Project Magic - Therapeutic Magic

David Copperfield, the greatest man in the magic history. I look up to him not only because of his astounding achievement in magic, but he has such a great mind to develop the use of magic in a therapeutic way, which is what I'm going to share about today.

"Project Magic" is a program designed by David Copperfield, to give the gift of magic to people with various physical, psycho-social and developmental disabilities. It is beneficial to those with a variety of diagnoses, such as arthritis, spinal cord injury, brain injury, drug and alcohol abuse and learning disabilities.

Project Magic assists individuals to achieve new skill levels and also the achievement-orientated behaviour, which is necessary for the disabled individuals to successfully re-enter the outside community. Combining the talents of professionals in the entertainment field and those in medical field, it provides a quality of therapeutic training far in advance of traditional rehabilitative programs and techniques.

"Project Magic" is used in over 1,000 hospitals worldwide. It achieved not only physical success, but showed remarkable improvements in patients' cognitive function, speech, self-esteem and social skills.

"Learning magic can help them to learn a variety of skills," says Copperfield. "It's fun and challenging."

Pics from daylife

"To date, through Project Magic, David has spiritually and physically enriched multitudes of patients across the globe over the 25 years. He has enabled them to break out of the poverty of imagination, and to enter the world of dreams."

How inspiring. I've long been captivated by this thought that, magic combined with medicine, and how it can do good to the patients. Copperfield has really made a giant step beyond "magic as entertainment" to a whole new realm of "magic as a form of therapy" which truly works.

I'm wondering, what about "Project Magic" in M'sia? Mission possible or otherwise?;)
I have some thoughts and would like to see what you all think about it. Feel free to put in your thoughts!;)

Magic Medicine Formula (3)

3rd part: Time for microbiology!
Always confused by various types of bacteria & viruses? Well, not anymore!=)

You only need some codes..

Gram Positive cocci - SSE
S - Staphylococci
S - Streptococci
E - Enterococci

Gram Negative cocci - MN
M - Moraxella
N - Neisseria (N.meningitidis & N.gonorrhea)

Gram Positive baccilli (rods) - ABCD.LN
A - Actinomyces
B - Bacillus anthracis
C - Clostridium group
D - Corynebacterium diphtheriae
L - Listeria
N - Nocardia

Obligate intracellular bacteria - R.CML
R - Rickettsia
C - Chlamydia & Coxiella
M - Mycoplasma pneumoniae
L - Legionella pneumophilia

Spirochaetes - BTL
B - Borrelia
T - Treponema
L - Leptospira

And the rest are (very much mostly) Gram Negative bacilli!

And trust me, with these simple codes, you're just gonna tell the types of bacteria almost instantly!=)

As for the viruses, a few rules can help:

1. DNA-containing viruses are the HHAPPP(Y) viruses (Herpes, Hepadna, Adeno, Papova, Pox, Parvo); and the rest are RNA-containing viruses.

2. All DNA viruses are double-stranded except Parvoviruses.
3. All RNA viruses are single-stranded except reovirus.

Again, hope it helps!
Ok my dear friends, I've shared with you my (season 1) magic medicine studying tips;)

Hopefully I'll come up with more in the near future, and most importantly, pls let me know if they really help in your study and I'll be glad to hear it!=)

Magic Medicine Formula (2)

Ok..now we come to the 2nd part. Well, MRCP really likes to ask about genetic diseases and mode of inheritance. It'll be a waste if you do not master this part, but to memorize all that is obviously not an easy task.

A general rule is, Autosomal dominant conditions are mostly with "structural/ phenotypical" abnormalities; whereas autosomal recessive conditions are with "metabolic" disorders.

A list of major genetic diseases with which genes they are linked to:

Chromosome 1: Gaucher disease
Ch 2: Gilbert's syndrome
Ch 3: Von Hippel-Lindau syndrome
Ch 4: Huntington's, adult polycystic kidney disease (APKD 1)
Ch 5: Familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP)
Ch 6: Hemochromatosis
Ch 7: Cystic Fibrosis
Ch 8: Hereditary spherocytosis
Ch 10: MEN II
Ch 11: MEN I
Ch 12: Von Willebrand's disease
Ch 13: Wilson disease
Ch 14: HOCM
Ch 15: Marfan's syndrome
Ch 16: APKD 2
Ch 17: Neurofibromatosis Type I (von Recklinghausen's disease)
Ch 21: Autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome (APS) Type I
Ch 22: Neurofibromatosis Type II

Long and boring list? Any simplifying method? Ok here we go:

"Von Hippel-Lindau" = 3 words = Ch 3
"Huntington" = "Hunt 4 food" = Ch 4
"FAP" = "polyp has 5 alphabets" = Ch 5
"Hemochromatosis" = "HemochromatoSIX" = Ch 6
"Cystic Fibrosis" = "Think F is a mirror image of 7" = Ch 7
"Spherocytosis" = "Think 8 has double spheroids" = Ch 8
"Wilson" = "WIlson looks like 13 if you rotate the W a bit?" = Ch 13
"Marfan" = "Marfan's syndrome has 15 alphabets" = Ch 15
"APKD" = "APKD has 4 alphabets, polycystic kidney has 16 alphabets" = Ch 4 & 16!
"Neurofibromatosis Type I" = "von Recklinghausen has exactly 17 alphabets!" = Ch 17
"Neurofibromatosis Type II" = "Type 2 = 22" = Ch 22

Easier? After I found these linking methods, I think I'm just not gonna forget them for life!

Hope it helps!=)
And in the next post, I'll share about how I remember bacteria family!


Magic Medicine Formula (1)