Six years have passed and one constant remains: medicine continues to change. When I first started the newsletter, I envisioned a medium to dispense basic pediatric information to the families of our practice.

What has occurred is far different as it became clear through feedback that the audience preferred more cutting edge discussions that have a functional impact on a families health.

Over the years it occurred to me that what we all need is someone to challenge us to try new things toward the goal of becoming better than we are in all aspects. As parents, and therefore de facto teachers, when we step outside of our little routine box and try new ideas, we grow — and our kids cannot help but notice.

Thus, every week I face the challenge of trying to find a relevant topic. I find that I have become part experimenter and part information regurgitater to meet this goal. That is to say that I am willing to experiment on myself and my family for the betterment of our collective health — and yours. The key is to avoid significant downside risk making the upside unworthy.

Anything worth doing usually has some risk. Or,  said another way, nothing worth doing has absolutely no risk (Cue the cringing english teacher).

As a regurgitater, I spend inordinate amounts of time learning from those that are brighter than I am and have experimented successfully. Their work is the genesis of great innovation.

The difficulty with teaching and writing is that there is an endless amount of information to learn and understand. For me, having to teach medical students face to face has laid bare the reality that no matter how hard I try and how much I read, failure is around every corner when it comes to teaching the art of medicine.

It is impossible to understand it all and avoid a failure of knowledge. The world of science and medicine is now too vast to comprehend by one person.

My 30-year-old self would have been despondent to know that such gaps in knowledge could occur, where as my 46-year-old self is resigned to knowing that no matter how much one knows about medicine, it is a mere grain of sand compared to the vast desert of information available. IBM’s “Watson” will likely be the first computer to know the whole desert and allow us to truly tap all of this information at one time.

The beautiful thing about age is that I no longer sweat the small stuff and find joy in seemingly tedious research tasks.

After 6 years of writing, I look forward to the challenge of bringing you actionable information that will inspire you to improve the health of your family.

I greatly appreciate all of the feedback, both positive and negative, as it has allowed me to grow and learn beyond my perceived limits and my little box.

The repeated failures have been a blessing for someone who once believed that he could not write. Please keep the comments coming in the years to come, as evolution is the best route to improvement.

God bless you all and the beautiful children that nip at your heels and challenge you to think and inspire me to be,

Dr. M

Dr. Chris Magryta is a physician at Salisbury Pediatric Associates. Contact him at newsletter@salisburypediatrics.com