OPINION
DOCTORS Lounge
(continued from page 27) was real.
upgrades, and her mirrors (to reflect the
laser beam back and forth) were now the
most precise in the world. The LIGO team
was so anxious to avoid a potential error
that it held on to this news for two months,
for fear it was a test signal after all. Finally,
after toiling day and night to confirm the
settings, they were convinced, and told the
world. Last week, the trio of Weiss, Thorne
and Barish won the Nobel Prize for Physics. I write this because all my life I have been
awed and humbled by the scientific bril-
liance of the star-mappers and star-travelers
– the women of “Hidden Figures,” for ex-
ample; the nameless engineers who built the
rockets to the moon and the Shuttle, who
designed the heat shield, the controls, the
millions of other pieces; the astronauts in
rotation on the International Space Station,
who fly over us all the time as a bright ball
in the sky. They know things we will never
know, and deal with dangers we will never
face. In that way we are akin to our patients,
who cannot fathom what we know: what
lightning calculations we might be making,
what risks and benefits we are computing,
what worries we are sussing, to address their
problems best.
The mass curving space part – that I can
imagine. The billion years of travel and the
“curve” of time, that is an idea that’s tough
to fit in a finite head. Nonetheless I believe
it to be true, because Einstein’s math was
confirmed during the 1919 total eclipse of
the sun, by British astronomer Sir Arthur
Eddington. The sun passed between Earth
and the Hyades Star Cluster. In the darkness
of the eclipse, from his base in Brazil, Sir
Eddington recorded that as the starlight
passed through the sun’s gravitational field,
its position in the sky changed – the “curve”
When we explain to patients what we
think is happening – we who are not in
Room 9, and talk first then act – we must
always remember that the divine is in the
details. The way we speak, the words we
choose, the odds we give, the warmth of
our presence: there are a thousand ways to
screw that up, and a million possible mis-
calculations over a lifetime of practice. I
cannot visualize the warp of time, and they
cannot visualize the acid-base balance. If
we explain badly, they face the fear of the
unknown more than is ever necessary. We
can’t prevent pain, but we can offer comfort,
and that begins with understanding what is
happening to us.
It may not be so small as a vibration of less
than a trillionth of an inch, but our margin
of error cuts very fine. Look up at the ISS
when you can, and the galaxies beyond.
What we do is very small, but we can botch
it just the same. Beware, and watch out for
asteroids.
Dr. Barry practices Internal Medicine with
Norton Community Medical Associates-Bar-
ret. She is a clinical associate professor at the
University of Louisville School of Medicine,
Department of Medicine.
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