GUTFELD: Colleges are brain-free zones
I recently had the opportunity to take a tour of the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston: a place where I might find the brain I so yearn for.
It was during this one-day tour that I found out that there are many institutions out there where I would not be able to find a single “brain.” I was shocked. I thought of my brain as a pretty special and individual organ. I thought of myself as the only brain who was a doctor. I was also surprised to find that those people are in some of the worst need of support at the moment. My sense was that I should not be surprised that the University of Texas Medical School has a brain. They are the University of Texas Health Science Center—and they also have the best cancer center in Texas.
The fact of the matter is: we are brain-free zones.
We will not be a part of a brain-free zone
How did this happen to us?
The best answer is: we are brain-free areas. I can tell you my thoughts on the subject: we may all look at a brain and say “Oh, that is so cool, I have an organ that is not only functional and self-aware, but also totally functional!”
Then we find out that this is not true. Not only do we all not have such a brain, but even the people who had one, have lost their brains to diseases such as Alzheimer’s. These are just part of the normal part of aging.
In fact, Alzheimer’s is one of the most devastating diseases in the world. I had a patient who was in her early 80s. I met her when she was 50 years old. She had had the typical signs and symptoms of Alzheimer’s. She could remember things, but she could remember only what she had seen and not things that were not present. The disease was so advanced
