Chester County Medicine Winter 2019 - 33

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close and verify the door latching mechanism is only a matter of
time.

Club's annual dinner celebrating the Wright Brothers' first flight.

Returning to the collaborative group write, I ask, "What do
you think would happen to a door that's open if you're flying 200
mph? In a small airplane, the vessel isn't pressurized."
Details unfold. The audience learns that the door has opened
even further as the airplane reached cruising speed. Bernoulli's
principle is applied as the aircraft's speed increased. I demonstrated the principle by using a dollar bill: "Blow across the top of a
bill held by your fingers at one end and the other will mysteriously
rise." The door was essentially pulled into a neutral position to
balance the force of the wind and the negative pressure just behind
the trailing edge of the door.
I explained how flying gives my family and me the means to do
an array of things that wouldn't otherwise be possible. For example, this summer there was the solar eclipse. I wanted to see it in
totality. I located a place with white cement, not a grassy landing
strip, so we could see the flickering lights. During totality, this is
an important, exciting phenomenon. When the eclipse occurs, the
ripple effects of the light passing through the edge of the atmosphere are visible on the ground. These scintillations on the ground
all around you are similar to the irregular lighting patterns one sees
on the bottom of a wavy pool on a sunny day.
Up in the air, the edge of the atmosphere is a wavy surface,
likes waves in a pool. This causes the intense light of an eclipse
to be disturbed in an unusual sparkling pattern projected on the
earth's surface, in this case the cement taxiway.
Having my pilot's license and being a part owner of a small
airplane allows me to catch up with my family and support them
in their passion for horseback riding competitions. I can quickly
travel wherever there's a meet without having to spend the entire
weekend driving to and from these disparate venues. The airplane
is a magic carpet. You can fly to the Bahamas, South Carolina, etc.
We flew to Angel Falls in Venezuela for our honeymoon. It was a
"wow" trip. We also gave a presentation to the Pennsylvania Aero

Recently I flew two of my staff members and myself to the
annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology in
Chicago. We could land in East Lansing 3 minutes from downtown and no traffic or big airport. For departure no security lines
or parking problems, pull up to the hanger, load the airplane
and you are off! I have used the airplane for countless visits to
colleagues to observe their surgical and office procedures. This has
helped my practice be at the leading edge with the constant input
of the many colleagues I have "flown in" for a visit. We have also
volunteered our services and our airplane for service in Haiti and
Grand Turk Island, flying in an airplane full of needed supplies
and instruments.
The class was told to "Remember, build a story that your reader
can visualize."
I explained not only do I write about travel, but as an eye doctor, this form of communication is essential to my career.
At the end of the exercise, I asked the students, "What did you
learn today?"
The students responded: "Writing can be fun" and "planes are
cool!" Being a doctor can lead to all kinds of adventures.

WINTER 2019 | CHESTER COUNT Y Medicine 33

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Chester County Medicine Winter 2019

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