Monthly Archives: March 2020
Another Reason to Return to Smoke Signals
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 6th March 2020The world has gone madder than a pit viper caught in a wheat thresher. The cause? The coronavirus epidemic. The disease is still in the early stage of definition. Our understanding of its severity and dissemination is evolving. What’s not evolving is a responsible response to this new pathogen. Instead of ready, aim, fire we…
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Finale 22 – Die Walküre
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 5th March 2020The end of the last act of Wagner’s second Ring opera reaches such an exalted level of artistic achievement that one is almost ready to overlook the awfulness of the personality that created it. No conductor since the beginning of the recording era interpreted Wagner’s music with the skill and insight that was displayed by…
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The Lack of Effect of Influenza Vaccination on the Elderly
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 4th March 2020The Annals of Internal Medicine recently published online a study of the effectiveness of influenza vaccination on the likelihood of subjects 65 and older being hospitalized or dying. The study’s objective was: “To determine the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine in reducing hospitalizations and mortality among elderly persons by using an observational research design that…
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Agrippina in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 1st March 2020Handel’s Agrippina was telecast throughout the world yesterday. Written in 1709 it now holds the record as the oldest opera to be performed by the Met. Though an opera seria, it is more like an opera buffa. It lampoons the politics surrounding the Emperor Claudius. Agrippina was his fourth and final wife. She murdered him, along…
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Teaching Medicine in 2020
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 1st March 2020Dr Ezekiel Emanuel whose job at the University of Pennsylvania is to think deep thoughts has a short piece just published online in the JAMA. In it he observes, rightly I believe, that the internet has changed the first two years of medical such that most teachers are no longer needed. The first two years…
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