Staying Sensitive

In retirement, I have latched onto an arm of our state university directed to the 50+ crowd, though the number lacking a Medicare Card seems few.  Among my course selections was an advanced writing course.  To my surprise, of the fifteen or so registered participants, I am the only one who does regular public submissions and the only one who does medical writing as an offshoot of journalism.  Most do memoirs, some exceedingly well written, with an audience of family or vault.  A few attempt short stories or anecdotes.  Each of us is asked to submit for class scrutiny 2-3 submissions of under 3000 words over the course of the semester.  My turn arose and I submitted the tribute to my teacher The Zipe.

https://consultmaven.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-zipe.html

This bridges medical writing and perhaps eulogies.  The Zipe takes credit for showing me the intricacies of a formal mental status exam, described in the essay.  I submitted it for distribution two classes ago for discussion at our next class.

Unfortunately our class has an elderly gentleman whose mental acuity has obviously declined since the beginning of our semester.  At the last class it was his turn to present.  We read an interesting essay written in 2010 describing his devotion to fitness limited by an arrhythmia.  His dementia had progressed to where he could not follow his own submission.  With that background, I thought it insensitive to proceed with my essay on the evaluation of very early dementia before it becomes obvious.

Finding an alternative paper to submit was easy.  Submitting it has not been so easy as there are errors on the class email list.  We have a week off so I will continue to work on it. 

Derech eretz kadmah l'Torah