Editorial
Experience Counts Richard H. Daffner, MD, FACR
L
ife is a journey of learning. The human brain is like a small computer with almost unlimited storage space. In medical school we were given large amounts of information, some of which we wondered if we would ever use. Each one of these facts, however, was stored in one of our cerebral recesses, to be recalled at the appropriate time – if ever. Likewise, the other things we learn on life’s journey are available for recall to be used on a moment’s notice. And sometimes, those facts or skills may have been learned decades before. Every summer (except for 2020, due to the pandemic), for the past 40 years, I have been attending a scout camp in North Carolina with my troop. Many years ago, the camp program included several challenge events that would test the outdoor skills for the scouts and their leaders. Mark, one of our younger leaders, entered a team from our troop. Our four-person team consisted of Mark, Jim, Debra, one of the moms who accompanied her sons to camp, and me. Mark and Jim are Eagle Scouts. I had only achieved the Star rank as a boy. However, I had completed the highest level of adult leader training – the Wood Badge program, which emphasized not only leadership skills, but also honed our outdoor skills. Debra had no outdoor 8
skills, but more importantly, was a mature adult. The event presented five challenges to each team, which began when each team member was given a mountain bicycle to ride through the course. At the first station we were given three wooden ridge poles (used for tents) and a coil of rope and told to use those materials to devise a way to move one member of our team and their bike to the next station. Mark, Jim, and I quickly lashed the poles together in a triangle, put the triangle over our own bikes and carried Debra and her bike to the next station. We did this without the triangle falling apart, and without Debra or her bike falling off. The next station was at the waterfront where we were given three inflated inner tubes, life vests, a canoe, two paddles (for the four of us), and more rope. Our challenge was to move our team and our bikes across the lake. We quickly tied the inner tubes to the triangle to make a raft and securely lashed the four bikes on top. Then the four of us got into the canoe. Mark sat in front, and I took the stern. Mark, the youngest of our team was overpowering my paddling and I told him that he could paddle, and I would steer. We made it safely to the other side of the lake without tipping over or donating a bike to the lake. Once there, we removed our bikes and
were told to follow the trail to the next challenge, after we left the canoe and our makeshift raft. At the next station, our challenge was for each member to raise a log on a rope over a bar that had been lashed between two trees. Mark, Jim, and I quickly tied a timber hitch and raised the log. Fortunately, the rules allowed us to coach Debra so that she could tie the timber hitch and likewise, raise the log. The same station had an additional challenge. One member of our group had to light a strike-anywhere match using a hand axe (hatchet). We elected Jim, a machinist, whom we knew from observation on previous service projects, that he had a knack for precision and excellent hand-eye coordination. He lit the match on the first attempt. Our final challenge was to make a small fire and burn a string suspended two feet over the fire. As we started our fire the wind began blowing the flames sideways, away from the string. We gathered ourselves on the windward side of the fire to form a human windbreak, and completed our assigned task, long before any of the youth teams appeared. The camp staff in charge told us that we had set a record for the shortest time for completing the challenges for the whole summer. www.acms.org
