Progress

I remember in the 1980s, travelling to California for the International Training and Education Conference.  On the way, the captain of the 747 had invited me to the flight deck for the approach and landing at Los Angeles.  In my RAF flying career I had never been confronted with so many runways to chose from and it was a pleasure to watch professionals at work.

The conference keynote speaker was entertaining and engaging.  He promoted a visionary concept of an “infoflux” which he described as an infrastructure enabling the almost simultaneous exchange of information throughout the world.  He foresaw a situation, a few years hence, in which a surgeon working in his hospital in Zurich could perform an operation on a patient remotely in New York.  Most of the audience probably, like me, rolled their eyes for this was surely a vision too far?  However, within a couple of years, "the internet" was becoming increasingly familiar.

I was reminded of this example because our son James has just undergone major heart surgery in a hospital on New York, although not remotely from Zurich! James had his operation last Friday afternoon.  My wife, waiting at the hospital, was notified that surgery commenced at 1426 – not after lunch or half-past two but at 1426.  When the surgeon was finished, he telephoned my wife from the theatre to tell her how things had gone.  James was conscious a few hours later and breathing on his own.  Within 24 hours, he was on his feet, albeit with some support.  On the third day, he was discharged from intensive care and is likely to be discharged completely within the week.

It is easy, in these days of instant gratification, to take such astonishing professional and technical skill for granted.  We need to stop and remind ourselves that events now long in the past were once in the future and marvel at human progress accordingly.  In the present however, all us Browns are just grateful to surgeon Leonard N Giradi MD and everyone at the Ronald O Perleman Heart Institute, New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center.  I'd draw the line at gaining pleasure from watching those particular professionals at work, however!