Osler's Razor

1) Joe Dickson died last week, a man I didn't know well but one I greatly admired. His daughter, Allison Dickson, was my student, and one of the best students I have had. Though Joe was an accomplished man with an MBA from the University of Chicago and a career in which he helped build up Scott & White Hospital into a premier institution, I knew him just as a dad. Because Allison was in a wheelchair and often needed physical assistance, Joe and his wife, Johnnie, were regular fixtures at the law school and many of us came to know and love that family. Joe would stop me in the hallway and talk about class, and laughter was always a part of it. Even if I had not known him, I would still have greatly admired him for having raised the tough, strong woman his daughter had become.

2) Someday, I am going to create a top-five list of BLS blog posts, and this commentary by Jessica over at Female Parts will be on that list. It is one of the most compassionate, real, and moving pieces of writing I have seen around here. Reading it made me think of Joe Dickson, because even though Jessica's family was fractured and then cobbled together while Joe's was a traditional family of five, there is a pervading spirit of love that flows through them both. Great things are done in many ways, but love of some kind or another is always a part of it.