Bowties are cool. Even more cool : bowtie doctors talking physiology , from the perspective of decades with boots on the ground , on the worlds highest mountains. John B West talks us through a medical expedition to Mount Everest , casually mentioning climbing icefalls etc , and then goes in to the physiology :
” So if any of you are thinking of climbing Mount Everest , you might want to go along to the local hospital and measure the the ventilatory response to hypoxia ..If it´s low , give up any hope of reaching the top , and take up another hobby like gardening. “
West is a giant already in respiratory physiology in general , with a widely translated textbook , and hundreds of published articles. One is a brilliant description of how Ibn Al Nafis , an Islamic scholar , gave the first correct description of how the blood moves from the heart to the lung , back to the heart and out to the arteries. Western medical tradition maintained for centuries after that the venous blood moved directly through the thick wall between the left and right heart. In hindsight this should have been easily refuted in any big kitchen at the time .
Also featured in the video : Peter Hackett , another rising star in high altitude physiology , making a solo summit
climb of Mt Everest , more succesful than wise. The video is. the final part in series of respiratory physiology lectures , shortlinked at http://korta.nu/westresp

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