Alex Hansen's blog

Alex Hansen

Neurobiology and Behavior

May 15, 2007

How Doctors Think

Throughout How Doctors Think, Jerome Groopman examines the thought processes that occur within the minds of varying doctors, moreover examining the imperfections that are inevitable among all humans. With a gained knowledge of these processes that occur, both patients and doctors are able to benefit through using this predictive quality to their advantage. Doctors can learn to avoid particular lurking thoughts and mannerisms which may have the potential of leading to danger, while patients can become alert to the possible mistakes of doctors, and therefore protect themselves. Although we often expect the word of a doctor to be flawless, almost as if it were the word of God, it is important to never disregard the fact that doctors posses no immortal qualities and that their words are never absolute. He writes, “Of course, no one can expect a physician to be infallible. Medicine is, at its core, an uncertain science. Every doctor makes mistakes in diagnosis and treatment. But the frequency of those mistakes, and their severity, can be reduced by understanding how a doctor thinks and how he or she can think better” (Groopman). Thus, with each chapter new information is provided as to how doctors can be made to think more efficiently and effectively in regards to the world of medicine and their work habits.

Alex Hansen

Paul Grobstein

Neurobiology and Behavior

May 17, 2007

- The Need for Sleep -

Insomnia

Alex Hansen

Prof. Paul Grobstein

Neurobiology and Behavior

April 14, 2007

The Color of Vision

Five essential senses of perception, classified by ancient peoples, exist for the human race. The defining terms include touch, taste, hearing, smell, and sight. Despite the lack of consensus that these five senses are the sole physiological methods that exist, generally, each is eternally exhibited throughout the universe. However, there is no guarantee that every individual will possess all five senses, or that every individual will maintain senses that function with perfect accuracy and without deficiencies. Vision is a primal example of one of the five senses that does not remain homogenous across humans, or across all living organisms. Upon looking at a single image, what one sees may or may not be what another is envisioning. Moreover, the individual may be blind and may be thought to not be able to see at all, yet that person may still appear to retain some internal form of vision that may be unknown to those not diagnosed which such blindness. Such differences in vision arise from a variety of causes including genetics, specific life events, as well as evolution. It is through the development of organisms and evolution that the current classifications of vision have been established. While some types of vision are advantageous for particular animals, such might create detrimental effects for a different species. Thus, although sight is a universal term used for one of the five physiological senses, vision is often specific to varying organisms. With such, according to evolution there often exist biological similarities across different species, and thus there must also exist similarities in the vision of these comparable species as well. Through using these evolutionary differences and similarities as a basis, one can examine this physiological classification of sight across different animals. One particular aspect of vision which appears to demonstrate the heterogeneous quality across species, as well as connect the genetic resemblances within such organisms to possible evolutionary explanations, is color. To the eyes of different animals, color has the ability to vary and change, or could even be lacking due to an abnormality in the animals color vision, or due to a type of development specific to that animal. The developed color vision will often provide advantages to that species, as evolution is a process which occurs to allow for the survival of what is considered favorable. As evolution continues forward to the future, current types of vision will be able to change as certain attributes may develop to become more conducive to success.