Proust questionnaire: Erik T. Paterson, MD

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 52, No. 9, November 2010, Page 490 Proust for Physicians

Cartoon portrait of Erik T. Patterson

What profession might you have pursued, if not for medicine?
Aerospace engineering.

Which talent would you most like to have?
Playing bagpipes.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Initiating and bringing the public campaign against BC Hydro’s Kootenay Diversion Project to a successful conclusion.

Who are your heroes?
Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Steven Hawking, and Abram Hoffer.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Now that’s way too personal.

What is your greatest fear?
Human extinction.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
“Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?”

What characteristic do your favorite patients share?
They are open with their problems.

Which living physician do you most admire?
Dr John O’Brien-Bell.

On what occasion do you lie?
When truth would do more harm.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
“Tell me about it.”

What medical advance do you most anticipate?
Acceptance of the efficacy of nutrients.

What is your most marked characteristic?
Tenacity.

What do you most value in your colleagues?
Acceptance of my idiosyncrasies.

Who are your favorite writers?
John Buchan, Arthur Conan Doyle, Arthur C. Clarke, Ian Rankin.

What is your greatest regret?
Selling our first house when we did. If we had kept it, I could have retired upon its proceeds years later.

How would you like to die?
Like Alfred Nobel, laughing.

What is your motto?
Never give up.

Tell us a bit about yourself. Please complete and submit a Proust Questionnaire—your colleagues will appreciate it.

Online
Click here to complete our online survey.
Print
Print a .pdf copy, complete it, and either fax (604 638-2917) or mail it (BCMJ 115-1665 West Broadway, Vancouver BC V6J 5A4).
E-mail
journal@bcma.bc.ca. E-mail us and we’ll send you a blank MS Word document to complete and return. 
Mail
604 638-2858. Call us and we’ll mail you a copy to complete and return by mail
BCMJ 
115-1665 West Broad­way
Vancouver BC V6J 5A4

hidden


The Proust Questionnaire has its origins in a parlor game popularized by Marcel Proust, the French essayist and novelist, who believed that, in answering these questions, an indivi­dual reveals his or her true nature. To submit a Proust Questionnaire visit https://www.bcmj.org/content/contribute.

Erik T. Paterson, MD. Proust questionnaire: Erik T. Paterson, MD. BCMJ, Vol. 52, No. 9, November, 2010, Page(s) 490 - Proust for Physicians.



Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
  • There is no period after the journal name.
  • Page numbers are not abbreviated.


For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

BCMJ Guidelines for Authors

Leave a Reply