Lux Humana – Book of the Week 15 / 2011 : Happy Accidents

Morton A. Meyers: Happy accidents : serendipity in modern medical breakthroughs , (2007)
 

Publisher’s description:

“This is Morton Meyers’ fascinating, entertaining, and highly accessible look at the surprising role serendipity played in some of the most important medical discoveries in the 20th century. Though within the scientific community a certain stigma is attached to chance discovery because it is wrongly seen as pure luck, happy accidents happen every day and Meyers shows how it takes intelligence, insight, and creativity to recognize a “Eureka! I found what I wasn’t look for!” moment and know what to do next. Penicillin, chemotherapy drugs, X-rays, anti-depressants, the adult stem cell, genetics of cancer, the Pap smear, and Viagra were all discovered accidentally, stumbled upon in search of something else. In discussing these medical breakthroughs and others, Dr. Meyers makes a cogent, highly engaging argument for a more creative, rather than purely linear, approach to science.”

Access in Helka-database:

https://helka.linneanet.fi/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?LANGUAGE=Finnish&DB=local&Search_Arg=1-55970-845-X%20&SL=None&Search_Code=020B&CNT=50&HIST=1&init=1

’Happy accidents’ in GoogleBooks:

http://books.google.fi/books?id=_zRyD6IRQnkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=meyers+AND+%22happy+accidents%22&source=bl&ots=GHAMmWVZJD&sig=YYkMvf2NZbS_bSAWmdbI79UbXDw&hl=fi&ei=DNWnTeOSN4TssgaQhLGXCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Articles:
 

Morton A. Meyers, M.D. Homepage:

http://www.mortonmeyers.com/

 Back to the Future

Morton A. Meyers

AJR 2008 ; 190 ; 561-564

http://www.ajronline.org/cgi/content/full/190/3/561

A funny thing happened on the way to the lab

W.F. Bynum

BMJ. 2007 December 1; 335(7630): 1157

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2099504/

Taking a chance

Jutta Schickore

Nature Medicine , 13 , p. 1135 , (2007)

http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v13/n10/pdf/nm1007-1135.pdf

From the Editor’s Notebook : Happy Accidents

Robert J. Stanley

AJR 2007 ; 189, p. 265

http://www.ajronline.org/cgi/reprint/189/2/265

Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs

Kyung Soo Lee

Korean J Radiol. 2007 Jul-Aug ; 8(4) : 263-263

http://www.kjronline.org/Synapse/Data/PDFData/0068KJR/kjr-8-263.pdf

Happy Accidents : Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs

David G. Nathan

The FASEB Journal ; vol. 23, no. 10, 3260-3261

http://www.fasebj.org/content/23/10/3260.short

Lux  Humana on lääketieteen opiskelijoille  ja terveydenhuollon  ammattilaisille suunnattu humanistinen kirjakokoelma Terkossa. Siellä voit tavata ylioppilas Raskolnikovin, Sinuhe egyptiläisen ja Nalle Puhin ; voit tutustua Tsehovin, Kafkan tai Kierkegaardin maailmoihin ; voit perehtyä lääketieteen  filosofiaan, sosiologiaan tai historiaan. Lähes 3000 kokoelmaan tarkoin valittua teosta odottaa sinua, joka haluat avartaa näkemystäsi ihmiselon eri puolista.

Tervetuloa tutustumaan kokoelmaamme virtuaalisesti http://www.helsinki.fi/kirjasto/terkko/lux/
tai paikan päällä Terkossa (Haartmaninkatu 4).

*****

©Koonnut: Lassi Pohjanpää, Helsingin yliopiston kirjasto, Meilahden kampuskirjasto Terkko