Bethanna-Banana

My sister-in-law Beth is the smartest person in our family. She's a doctor, doing her fellowship at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. If you''re not familiar heard of St. Jude's (and amazingly, I had never heard of it until Beth started working there), it was founded by the late entertainer Danny Thomas on the premise that no child should die in the dawn of life. Thomas named the hospital for Saint Jude Thaddeus, the Catholic patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes. All medically eligible patients who are accepted for treatment at St. Jude are treated without regard to the family's ability to pay. St. Jude is the only pediatric research center where families never pay for treatments that are not covered by insurance, and families without insurance are never asked to pay. In addition to providing medical services to eligible patients, St. Jude also assists families with transportation, lodging, and meals.

Beth is the best-of-the-best working at the best hospital in the world for her area of study. Many think she's just smart. Not only is Beth brilliant, she's married to my brother Jon and has some of the worst gas of anyone in the family. Beth puts her pants on one leg a time, but afterwards she makes gold records... and cures cancer.

The other day Beth heard from a friend from residency who is now practicing up in Alaska. She was attending a Pediatric Hospital Conference and one of the talks she went to was "Top 10 articles in Pediatric Hospital Medicine". Beth's article which was published in Pediatrics last year (you can read the article here) was one of the articles presented because it was felt that it would change the way that pediatric medicine is practiced.