Teemu's paper: Flap Related Complications Requiring Secondary Surgery in a Series of 851 Local Flaps Used for Fingertip Reconstruction

This paper is published in Journal of Hand Surgery Asian Pacific.

It was a long time in the making, starting when both Teemu and Kin Ghee were in our department.
Teemu takes big credit for having the tenacity to keep at it, with several rewrites and resubmissions.

https://doi.org/10.1142/S242483551950005X
https://doi.org/10.1142/S242483551950005X

Catholic Saints and Popes

How many saints are there in the Catholic Church?

This question came to me as I was reading an article about the making of the Catholic Encyclopedia.

I soon realized I was asking the wrong, or at least inadequately framed question. What I wanted to know was how many Saints have been officially canonized by the Catholic Church.

I was a little disappointed to find out that there is no certain number to this. While the more recent canonizations are well documented, the Saints in the early church did not have to go through such a rigorous process, not were these canonizations recorded.  Saint Ulrich from Augsburg is the first saint canonized by a pope in 993.

Saint Ulrich from Augsburg (picture in public domain)

A search shows an estimate of about 10,000 saints, although references are not provided. Some early saints may have been historical legends rather than real people, and even a dog has been venerated as a saint.

The number of popes is more certain. Pope Francis is the 267th Roman Catholic pope in a lineage that can be traced back to St Peter.

While the canonization process has been streamlined in recent years, leading to larger numbers of new saints in the church, the number of papal saints is a rarity nowadays compared to the early church. 

The Articella

The Articella (Little Art of Medicine) referred to a collection of medical texts that became the medical canon in the medieval period.

Compiled by the Salernian school,  it included both classical texts translated into the Latin and Constantine's adaptation of  Liber ysagogarum of Joahannicius, from Salerno itself. This collection resulted in a set of texts that though diverse in origin, provided a coherent codex of medical thought of the day.

First eggplant fruit

After many months and plenty of flowers ....

Round eggplant

Sometimes, a little benign neglect and time works. I haven't much time to work on the garden, and its been hot and dry. When I checked on the plants this morning, I was happy to see the two eggplant plants growing well. They are bushier and flowering well, and seeing this fruit was a big bonus. I am looking forward to more.

With the hot weather, the tomatoes are languishing though ....

A little learning is a dangerous thing

The title is a well known quotation from Alexander Pope.

I have known and used a modified version of the quotation, "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" for many years, but only recently looked up the origins of the quote. Set in its context, the quotation is more instructive:

A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again. 

The single line has always sounded akin to an admonishment to me, but in its fuller form comes across as sagely advice.

A short article explains the etymology of the quote.

Graceland - 25th anniversary album

Back when music used to come in CDs (and cassette tapes), I had a decent CD collection. I still have most of the CDs, but its been unplayed for many years. I now mostly listen either to the radio or iTunes music in the car.

One of the CDs I bought back when it was first released was Graceland, by Paul Simon. It wasn't the title track that got much radio play then, but rather "You can call me Al", which I took an immediate liking too. The music video which features the very talented and tall Chevy Chase, in contrast to the diminutive Paul Simon is nice and quirky too.

I really like many of the songs on the album, which was my first introduction to "World Music", and the CD spent a lot of time in my player. It took quite a few listens before I liked the title track "Graceland". But I never understood the lyrics and how it fit into the rest of the album. That changed when I bought the 25 Anniversary album on iTunes, which included a few bonus tracks, including one on the making on the title track. Simon's description of how the song started, developed, and the meaning of lyrics, helped me understand how the song fits in with the rest of the album.

Getting Student Feedback

Earlier this week, I used polleverywhere to get some immediate feedback after my small group student teaching. NUS, through CIT, provides institutional access to it for staff. Polleverywhere works much better than the previous SMS reply polling system.

I first used the software for a presentation session in Coimbatore for the ISSH last year, but it didn't work so well because the internet at the conference venue was slow. Still the audience was quite supportive and tried hard to participate.

For my student teaching this week, the software worked pretty well. Most of the students participated and beyond the feedback scores (which was encouraging), I was really happy to receive some written comments.

Now comes the hard part. Turning the feedback into some concrete action and changes.