Marcus Wells | Body Thermodynamics
August 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Dr. Marcus Wells’ book revolutionizes ways on how to energize the body without radically changing your lifestyle. Thermogenix reveals “hidden” cellular potentials that restore, rejuvenate and rebalance your life. In a growing aging society, how we’re to maintain a balanced metabolism will be more important, but also will become more problematic. Dr. Wells’ incredible idea blends both a strong scientific basis towards understanding energy with a natural pursuit of it. This demonstrates so many ways that have been overlooked or misunderstood that we can now achieve what is often call the “super burn” effect of metabolism. This method helps you recapture “latent potentions of energy” necessary to live a more productive happier and healthier life. Dr. Wells was educated and trained in western medicine in the U.S.A. Upon receving his Doctorate of Medicine (MD), he continued his medical education at the world’s premiere bio-medical researchcenter, the National Institute of Health (NIH) where he trained with the nation’s most notable scientist in the areas of heart, lung, blood, and metabolic diseases.
Georgia Weithe | Facing Death
August 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Georgia Weithe has found her muse in the word reflection and it has informed all of her professional and personal choices. Reflection, with its dual distinct meanings: meditative—the inner and spiritual journey she takes with her clients. And as in the world of physics: light striking back against a surface—her personal quest for the source of the light that illuminates her path through this life.Georgia’s work shows her commitment to healing, both in the field of education and in her private practice. She is a certified teacher, and since founding the Reflections Educational Consulting Firm in 1988, she has appeared as a guest speaker presenting workshops on a variety of topics to professionals in the fields of education and health care. Most recently she has enjoyed a ten-year affiliation with the Center for Courage and Renewal’s Courage to Teach Program, created by the Fetzer Institute.Georgia is a certified Well-Springs Facilitator, and has a private practice in which she incorporates the Well-Springs massage, Reiki and Healing Touch.She could not have foreseen that all of her professional experiences would have a common theme: guiding people back to themselves. Her courage in exploring her own inner landscape has made her, for others in her life, a pilgrim spirit—a colleague and friend who journeys into the unknown and beckons others to travel with her. It is this quality of spirit that led her to write her book, Shining Moments—Finding Hope in Facing Death.In all of her life’s work, Georgia offers up a remarkable degree of reflection about things that matter. Not surprisingly, having accompanied her father on his final journey to his death, she uncovered some rare observations about the art of living.When not otherwise engaged, Georgia creates her own line of Reflections Jewelry. She has been married for more than 30 years and has two grown children.
Gayle Greene | Sleep Starved
June 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Gayle Greene has published dozens of articles in scholarly journals such as Signs, Contemporary Literature, and Renaissance Drama, many of which have been reprinted in anthologies (e.g., Blackwell¹s Shakespeare: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory, 1945-2000,2004)
Dr. Julia Hallisy | Empowered Patient
June 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment
The Empowered Patient, has produced a readable, comprehensive, and above all, a usable guide to the modern healthcare maze. It is crucial to know what to do when seeking healthcare in our complicated and multi-faceted system, and this valuable resource will draw a clear path for the reader. www.TheEmpowere
James Carlson | Diet & Doctors
May 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Dr. James E. Carlson holds a B.S. in biochemistry and cellular physiology from Cornell University, a medical degree from the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine, an M.B.A. from Regis University with an emphasis on healthcare economics/physi
Ashley Marriott & Dr. Marc Paulsen Transcript
March 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Kent Gustavson: Welcome back to Sound Authors. My third guest on the show is Marc Paulsen with his co-author Ashley Marriott. Their book is called “Dump Your Trainer”. Welcome to the show.
Ashley Marriott: Hi, thanks for having us.
Kent: I happen to have a personal trainer myself. Why should I dump him?
Ashley: Are you getting great results? Are you seeing what you want to see in the mirror?
Kent: Sometimes.
Ashley: Yeah, I think that’s the big question to ask. You are accountable to yourself first, and a personal trainer should be able to set up a program for you. If you’re not getting the results that you absolutely want to see, then you need to question whether it’s time to dump that trainer, or dump the whole concept of personal training.
Kent: So tell me a little bit about your backgrounds. Are one or both of you trainers yourselves?
Ashley: I am. This is Ashley Marriott, I am a personal trainer.
Kent: And Marc Paulsen, you are a doctor, correct?
Marc Paulsen: Yeah, I’m a doctor.
Kent: And you’ve teamed up to create this book “Dump Your Trainer”. Have you seen some results in your clientele and your readers?
Marc: Well Ashley, I can make a comment first and Ashley can obviously add to that. Ashley’s seen hundreds, if not thousands, of successful stories but my personal example is that I saw some incredible results.
Kent: And your personal story of weight loss started when?
Marc: It started in ‘99, late ‘99. I achieved my results, probably by around March 2000.
Kent: I know that there’s a lot surrounding weight loss. There’s the addiction properties. It’s really hot in the media, whether it’s the fast food companies. Everyone’s trying some diet, whether it’s the Krispy Kreme diet or the Not Krispy Kreme diet. Tell me a little bit about all of these fads and about the personal trainer fad and all of that.
Ashley: I think what you just brought up is the real core issue. These ideas of a “one fix”, hiring a personal trainer or this new fad diet. The big flaw is that you’re not getting to the route problem of what in your lifestyle you need to address and change to really make a lasting, life-long, sustainable, healthy lifestyle.So if you’re looking at something like hiring a personal trainer, and you don’t change any of your eating habits; you don’t modify your behavior or your emotional crutches, then you’re not going to have results, you’re going to have paid for sessions. At best you won’t get injured or hurt, but at worst you’re losing money.
Kent: Is it that easy? Your book costs $20.99, if people spring for that book is that all they need?
Marc: Well, that’s obviously a simplified form of what you really have to do. Buying the book only gives you the program that you should probably implement. In terms of seeing results, that really comes from within. That comes with consistency and staying with the program, staying with the diet and doing things that are right.
Kent: Tell me about your personal story. You helped Ashley to write this book. Tell me, what is it like, the battle of weight loss?
Marc: Well it’s tough, but it’s not as tough as you might think. OK, I was up about 60 pounds. I was up to 220, just getting to a divorce. I took a look in the mirror and I said “Oh my God. What have I got here?” So basically I said “All right. Well, you’ve got a tough schedule you have to deal with. Everybody does. OK, what are you going to do about it?”So I outlined, basically, a program, realized what my constraints were and my time limitations and all those things. Working long hours. And I said “OK, well this is what you have to work with. Do something.” That’s what it came down to. Then it came down to implementing that program and being consistent. Being consistent, staying with it.
Kent: And staying with it, is it difficult to implement?
Marc: You know it’s really not, people make it difficult. You see people go to the gym or whatever and they come in and they’re going to get it all done in a day. They’re going to lose forty pounds in a night or something like that. What they end up doing is hurting themselves or becoming discouraged.The reason is they just simply try and do too much too soon. Ashley can give you her experience, she’s seen hundreds and hundreds of people like this.
Kent: So as a personal trainer Ashley, I know from my trainer it’s a big process of working on muscle groups and doing this and that but there’s only a certain amount that you can do with someone if they don’t go home and work on the concepts themselves.
Ashley: Absolutely. And as a trainer I think there are a lot of really excellent trainers who want the best for the people they are working for, their clients. But you have to realize there is accountability on the person themselves. You have to empower, as a trainer, you have to empower that person that they only need you for a short time to give them the template and the road map.And they have to take it on themselves. And what is discouraging in the industry, that I am in, is I see that a lot of personal trainers want to keep this allure of “I am the only way, I am the only way you will achieve the results” and hold it over someone. Where really we all have to be our own lifestyle coach for the long haul. And exactly, like go home, you have to maintain your healthy lifestyle, it can’t be an hour at the gym and that’s it.
Kent: Let’s say I go into the store or I go to your website dumptyourtrainer.com, I buy your book. What happens?
Ashley: Well everything in the book it is basically a template of how to make the changes you need to make. To create a lifestyle that is healthy and really moderately. It’s not for an extreme athlete. It’s not for someone who is wanting to be the next bodybuilder.But it’s a healthy lifestyle to follow. You have to do the work. You have to count calories. You have to exercise. You have to move. And those are things that always take time and energy. But if you get the leverage from reading the book and you get the feeling that it is time for me to make this change. It gives you the template to do it.And there is a lot of tools in the book that help give that extra push. Motivational tools and also self-fitness tracking which is so important. I’m sure your trainer when you started with them, they did a fitness assessment. It gives you good motivation to go “OK day one, I’m here. Where do I want to be day thirty, day sixty, day ninety.”
Kent: Here’s a question for you, I have a great trainer, but the thing about it is that when I started training he built me up so much that I felt I was on the path to becoming a body builder. As opposed to what I wanted to be, which was a healthy human being.
Marc: Absolutely.
Kent: What extent do you look at that as a trainer or as a trainee?Marc. : This is really important. Because you need to prepare yourself for the lifestyle you are going to lead. If you are going to be a furniture mover. Or you are going to do something like that, then sure you need to bulk up and get all those muscles on there.But if you are not going to maintain that throughout life then that is only going to come back on you. You need to say to yourself, “What is it that I really want to be?” And not, “What is it that they want me to be?” Once you’ve decided that then you can set your own course. You can set your own pace and you can set your own goal.
Kent: Has it worked for you, how long have you kept this weight off?
Marc: Nine years now. I went from 220 down to 160 and I’m that today. In fact people can verify that we were on ABC TV on the 18th of February. We’ll be on CBS and NBC coming up on the 24th and the 26th and I’ll be there in plain sight.[laughter]
Marc: In addition, I have some before and after photos on the website as well.
Kent: Exactly, if we’re listening to the radio, we can check you out at dumpyourtrainer.com. Well this has been a real pleasure, I definitely need to read this book. I haven’t had the benefit of doing that yet. You should send me a copy. But it sounds like a wonderful concept, I hope that “Dump Your Trainer” does really well in the future. Thank you so much for being on the show.
Ashley: It’s a pleasure, thank you so much.
Marc: Thank you.
Kent: And we’ll go to dumpyourtrainer.com to find out much more. Come on back in one second we’re going to be chatting with Mike Marshall. A guru of the mandolin, guitar, anything with strings. We’ll chat with him about his newest album which has some roots in Sweden.
Michael Palmer Transcript
February 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Announcer: You’ve been listening to Sound Authors, where authors sound off. If you’d like more information about Sound Authors and Dr. Kent’s guests, visit soundauthors.com. Now back to Dr. Kent and friends.
Dr. Kent Gustavson: Welcome back to Sound Authors. It’s February 8th, and this time of winter, we tend to really enjoy those afternoon or evening or weekend times when we can curl up with a book. The next book is called The First Patient. It’s written by Michael Palmer, an award-winning author and New York Times bestseller, and it’s a fantastic, gripping novel. Welcome to the show.
Michael Palmer: Hey, it’s nice to be here, Dr. Kent.
Kent: Tell me a little bit about… you’ve written a whole bunch of books. Give me a little history.
Michael: Well, this is my 13th or 14th book, depending on what you count. They’ve all been on the New York Times list, which is wonderful. I am a physician. I have boards in internal medicine and ER, and I’ve practiced both of them for a long time. Now I work taking care of sick doctors for a program in Massachusetts, but most of my time is spent writing, and all of my books are medical suspense dealing with some kind of current issue, ethically, in medicine.
Kent: Those are my favorite kind. My father is a physician as well. I grew up in medicine and I love the medical thrillers.
“Bill Clinton says, ‘This is an exciting thriller full of surprises. Captures the intense atmosphere of the White House.’” How did you get that quote, and have you been to the White House?
Michael: [laughing] Everyone wants to know, “How did you do that?” The truth is, I did it through a lot of hard work. When I decided that I wanted to write a book about the President’s physician, a thriller, I began doing research - an incredible amount - because I really hadn’t been to the White House at that point since I was a child, and didn’t know very much about presidential politics. I started reading books about presidential morbidity and mortality, and learned a tremendous amount about the number of presidents we’ve had who have been quite ill while they were in office.
Then I began to just look on the Internet for any other information that would help me to write, and that was when I discovered a physician by the name of Connie Mariano, who nobody had heard of, but for 10 years, she was the most powerful physician in the world. She was the doctor in the White House for George H.W. Bush for a little while, and then for the Clintons for eight years, and then for George W. for part of a year before she retired as an admiral in the Navy.
So I emailed her and asked her to check out my website, and would she act as a consultant for me for this book? And next thing I knew, I was getting a phone call from Arizona, and we became quite good friends, and we still are.
So that was my connection to the Clintons, and also to the information that I was able to include in The First Patient, which will be in stores February 19th.
Kent: Well, that sounds really fun for you, as well as fascinating for all of the listeners. I can’t imagine how excited you were to make that connection.
How about your other books? Do you hear certain things and then the spark lights a fire… how does it start?
Michael: I think that’s a very good way to put it. I’m not one of those authors that have a hundred different book ideas swirling about in his head. I feel lucky when I latch onto one that I actually think is going to become a book, and I’m looking all the time in the newspapers and in my own clinical experience for issues that would be of interest to readers. I don’t just want to write a thriller, I want to write a thriller that’s kind of informative and fun to read.
For instance, my last book, which was called The Fifth Vial, I got the idea for the book from an article I read in the New York Times about international organ theft. I decided to invent a story around that, including the possibility that when you go in to have your blood drawn at a lab, that they draw an extra tube on you without telling you. The technicians think it’s for quality control, but in truth, that tube of blood is sent off and you are tissue-typed and put in a massive database against the time when someone who is maybe more important than you are needs an organ, and you’re the perfect match.
Kent: Wow.
Michael: That’s how my ideas generate.
Kent: That’s fascinating. Let’s talk a little bit about White House doctors. I’m very curious - for everything from Presidents that conceal their illness from the public, to, you know, we’ve all heard of the bloodletting of George Washington way back then… what did you find out digging through all of this history?
Michael: Well, the interesting thing is that the White House medical office, which is located in the White House itself, right across from the elevator that goes up to the First Family’s residence, is manned by the White House military office, and generally speaking, all of the doctors involved in taking care of the President and Vice President and their families are military doctors. They’re very highly qualified; they’re excellent doctors.
However, the president is allowed to bring his or her own physicians into the White House and essentially it’s a little bit like the doctor on a ship. That particular person has a tremendous amount of power and can decide, for instance, whether the president can travel or not travel.
There’s virtually nobody that has power over the physician, when the physician is working on behalf of the president. And of course there is room for conflict, because if it is a civilian doctor under the supposed control of the White House military office, there can be room for a lot of conflict in that area.
Kent: I’m certainly on the edge of my seat here with “The First Patient” comes out in about in about, what two weeks?
Michael: Yes.
Kent: What’s your schedule going to look like? Are you going to be going around the country or what…
Michael: I don’t tour very much. I’m going to go out for about ten days. Mostly I don’t tour because I’m already hard at work on my next book. It’s important for me to sell “The First Patient” for sure, but it’s even more important for me to get a book written and unfortunately it’s not easy. I have a little sign over my desk that reminds me. It says, “This is hard.”
Kent: Have you had any books that weren’t successful? What is this 13, 14 books now? Have you had any that were flops?
Michael: No, I’ve been pretty lucky, I mean, some of them obviously have sold more than others. What I did discover was that the whole book business has changed to the point where it’s expected that a best selling author will write at least a book a year.
Kent: My goodness.
Michael: And the publishers won’t put up with anything less than that. Some authors like James Patterson and Nora Roberts, for instance, seem like they are writing a book every three of four months. I don’t know how they do it. Obviously, Patterson has co-writers, because he puts their name on the cover of the book.
But Nora Roberts is writing under a couple of different names and there is always a book out on the New York Times list with her name on it, it seems, in one form or another. I haven’t really had a huge flop. I’ve had books that were only on the Times list for say one week, in hard cover, and I would like to do better than that.
Kent: Well, I think this one will stick up there for a while. It’s very timely right now. I notice you said that his or her, when you talked about the president. What do you think about this primary season?
Michael: Well, it’s pretty exciting. Obviously, I have reason to be a little biased towards the Clintons, because her husband has read my book and very kindly given me an endorsement for it. Politically, you know, I am kind of a liberal, but I can’t find a lot to choose between the two democratic candidates.
Kent: It’s a fascinating time, there’s no question.
Michael: It’s very exciting. I’m thrilled to be part of it and I don’t even know if I thought about the timing of the book when I decided to write it. Because I started writing it well over a year ago.
Kent: Who would have thought that it would have been this exciting, this whole race? It’s extraordinary. So, speaking of writing itself, you’re a physician. Why writing? How did you get into this?
Michael: Well, I just, believe it or not, I went to college with Robin Cook who wrote “Coma.” And decided to try writing just because he did it. We trained in the same hospital in Massachusetts. I wrote a book called “The Sisterhood” about nurses and mercy killing, a secret society of nurses and the book make the New York Times list for eight weeks.
I was off to a running start essentially and I discovered that I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the power over my world when I started writing and was able to just do it.
There are a lot of kind of famous authors who were doctors that people may not even know about like, Author Conan Doyle, who wrote Sherlock Holmes. And Summerset Mougham and the Russian playwright, Anton Chekov, they were all physicians. There’s a good reason. Physicians care about people and that’s what writing is about and physicians have discipline. Anyone who has every tried to make it through organic chemistry knows that.
Kent: It’s true. Yes. And they also have to go through that brutality of the cadaver and all of that.
Michael: Oh, yea, the amount of material that we have to learn to make it through med school is quite enormous. So those are two reasons: we care about people and we have a lot of discipline and if we have a love of words, which a number of doctors do, then that’s a set up for becoming an author. And there’s the American Medical Literary Association, there’s a lot of…
I give a course every year with another physician named Tess Garretson [sp] for doctors who want to be writers. Several hundred doctors attend our course every year. There’s a great interest in writing.
Kent: And there’s always it’s the grass is greener on the other side, too. There’s a little bit of that.
Michael: Well, there’s a lot of pressure from managed care right now, in terms of the amount of work that physicians are being forced to do, to just keep up. So there definitely is they look at a successful writer like Tess or like myself and they think, God I’d like to do that.
Kent: Exactly. Well, this has been a real pleasure. I’ve been speaking with Michael Palmer. His new book is coming out on Feb. 19. We can pre-order “The First Patient” at Barnes and Noble online, Amazon, Borders, anywhere you can find it. And this has been a great pleasure and I can’t wait to read the book.
Michael: Terrific, thanks so much for having me.
Kent: My next guest is going to be Phillip Gardner. We’re going to talk about a whole bunch of things. Come on back.
Michael Palmer | Medical Thriller
February 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment
We had the great honor of speaking with New York Times bestselling author Michael Palmer M.D. His upcoming book will be released in about a week, and it should be a thrilling read! More information about Michael Palmer from his website: www.michaelpalmerbooks.com
BRIEF BIO: Michael Palmer, M.D., is the author of the forthcomingThe First Patient (2008), The Fifth Vial, The Society, Fatal, The Patient, Miracle Cure, Critical Judgment, Silent Treatment, Natural Causes, Extreme Measures, Flashback, Side Effects, and The Sisterhood. His books have been translated into thirty-five languages. He trained in internal medicine at Boston City and Massachusetts General Hospitals, spent twenty years as a full-time practitioner of internal and emergency medicine, and is now an associate director of the Massachusetts Medical Society’s physician health program.
Daniel Stih | Allergies and Aerospace
February 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment
It was a pleasure speaking with Daniel Stih, author of Healthy Living Spaces, and expert on everyday toxins in the home. After getting a new puppy this week, it was especially interesting to chat about dander, mold, and all the rest. From Daniel Stih’s website, www.healthylivingspaces.com:
Healthy Living Spaces LLC, is a member of the American Indoor Air Quality Council and the International Institute for Bau-Biologie (German Building Science) and Ecology.
Healthy Living Spaces was founded by Daniel Stih, B.S.E.Aerospace Engineering and indoor air quality consultant. As a Certified Environmental Consultant and Board Certified Microbial Consultant, he is one of a select number of experts specifically trained to identify how indoor building environments may make you sick and to determine practical and cost effective methods for making them healthier places to be. Stih conducts public speaking engagements regarding indoor environmental hazards and solutions. He has been seen on TV, guest speaking at colleges and town halls, and is interviewed by newspapers when expertise is required on related issues. Dan started Healthy Living Spaces out of concern for other people’s health. He has personally experienced how pollution can effect health. After retiring from Motorola as an engineer, he took up work as a handyman. As a handyman, he was exposed to a host of toxic chemicals (paint, strippers, roof tar, PVC glue, etc.), dust (asbestos, lead, fiberglass insulation) and gases (combustion gases from gas powered tools including chain saws and burning creosote in rail road ties). One day, he suddenly became sick and fatigued. The ‘normal’ medical doctors ran tests but could not find the cause of his illness. Eventually, the diagnosis was that his immune system had been weakened by over exposure to environmental pollution. Thus began Dan’s search for alternatives, i.e. non-toxic building materials, paint, etc. During his research he found the International Institute for Bau-Biologie in Clearwater, Florida. The institute seemed to have answers for lots of his questions, so he decided to study there and became a Bau-Biologist (healthy building specialist). He continued his training and became a Certified Environmental Inspector. Many of his instructors are world-class environmental scientist and investigators. They teach classes at various institutions, travel the world testing and consulting, and are credited with contributing to industry standards such as the IICRC Reference Guide for Professional Water Damage Restoration, Mold Testing and Mold Remediation.
Lorie Conway | Forgotten Ellis Island
December 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment
This week we spoke with LORI CONWAY, the author of a new hardcover book and an upcoming documentary on public television or cable. She spoke to us about our ancestors, and about Ellis Island, the first stop of so many immigrants to the United States. Her book and documentary are about the hospital on Ellis Island.
The following about “Forgotten Ellis Island” (the book) is taken from amazon.com:
Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Team of Rivals
How rare it is to find an absolutely fascinating story that has never been told.Ruth J. Abram, president, Lower East Side Tenement Museum
Beautifully illustrated, this book offers an important history lesson and illuminates current debates surrounding public health.Joy Hakim, author of A History of US
Lorie Conway’s wonderful book takes a little-known story from medical history and makes it a metaphor for much that epitomizes American history . . . This narrative, with its haunting illustrations, belongs to all of us. I was fascinated.Peg Breen, president, New York Landmarks Conservancy
Lorie Conway has given us the moving human stories which bring these remarkable buildings back to life.Book Description
A century ago, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, one of the world’s greatest public hospitals was built. Massive and modern, the hospital’s twenty-two state-of-the-art buildings were crammed onto two small islands, man-made from the rock and dirt excavated during the building of the New York subway. As America’s first line of defense against immigrant-borne disease, the hospital was where the germs of the world converged.The Ellis Island hospital was at once welcoming and foreboding—a fateful crossroad for hundreds of thousands of hopeful immigrants. Those nursed to health were allowed entry to America. Those deemed feeble of body or mind were deported.
Three short decades after it opened, the Ellis Island hospital was all but abandoned. As America after World War I began shutting its border to all but a favored few, the hospital fell into disuse and decay, its medical wards left open only to the salt air of the New York Harbor.
With many never-before-published photographs and compelling, sometimes heartbreaking stories of patients (a few of whom are still alive today) and medical staff, Forgotten Ellis Island is the first book about this extraordinary institution. It is a powerful tribute to the best and worst of America’s dealings with its new citizens-to-be.
About the Author
Lorie Conway is an independent producer and filmmaker. Her work has been recognized with the Peabody, DuPont, and Cable Ace awards. In 1993–94, she was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University; she now serves as Vice President of the Nieman Foundation Advisory Board and as an Associate of the Boston Public Library. Her work on Forgotten Ellis Island was supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities. She lives with her family in Boston, Massachusetts.
Dave Praeger | Poop Report
December 14, 2007 | Leave a Comment
The second guest is DAVE PRAEGER, the editor of PoopReport.com, a site dedicated to “the intellectual appreciation of poop humor.” He’s been seen on National Geographic TV and the BBC, interviewed by Esquire and the New York Press, and heard on everything from Sirius Satellite Radio to NPR. Find out more at www.poopreport.comThe latest news from Dave Praeger and his book “Poop Culture” is below (from www.poopthebook.com)
11/13/2007 (What is the World Toilet Summit? Find out here.) Today I’m going to talk about how the flush toilet negatively shapes attitudes towards sanitation. And I’m going to tell you what you need to know in order to counteract the ideological influence of the flush toilet. But first, a… 11/1/2007 As at any other conference, delegates arriving at the 2007 World Toilet Summit in New Delhi are handed a tote bag full of schwag. Unlike any other conference, however, our bags contained two small plastic containers of human waste. Composted human waste, of course. In one, a few powdery…
Dr. Hassan | Vietnam & Iraq
November 10, 2007 | 1 Comment
We had the honor of speaking with Dr. Allen Hassan this week, physician, surgeon, attorney, veterinarian, and educator. His book “Failure to Atone” is riveting, honest, and very powerful in this time of elections, wars, and political obsession. He spoke to us of his patriotism, and of his disappointment with decisions that sometimes take far too much human life.
In a particularly poignant moment, Dr. Hassan told us about his recent visit to Vietnam, so many years later, to see what the reactions of citizens there would be now.
Dr. Hassan’s new book, Failure to Atone, is available from his website here, and wherever books are sold.
“A haunting read, every page poignantly real, and a cautionary tale against the worst that nations at war are capable of.”
— The Midwest Book Review
“A beautiful, extraordinary, and important book! Every American should read Dr. Allen Hassan’s Failure to Atone.”
— Ron Kovic, author, Born on the Fourth of July
The following biography is excerpted from Dr. Hassan’s website www.allenhassan.com:
As a physician and surgeon, the author of Failure to Atone: The True Story of a Jungle Surgeon in Vietnam served two tours of duty in Vietnam — the first as a representative of the American Medical Association’s Volunteer Physicians for Vietnam program, and the second as a representative of the Committee of Responsibility. After two tours in Vietnam witnessing civilians wounded and traumatized by war, Dr. Hassan has devoted much of his life to humanitarian service.
Dr. Hassan is an active member of the Flying Samaritans, doctors who volunteer their services to provide free medical help to the people in Baja, Mexico. A diplomate with American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, Dr. Hassan is also an expert evaluator of traumatic stress disorder and other war-related injuries that afflict American veterans.
One of only a small number of Americans to hold both a medical and legal degree, in addition to a degree in veterinary medicine, Dr. Hassan served as president of the local Academy of Family Physicians in 1977, and president of the Academy of Law in Medicine in 1983. He is a diplomate with the American Board of Family Practice, the American College of Legal Medicine, the American Board of Forensic Examiners, and the American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress. Dr. Hassan is also board-qualified in sports medicine. He was a clinical instructor in family practice at the University of California-Davis medical school in Davis, California from 1976-1986
Dr. Hassan served in the US Marine Corps from 1954-1957. In the Marine Corps, he achieved the rank of sergeant, and received an appointment to Annapolis. Dr. Hassan received a DVM from Iowa State University in 1962, an MD from the University of Iowa in 1966, and a JD from Lincoln University in 1978. He became a full Commander in the US Coast Guard in 1986.
Dr. Hassan’s publications include the medical text, Evaluation, Treatment and Prevention of Head and/or Spinal Injury Problems, edited by Gervase Flick, MD, JD. He is at work on a new book on the medical and psychological evaluation of veterans injured and traumatized by war, tentatively titled Invisible Wounds.
Dr. Hassan has also started a fund to raise money for Vietnamese war victims. The Failure to Atone Fund was begun in Vietnam on April 30, 2007, and is co-chaired by Dr. Allen Hassan and Lt. General Nguyen Viet Thanh, a war hero in Vietnam. Both Dr. Hassan and First News-Tri Viet Publishing made substantial donations to initiate the fund. Donations to the Failure to Atone Fund may be made via credit card through his distributor at (800) 431-1579.
Dr. Allen Hassan Transcript
November 9, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Kent Gustavson: Welcome back to Sound Author’s Radio. My next guest is Dr. Allen Hassan. You have a website www.allenhassan.com, and his new book, Failure to Atone, the true story of a jungle surgeon in Vietnam, is available from that website and across the web. “The Midwestern Book Review” said, “A haunting read; every page poignantly real, and a cautionary tale against the worst that nations at war are capable of.”
That’s an incredible quote from a very reputable magazine. This book is a powerful representation of what it was like in Vietnam for you. Can you tell me a little bit about what you experienced there?
Dr. Hassan: I was a young doctor, at that time, as part of a program of doctors sent to Vietnam to win the minds and hearts of the people. And the hospital that I was sent to was next to the DMZ in a small jungle place called Quang Tri, near Dong Hoi.
My job at the time was to administer anesthesia or do some of that work to help the doctors. When all the doctors became ill, or dismissed from that little hospital, I was the only one left, so I took over as the chief surgeon, and had daily surgeons: up to five to 10 major belly operations, chest operations–whatever came in–I was tasked to take over the job.
I had eight excellent corpsmen who assisted me, that were from the Navy who came over to the hospital. Otherwise, we lived sometimes without electricity. We had almost no sanitation, no clean water, and so on. I was seeing up to 50, 60 patients daily that were wounded.
On some days the number of wounded slowed down quite a bit, and we would deal then with bubonic plague, polio, cholera, typhus, malaria, and all the endemic diseases. But most of my time was taken up with my translator to care for badly wounded, because Quang Tri, in 1968, was the pit of the war.
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