"footnotes and fine print"

It appears as no one wants to learn from history. That was true then, it is true now. Look at our politicians. We are all interested in ancestry.com to find out something about us. Some is fantasy, some is curiosity and some has nothing else to do. But what about the connections we already know. The established facts about  our family history and our susceptibility to certain diseases with a reasonable certainty. For example, our DNA and our parents smoking history, their cancers and our smoking habits and our risks. He said it all. He was on a roll, then he had a smile. It looked like that he was in a debate and he just won the argument.

He was a know-it all doctor before professor Google time. I saw him as a patient. He was an inhouse consultant as he designated himself. He was a self proclaimed grand round moderator. The problem was that it was a non stop grand round, like a 24 hours breaking news from a mainstream TV channel. He won't stop talking and listen to others, he was suffering from an illness affecting his mind and body, and others souls. His loved ones were suffering as seeing him fading away in a losing battle of cancer.

He smoked all his life. A better judgment was expected from him. His parents had cancers. But as they say we are humans first then doctors, and we all breath the same air of life: stresses, life events, losses and triumphs. Our daily life goes on as we forget, we ignore, we come up with excuses, we are running around to catch up chores and we lose the things so dear to ourselves, our health.

 As a practicing physician he must have seen patients with cancers and he must have surely given  them advices to stop smoking . I have seen the classic pictures in medical history books where doctors were in pictures, smoking a cigarette or a cigar while in wards seeing  patients. Though it does sound not so classic now but we know that some doctors still smoke and their drinking habits are phenomenal. They are the ones who are at risk by choice.

To some history is a story of past events cataloged in a time stamped calendar, and it is not supposed to teach us anything, it is just what happened then. To others, history has a story header with detailed accounts of cause and effect with  footnotes and fine print. We cannot learn by ignoring the footnotes and fine print of our history, our DNA. We can certainly modify and  change our risk profile, and ultimately make a new history of better us if we just pay enough attention to what is already known to us; our DNA, our family history.