but her cries do wake me, and my mind goes in all directions before I fall back to sleep. The other night I was tossing and turning and somehow (how?) Rubik’s cube came to my mind. That clever puzzle has always defeated me but its challenge keeps reminding me of the human condition: facing bewildering problems and triumphant intelligence to solve at least some of them.

Recently I have been reading about the not-too-distant future when our toilet tissue will give us a reading on the microbial chemicals in our intestines, with recommendations of foods that we should eat to correct for any imbalance.