The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 13

Great Leaping Ducks, Will This Abuse Ever End? Ron Wiggins looking at the Atlas map, but that could be a distorted map. "Now, are you certain all the other statements are true? After all, I'd hate to be impressing my friends with my trivia knowledge only to find out I'm wrong" Leslie, it is taking every bit of breeding my parents hammered into me to keep from throwing up the name of my brother turkey who sent me this dunce's garden of geographical gaffes, but when I see him again I mean to work him over with a pig's bladder. Of course, I'm the one who pointed out (because I read it somewhere) that Kipling's The Road to Mandalay to the contrary, the sun could not rise like thunder from China cross the bay. Two readers wrote in to say that they've been there and if you get in just the right spot, the sun will do it every time. From Cliff Brown of West Palm Beach: "If one were to enter the long harbor to Rangoon or even the mouth of the Inawaddy River on the long trip to Mandalay and were to look Ranch and Mango Stand outside of Kissim-mce.

I keep getting them confused Karl's wasn't crowded three weeks ago Mad you gone to Earl's instead of Bob, there would have been no waiting at all to see the tethered tapir or the stuffed jackalope. Will you suffer one more amazing fact? Last week two of us here at The Jwf got letters that had been mailed the first week in August. Television critic Rob Michals and I got letters on which the U.S. Postal Service had stamped "Found in supposedly empty equipment." I can understand that. Once in a great while you would expect a letter to get hung up in a sorting machine and for that reason be delivered late.

But for this to be such a common occurrence that the Postal Service needs to make a rubber stamp strikes me as bad psychology. I think I would hand write the explanation so at least people would think it was only a fluke. east, the duwn (not sun) would indeed come up like thunder from China cross the bay -China meaning the general land mass including Indochina east of Burma and the bay meaning the Gulf of Martaban." Flying fishes, I will mention here, don't actually play, they are paid three Hong Kong dollars an hour by the Kowloon Bureau of Touristry to leap out of the water (like ducks) when visitors are around. It is not enough I am being pilloried by exacting readers with more regard to the truth than my feelings, but now a fellow columnist has seen fit to lambaste me in his column. Bob Steinmetz, who lives south of here, is mad at me because EPCOT was mobbed when I had reported sparse crowds and no waiting.

Steinmetz and wife encountered hordes of people and 45 minutes waiting for most exhibits. I can explain. When I said EPCOT, I was mixed up. I meant to say Earl's Armadillo About the only "amazing fact" I had correct in a column the other day was the fact that ducks cannot fly they leap. As in ducks leap south for the winter.

Much of that geographical trivia, ten thousand readers have hastened to correct me in a state of rapture known only to Tibetan aesthetes passing into the Seventh Absorption, is wrong, wrong, wrong. Hawaii, as I could have discovered by simply consulting a map, is not on the other side of the international date line, but on this side. If any state could lay claim to that distinction it would be Alaska except that the date line is cunningly warped to skirt her offshore islands. I won't go into all of the other geographical tidbits in that column because I want you to forget it. The following letter from Leslie B.

Underwood from Belle Glade is one of my kinder letters: "I was so amazed by the geographical trivia in your Tuesday article that I started reading them to my husband. He couldn't believe them and decided to check It out with our Rand 4 McSally Road Atlas. "The Road Atlas says it's 732 miles from Atlanta to Detroit vs. only 663 miles from Atlanta to Miami (she enclosed a corroborative chart). "Since we don't have a map with latitude and longitude, Barry couldn't verify your other statements.

They seemed incorrect when MONDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1983 4 VSf Li LI U. SECTION The Post nVuW 7 mm 1 a. ii 2624J 5U5t Doctors Learning Their Patients Are People, Too (J37.P OPuzzle Offers no nnn By Bryce Nelson Nix Vara Tlmm NEW YORK -Leading American medical professors and physicians are moving to correct what they regard as a serious problem in their profession: a lack of compassion in the treatment of patients. "There is a ground-swell in American medicine, this desire to encourage more ethical and humanistic concerns in physicians," said Dr. John A.

Benson president of the American Board of Internal Medicine. "After the technological progress that medicine made in the '60s and 70s, this is a swing of the pendulum back to the fact that we are doctors, and that we can do a lot better than we are doing now." The movement is centered in medical schools, where, some experts believe, students may be dehumanized, and even brutalized, by the experience. Medical students often are physically and mentally overwhelmed by the demands placed upon them. They sometimes observe inhumane 4 1214 rv The Association of American Medical Colleges has conducted a 6eries of hearinga around the country, In part, to correct the lack of humanity In medical education. Educational programs stressing humane values and ethics have recently been adopted in mo9t of the nation's medical schools.

Medical certification boards are now giving Increased weight to humanistic qualities in devising examinations and. in monitoring the education of specialists. By Rick Ackermann StaH Writer Warren Holland the one person who swears he knows the answer to "Decipher," the puzzle within a jigsaw puzzle, has revealed another hint! The picture on the puzzle, a sequence of numbers which you're supposed to decode, reads left to right just like the page of a book. Thank you, Mr. Inventor.

Now to just put this old puzzle together to win the $100,000 prize. Holland is a 30-year-old brain drain who took more than two years designing what looks to be one of this year's hot Christmas gifts. Puzzle owners have only until March 1, 1984, to send in what they believe is the answer to win the money. The puzzle, this years' equivalent to the Pet Rock, was first introduced at a press conference held next to the polar bear at the Explorers Club in New York City. "The members all had mustaches and pipes," said Holland, who was recently in West Palm Beach touting his puzzle.

It consists of 150 gold pieces which you pour out onto your table from a red velveteen bag. The bag comes in a black shiny box. Holland designed all of it. He spent days looking around cosmetic counters to come up with it. "I wanted a high fashion-type item, as well as a stocking stuffer," Holland said.

Numbers are stamped on both sides of the puzzle. But figuring out what goes where is the easy part. Even at that, it took our whiz police reporter three hours. The hard part is figuring out what all those numbers mean. The numbers form a cipher that must be solved.

Break the code and you'll see how to turn those numbers into letters. The key, says Holland, offering another clue, is in the public domain. Here's another clue: The answer's in English. A German journalist had to ask. Here's another clue.

"300 is closer to 'A' than Hey, here's another: "3,19." Two years ago Holland read an article in Smithsonian magazine about an unsolved cipher designed by Thomas Jefferson Beale in the 1800s. Beale's treasure, tons of gold, was supposed to be buried in the Blue Ridge Mountains. People are still out there digging around, although most experts, Holland said, believe the Beale cipher was a hoax. There is an answer to his puzzle, Holland assures us. It's locked up in two safe deposit boxes one at the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York, one at a secret location in Virginia.

This $12 tortuous beast is available at Jordan Marsh, Burdines, Great American Book Company, Shade-A-Way Shop as well as other area stores. treatment of patients, and they are not infrequently treated as ciphers by the medical hierarchy. As a result, these young would-be doctors begin, in turn, to view troublesome patients as ciphers. Among the recent steps that have been taken to reassert the importance of compassion in the practice of medicine are these: 'The Association of American Medical Colleges has conducted a series of hearings around the country, in part, to correct the lack of humanity in medical education. Educational programs stressing humane values and ethics recently have been adopted in most of the nation's medical schools.

"It's now almost an 'in' thing," said Dr. Ronald Carson, a professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and president of the Society for Health and Human Values. "No self-respecting dean will say his school has no effort in this area." Medical certification boards are giving increased weight to humanistic qualities in devising examinations and in monitoring the education of specialists. One example is the American Hoard of Internal Staff Graphic btr Duncan McDonald Medicine's policy, adopted in June, requiring "high standards of humanistic behavior in the professional lives of every certifiable candidate." The board said all medical residents should be informed that it considers compassionate and ethical behavior "essential" for anyone wishing board certification as an internist. Altruistic considerations are not all that has prompted physicians to examine their personal qualities; the sharp increase in malpractice suits in recent years is also a factor.

Doctors have come to realize that if they have established a good relationship with their patients, they are less likely to be sued. The physician who is regarded as curt by his patient may find the patient refuses to "lake his medicine." In a study published in the Sept. 9 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers reported that refusals of doctor-recommended treatment were "extremely common" Doubts about whether physicians spend enough time caring for patients have been voiced for centu-Turn to DOCTORS, B9 i i i i i Inc. 1982 "1 Staff Phata by Miry Nalnatt Outward Bound Offers Chance To 'Rough It' in Winter Seas and sailing, backpacking, canoeing, and rock climbing in Maine during the summer." The programs range from four or five days to three months. The standard course runs 23 days and costs Umbrella Twirling Again Contact Thorn Smith of the extinquishrr.

I would appreciate It If you could find out if Kidde Belleville still makes extinquishers and, If so, where they can be reaehed to honor their warranty? Amy E. Crease, Lake Park. A Kidde may not be in Georgia anymore, but Dixie Fire Extinguishers is and owner Tom Nash will service your unit. "The Kidde factory has moved to Mebane, N.C.," Nash said. "My company is a distributor of Kidde extinguishers, so we will replace them." Send the extinguisher, with warranty information, to Dixie Fire Extinguishers, 1492 Blair Bridge Road, Austell, 30001.

Cheryl Miller contributed to today's Our 17-year-old son is a naturalist and very much Interested In the environment. He attended the Florida Forestry Camp at Brooksville for three summers but Is looking for something more challenging. I have read about the Outward Bound program, but I don't know how to contact them for Information about next summer's programs. Can you help? Amos Taylor, Stuart. A Outward Bound has programs in just about every outdoor endeavor, even a winter sea program in the Florida Keys where you can sail, swim, snorkel, learn navigation and go solo for two or three days.

The solo segment, a staple of all Outward Bound programs, leaves a participant alone to live off the land and use the knowledge acquired during the session. A 31-page booklet covering all of Outward Bound's programs is rolling off the presses. Allison Burch of Outward Bound's Connecticut headquarters will be sending you a copy as oon as they are fir'shed. The booklet includes However, Florida Sunshade Co. at 3501 N.

Dixie Highway in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Oakland Park, delights in tackling even antiques of silk, silver and stones. In this case they custom-made the rib. "They did a fine job," Mrs. Cantor said, "although the charge for replacing a rib and adjusting the skillet was $25. This was acceptable (considering the value of the umbrella)." Putting Out the Fire Less than a year after I bought a Kidde fire extinguisher for my boat, it lost its charge.

It is covered by a one-year warranty, so I sent it to Kidde's service center In Atlanta at per the owner's manual. The package was returned, marked moved to another address in Atlanta. I mailed It to this new address, and It was again returned marked "Moved, Forwarding Address Unknown." I have spend $3.40 in postage plus the price I have an all-silk, hand-painted umbrella with a hammered silver handle containing a green gemstone. It has a broken rib and I can't find a place that can repair it. It is a unique umbrella and I really would like to get it fixed.

Mrs. W. Cantor, Lake Worth. A If only it did rain pennies from heaven, they could have helped pay for the repair and the travel to the repair shop. Although many local shops can put the fix on a large paUo umbrella, they don't get many calls to replace ribs in parasols.

Most people just go out and buy a new umbrella or make do with the droop. an application and calendar, and provides fee and financial aid information for sessions in Maine, Colorado, Minnesota, North Carolina and Oregon. For information packages, call Ms. Burch at (800) 243-8520. If you want information only on the Florida program, call director Arthur Pearson at 872-4102 In Big Pine Key.

"This is the only winter sailing program Outward Bound offers," Pearson said. "We f- ave winter camping courses in New England 3 Have a question that needs an answer? A problem to be solved? Ideas? Comments? Suggestions? Make Contact Write Contact, Drawer West Palm Beach 33402. (Include daytime phone numbe.) 1 i.