I’ve already shared the fact that I took 20 minutes and changed pediatric sedation for repeat radiation therapy, and that the paper later published by my my friend (the head of radiation therapy at KFSH&RC) called to tell me that he wanted to be sure my name was on the paper.

Well… There’s another 20 minute lecture I gave to the anesthesia residents and staff at MUSC in Charleston while I was a junior resident.
—- It was just as easy to explain, and I thought that it was obvious if one paid the least amount of attention to the apparatus (a Jackson-Rees breathing system) that we routinely used for small children.
— The system requires a flow of gases (oxygen and inhaled gases that kept the child asleep, including Nitrous oxide).
—* A quick look at the systems gas flow, and a quick (in one’s head) of the volume of gas pushed back into the childs lungs would tell you how long you’d have to wait between hand-bagging a volume of gases to be sure that the exhaled air from the child’s lungs was cleared of the CO2 (carbon dioxide) the he generated.
I realized that what I thought was obvious was not recognized by any of the other residents or attendings (teachers). I immediately asked to be able to give a presentation on the topic that week at the weekly conference.

It took me 20 minutes (with a simple diagram and a little math) to clarify the problem.
The next day, every pediatric room I was in was adapting (slowing the ventilation to allow the CO2 to clear). One attending was explaining it to a new resident and medical student as though he had known it for years.

I could have published a paper on the mechanics of the ventilation back in 1984, but never thought of publishing papers. I suspect that one of the attendings did publish it and not give me any credit.

There was another obvious topic that I thought was important -that I don’t recall the subject of- that I broached with an attending with my thoughts. A month later I heard that he was writing a paper on the topic using my thoughts…
I commented to him that I was glad he thought it was a good idea. —- He denied that he and I had ever had the conversation.