October 25th, 2019
Podcast 239: Talking with veterans
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Running Time: 18 minutes
Veterans Day will be here soon, and this episode introduces you to Patrick Tripp, a writer and radiation oncologist. He’s taken conversations with some of his patients and published thumbnail profiles of several in a remarkable essay in the London Review of Books (that’s right, it’s not a medical journal).
The patients all happened to be veterans of the war in Vietnam. There are no biomedical insights here — or are there? At the very least, you are reminded that the people in the exam room all have stories to tell, and if you have the luxury of listening to them you may just learn more about their true chief complaint.
Patrick Tripp’s London Review of Books essay
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Because early trauma can overshadow a whole
life, sometimes wondered if the life story could have turned out differently if there was some way to induce amnesia of the event. Perhaps though, the epigenetic changes are too great so while the memory has gone, the physical damage at the molecular level would still make life a struggle?