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In adulthood, many prodigies become experts in their fields and leaders in their organizations. Yet only a fraction of gifted children eventually become revolut

In adulthood, many prodigies become experts in their fields and leaders in their organizations. Yet only a fraction of gifted children eventually become revolutionary adult creators. My daughter is being treated for Leukemia by some amazing doctors at Boston Children's Hospital. To my knowledge, none of the health care professionals at this world-class institution have won Nobel Prizes in medicine. All the same, for my daughter's sake, I'm still glad they hit the books for a couple decades. There are great honor and value in doing an important job consistently and well. This idea that a life is wasted if you don't remake a field in your image seems hollow when these prodigies often end up with the power to save lives.

Spooky23 10y ago
That's a thing that always bothers me about these articles. If the standard of success for a gifted grade school kid is to be a Nobel laureate, that's a little warped. My grandfather was one of the smartest guys I ever met. Through the circumstances of fate, he couldn't get education beyond the 8th grade. Yet he tutored my mom in calculus and did all sorts of good things for people. By any standard of mine, he lived a long, fruitful and successful life... yet he's a failure in the debate of an article like this.
- ilyaeck 10y ago
  +1000
smackingly 10y ago
Maybe I'm biased because I'm a no-name physician at a community hospital, but the "best doctors" in my eyes are the ones with the best outcomes, lowest utilization, highest efficiency and highest patient satisfaction. These measures don't correlate well with the physician's credentials. I learned this in residency, which I did just down the street from a "top" university hospital. We out-performed that place on every level except our doctors went to "lesser" medical schools. They simply spent more money (on wild things like ECMO, which makes everyone feel they're making more of a difference even though the outcomes are the same without it). Our profession is moving toward identifying these doctors and promoting their behavior to the entire field. There's a study that showed lower heart attack mortality when all the "top" cardiologists were out of the hospital attending a cardiology meeting. Too many confounders to make any real conclusions from that, but it lines up with my point. Of course, if your child has a serious life-threatening and/or rare disease, then you want her to be treated at a vanguard institution like the one you took yours to. No dispute from me on that one. But in the system as a whole, we make the most difference reducing complications of cardiovascular disease, sepsis, pneumonia, COPD, and kidney disease (which are orders of magnitude more common). And we're starting to find out how to identify doctors that do it better, with fewer complications, and with much higher efficiency than others. I think those are the best doctors and it's what I'm striving to be.
- replicatorblog 10y ago
  I agree 100%. I didn't mean this as a knock against doctors at local hospitals either. The pediatrician who diagnosed my daughter is a perfectly solid practitioner in a small town in New Hampshire. Not every doctor is going to make a breakthrough on the order of Marshall & Warren, Banting & Best, or other Nobel Laureates. That's ok. The middle of the road physician will save millions of man years worth of lives over the course of a career, any parent should be proud if that's "all" their child accomplishes.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - thomasfedb 10y ago
    Interesting that you bring up Marshall & Warren - in my opinion the truly interesting part of that story is their fight for truth above dogma. I think you want that in a doctor - a capacity and preparedness to fight the system when it is wrong, unfair, of hurting your patient. Is that a creative skill? I don't know but I doubt it's born out of conformity. Incidentally I know Dr Marshall, he's an academic at my medical school. He actually paid me to teach him and his team Ruby.
- pfarnsworth 10y ago
  Out of curiosity, what brings a physician at a community hospital to a largely programmer forum? I'm genuinely curious, I love the fact that HN has such a diverse set of very intelligent people.
  - shouldbworking 10y ago
    I've seems lot of people from other branches of engineering and medicine on HN. My guess is that biology is just an interest in the natural form of tech, seems to be a lot of overlap.
    - Baeocystin 10y ago
      I agree. I may earn my living in the tech field now, but I majored in Cognitive Science, not Computer Science. And I think it has served me well.
anigbrowl 10y ago
Nobody suggested such a life was wasted. But creative people are constantly bombarded with signals that they're too weird or different and need to be more like obvious easy-to-understand role models of diligent behavior.
caseysoftware 10y ago
I'm sorry for the awful situation but I'm glad her doctors are doing good work and helping her. I wish her, you, and the rest of your family the best.
alexdumitru 10y ago
I wouldn't worry if I were you. I live in a poor country where corruption is huge even in hospitals. But even here a girl diagnosed with Leukemia is being offered the best treatment and doctors care about these things, without expecting anything in return.
partycoder 10y ago
In this case it is important to make a difference between medical research and the practice of medicine. The work of medical researchers that get Nobel prizes in physiology or medicine eventually benefits everyone, thought those advances are meaningless if there's no practitioner to apply them.

Spooky23 10y ago

That's a thing that always bothers me about these articles. If the standard of success for a gifted grade school kid is to be a Nobel laureate, that's a little warped. My grandfather was one of the smartest guys I ever met. Through the circumstances of fate, he couldn't get education beyond the 8th grade. Yet he tutored my mom in calculus and did all sorts of good things for people. By any standard of mine, he lived a long, fruitful and successful life... yet he's a failure in the debate of an article like this.

ilyaeck 10y ago
+1000

smackingly 10y ago

Maybe I'm biased because I'm a no-name physician at a community hospital, but the "best doctors" in my eyes are the ones with the best outcomes, lowest utilization, highest efficiency and highest patient satisfaction. These measures don't correlate well with the physician's credentials. I learned this in residency, which I did just down the street from a "top" university hospital. We out-performed that place on every level except our doctors went to "lesser" medical schools. They simply spent more money (on wild things like ECMO, which makes everyone feel they're making more of a difference even though the outcomes are the same without it). Our profession is moving toward identifying these doctors and promoting their behavior to the entire field. There's a study that showed lower heart attack mortality when all the "top" cardiologists were out of the hospital attending a cardiology meeting. Too many confounders to make any real conclusions from that, but it lines up with my point. Of course, if your child has a serious life-threatening and/or rare disease, then you want her to be treated at a vanguard institution like the one you took yours to. No dispute from me on that one. But in the system as a whole, we make the most difference reducing complications of cardiovascular disease, sepsis, pneumonia, COPD, and kidney disease (which are orders of magnitude more common). And we're starting to find out how to identify doctors that do it better, with fewer complications, and with much higher efficiency than others. I think those are the best doctors and it's what I'm striving to be.

replicatorblog 10y ago
I agree 100%. I didn't mean this as a knock against doctors at local hospitals either. The pediatrician who diagnosed my daughter is a perfectly solid practitioner in a small town in New Hampshire. Not every doctor is going to make a breakthrough on the order of Marshall & Warren, Banting & Best, or other Nobel Laureates. That's ok. The middle of the road physician will save millions of man years worth of lives over the course of a career, any parent should be proud if that's "all" their child accomplishes.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- thomasfedb 10y ago
  Interesting that you bring up Marshall & Warren - in my opinion the truly interesting part of that story is their fight for truth above dogma. I think you want that in a doctor - a capacity and preparedness to fight the system when it is wrong, unfair, of hurting your patient. Is that a creative skill? I don't know but I doubt it's born out of conformity. Incidentally I know Dr Marshall, he's an academic at my medical school. He actually paid me to teach him and his team Ruby.
pfarnsworth 10y ago
Out of curiosity, what brings a physician at a community hospital to a largely programmer forum? I'm genuinely curious, I love the fact that HN has such a diverse set of very intelligent people.
- shouldbworking 10y ago
  I've seems lot of people from other branches of engineering and medicine on HN. My guess is that biology is just an interest in the natural form of tech, seems to be a lot of overlap.
  - Baeocystin 10y ago
    I agree. I may earn my living in the tech field now, but I majored in Cognitive Science, not Computer Science. And I think it has served me well.

anigbrowl 10y ago

Nobody suggested such a life was wasted. But creative people are constantly bombarded with signals that they're too weird or different and need to be more like obvious easy-to-understand role models of diligent behavior.

caseysoftware 10y ago

I'm sorry for the awful situation but I'm glad her doctors are doing good work and helping her. I wish her, you, and the rest of your family the best.

alexdumitru 10y ago

I wouldn't worry if I were you. I live in a poor country where corruption is huge even in hospitals. But even here a girl diagnosed with Leukemia is being offered the best treatment and doctors care about these things, without expecting anything in return.

partycoder 10y ago

In this case it is important to make a difference between medical research and the practice of medicine. The work of medical researchers that get Nobel prizes in physiology or medicine eventually benefits everyone, thought those advances are meaningless if there's no practitioner to apply them.