- Email: [email protected]
Judith G Hall
DISSECTING ROOM
LIFELINE Exercise
Judith G Hall Judith G Hall is Professor of Pediatrics and Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia, Canada. After training at the University of Washington and Johns Hopkins Hospital, she developed a research interest in clinical genetics with an emphasis on natural history and non-traditional mechanisms of disease. Over the past decade, she has been Chair of Pediatrics at University of British Columbia, President of the American Society of Human Genetics and the American Pediatric Society, and Chair of the Science Advisory Board of Health Canada. Who was your most influential teacher, and why? My mother encouraged me in those critical, early years to be confident, curious, and compassionate, as a woman. What would be your advice to a newly qualified doctor? To realise what a privilege it is to learn about life vicariously from your patients. What is the best piece of advice you have received, and from whom? Every patient/family has something to teach you, and to treasure exceptions—from Motulsky, McKusick, and Bateson. Which patients have had the most effect on your work, and why? The clinic is my laboratory. The questions that families ask about the natural history of genetic disorders motivate me to find answers working with laboratory scientists. What is your worst habit? Dealing with e-mail early in the day, which robs me of time for creative thought. What is your favourite country? Canada, where multiculturalism is lived, the health-care system is not broken, and the potential to be civilised still exists. What apart from your partner is the passion of your life? Watching young people, and especially my children, mature and exemplify new ways of thinking and being. What do you think is the most exciting field of science at the moment? Medical genetics, of course, where through phenotype-functional analysis, there is the potential to uncover the causes of human disease and revolutionise medical care. What part of your work gives you the most pleasure? Providing information to families that is useful for them in decision making. What are you currently reading? Unless by Carol Shields, who provides feminine insight into how the human spirit copes.
1508
ow many times a week do we advise patients to do some exercise. Try walking, join a gym, swimming is good for you—the words trip off my tongue with ease but I am surprised they don’t choke me. The truth is that I loathe and detest any form of exercise. Let other people join gyms, spend their weekends hill walking, turn up at work every morning with their hair damp from doing their routine 50 lengths. In all honesty, I have never done these things, but until recently I have always been on the point of doing them, thinking about it, getting started, making plans, buying the kit. No more. As of today, I am coming out as a man who never does exercise, and never will. I have reached this momentous—and deeply unfashionable—decision, after a last-ditch effort to please the exercise apparatchiks. I should have known better, but the onset of summer must have gone to my head. To start with I joined the new health club, which opened, near my surgery. I’m not sure if it was the hi-tech gym, the gorgeous reception staff, or the cheap introductory offer that persuaded me to fill in the direct debit with a silly smile on my face. I am not normally a gullible person, but there was something about that place that persuaded me that fitness could be fun, and easily achieved. I bought expensive new trainers, gym kit, and swimming trunks. I noted the opening and closing times in my diary and decided on my pattern of attendance. I paid regularly, and I frequently thought about going there, but I never actually set foot in the place. Actually I was quite happy with the arrangement, which allowed me to refer in conversations to “going to my gym” without the horrors of actually “working out”. It came to a bitter end when my son decided to take me in hand and to do a bit of father and son bonding. It nearly killed me, literally, as I tried to keep up with him. When I changed colour from red to white to grey, and the gym instructor started to panic,
H
even my son decided that passive gym membership was probably best for me. So I still keep up my payments, and you could say that signing cheques is probably my most regular form of exercise these days, although after the gym episode my wife had a serious attempt at making a walker of me. Of course, I am already a walker in the sense that I still have the use of both my legs and frequently use them to propel me from the house to the car. She, on the other hand, is a serious walker, and disappears for days, weekends, and even weeks at a time with like-minded people, all wearing dreary and unappealing clothes and carrying sticks. She has been known to come back from these trips with blisters on her feet and stitches in her leg, telling tales of nettles and brambles, broken stiles, and bogs. How this can be enjoyable is a mystery to me, and I would rather undergo colonic irrigation than take part in this sort of activity for the sake of taking exercise. Finally, I thought of buying a piece of exercise equipment, preferably one that will flash messages at me about how fit I have become, which has an integral TV screen that filters out all sports programmes and is small enough to fit into an already overcrowded house. Have you looked recently at the equipment available? 20 years ago you could only choose between an exercise bike or a skipping rope. Now the choice of equipment is so great that I was afraid that I would be able to get one to meet my specifications. Luckily I remembered that 20 years ago I bought an exercise bike and, of course, never used it. So from now on I am going to be an unreconstructed, unapologetic couch potato. I shall cancel my gym membership (that should use up a few calories) and take my gym kit to an Oxfam shop (by car of course). I shall still extol the virtues of exercise to my patients. Hypocrisy is easy, but unfortunately uses up no calories. Peter Kandela
THE LANCET • Vol 362 • November 1, 2003 • www.thelancet.com
For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet publishing Group.
LIFELINE Exercise
Judith G Hall Judith G Hall is Professor of Pediatrics and Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia, Canada. After training at the University of Washington and Johns Hopkins Hospital, she developed a research interest in clinical genetics with an emphasis on natural history and non-traditional mechanisms of disease. Over the past decade, she has been Chair of Pediatrics at University of British Columbia, President of the American Society of Human Genetics and the American Pediatric Society, and Chair of the Science Advisory Board of Health Canada. Who was your most influential teacher, and why? My mother encouraged me in those critical, early years to be confident, curious, and compassionate, as a woman. What would be your advice to a newly qualified doctor? To realise what a privilege it is to learn about life vicariously from your patients. What is the best piece of advice you have received, and from whom? Every patient/family has something to teach you, and to treasure exceptions—from Motulsky, McKusick, and Bateson. Which patients have had the most effect on your work, and why? The clinic is my laboratory. The questions that families ask about the natural history of genetic disorders motivate me to find answers working with laboratory scientists. What is your worst habit? Dealing with e-mail early in the day, which robs me of time for creative thought. What is your favourite country? Canada, where multiculturalism is lived, the health-care system is not broken, and the potential to be civilised still exists. What apart from your partner is the passion of your life? Watching young people, and especially my children, mature and exemplify new ways of thinking and being. What do you think is the most exciting field of science at the moment? Medical genetics, of course, where through phenotype-functional analysis, there is the potential to uncover the causes of human disease and revolutionise medical care. What part of your work gives you the most pleasure? Providing information to families that is useful for them in decision making. What are you currently reading? Unless by Carol Shields, who provides feminine insight into how the human spirit copes.
1508
ow many times a week do we advise patients to do some exercise. Try walking, join a gym, swimming is good for you—the words trip off my tongue with ease but I am surprised they don’t choke me. The truth is that I loathe and detest any form of exercise. Let other people join gyms, spend their weekends hill walking, turn up at work every morning with their hair damp from doing their routine 50 lengths. In all honesty, I have never done these things, but until recently I have always been on the point of doing them, thinking about it, getting started, making plans, buying the kit. No more. As of today, I am coming out as a man who never does exercise, and never will. I have reached this momentous—and deeply unfashionable—decision, after a last-ditch effort to please the exercise apparatchiks. I should have known better, but the onset of summer must have gone to my head. To start with I joined the new health club, which opened, near my surgery. I’m not sure if it was the hi-tech gym, the gorgeous reception staff, or the cheap introductory offer that persuaded me to fill in the direct debit with a silly smile on my face. I am not normally a gullible person, but there was something about that place that persuaded me that fitness could be fun, and easily achieved. I bought expensive new trainers, gym kit, and swimming trunks. I noted the opening and closing times in my diary and decided on my pattern of attendance. I paid regularly, and I frequently thought about going there, but I never actually set foot in the place. Actually I was quite happy with the arrangement, which allowed me to refer in conversations to “going to my gym” without the horrors of actually “working out”. It came to a bitter end when my son decided to take me in hand and to do a bit of father and son bonding. It nearly killed me, literally, as I tried to keep up with him. When I changed colour from red to white to grey, and the gym instructor started to panic,
H
even my son decided that passive gym membership was probably best for me. So I still keep up my payments, and you could say that signing cheques is probably my most regular form of exercise these days, although after the gym episode my wife had a serious attempt at making a walker of me. Of course, I am already a walker in the sense that I still have the use of both my legs and frequently use them to propel me from the house to the car. She, on the other hand, is a serious walker, and disappears for days, weekends, and even weeks at a time with like-minded people, all wearing dreary and unappealing clothes and carrying sticks. She has been known to come back from these trips with blisters on her feet and stitches in her leg, telling tales of nettles and brambles, broken stiles, and bogs. How this can be enjoyable is a mystery to me, and I would rather undergo colonic irrigation than take part in this sort of activity for the sake of taking exercise. Finally, I thought of buying a piece of exercise equipment, preferably one that will flash messages at me about how fit I have become, which has an integral TV screen that filters out all sports programmes and is small enough to fit into an already overcrowded house. Have you looked recently at the equipment available? 20 years ago you could only choose between an exercise bike or a skipping rope. Now the choice of equipment is so great that I was afraid that I would be able to get one to meet my specifications. Luckily I remembered that 20 years ago I bought an exercise bike and, of course, never used it. So from now on I am going to be an unreconstructed, unapologetic couch potato. I shall cancel my gym membership (that should use up a few calories) and take my gym kit to an Oxfam shop (by car of course). I shall still extol the virtues of exercise to my patients. Hypocrisy is easy, but unfortunately uses up no calories. Peter Kandela
THE LANCET • Vol 362 • November 1, 2003 • www.thelancet.com
For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet publishing Group.