Dr. Mark Bruce is available via Zoom, Skype or phone from Milwaukee
Intro: Have you ever wondered why people shake hands upon greeting each other? The custom began thousands of years ago to show others you were not carrying a weapon. But today, many of us may be carrying invisible weapons called viruses or other pathogens, so why the compulsion to connect hands?
Here to discuss this customary practice is Dr. Mark Bruce, an emergency physician from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Q&A:
QUESTION: In an interview given by Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Trump’s leading Coronavirus Task Force physician on Tuesday. https://www.newsweek.com/dr-fauci-americans-should-never-shake-hands-again-coronavirus-influenza-1496772 Dr. Fauci said that he felt that people should never shake hands again. Do you agree with that?
ANSWER: The Covid-19 Pandemic has changed many things around the world, and in our culture, in a dramatically compressed time period. One of the things that has quickly fallen out of favor is the traditional handshake greeting. It is useful to look back and see where this came from. The handshake is the most common physical greeting worldwide. In Europe though, a kiss on the cheek is the norm. In Tajikistan, men greet each other with a kiss on the lips. In Thailand, to touch a member of the Royal Family in any way is a capital offense, and this carries over to the general population, who bow to each other in greeting.
Having traveled and had close friendships in all these cultures, there is a certain charm to all these practices. But the handshake is ubiquitous. The handshake or handclasp greeting has its roots in 5th Century Greece, where it was a symbol of peace showing that neither person held a weapon. During the Roman era, the handshake was actually more of an arm grab. It involved grabbing each other’s forearms to check that neither man had a knife hidden up his sleeve. Some say that the shaking gesture of the handshake started in Medieval Europe. Knights would shake the hand of others in an attempt to shake lose any weapons.
QUESTION: But does it make sense to discard millennia of tradition over fear of a novel virus? Is this an over-reaction?
ANSWER: The short answer to that is, Yes, as it makes sense, and No, it is not an over-reaction. We need to view Dr. Fauci’s comments through the prism of a pandemic that will claim 100’s of thousands of lives around the world, and a pandemic that is highly contagious. COVID 19 is a problem that in all likelihood will continue to be a problem until there is a critical mass of the population that has either been vaccinated, or infected and recovered, which is necessary to provide herd immunity. Even then, viruses will morph and that may result in not just a different strain, but a more virulent strain. Already we have seen both MERS and SARS (the same family of Coronavirus as COVID 19) to be 5-7 times more lethal than the current pandemic. In our casual American culture, we have taken cleanliness for granted. The germ theory has been set aside in our arrogance.
QUESTION: So how will we greet each other in the future?
ANSWER: Greetings will evolve. We have already experienced the “Corona Elbow”. The fist bump was, until recently, a gesture mostly used by athletes and young people. Now it’s becoming more and more common among everyone, including older people. Even the President of the United States is a fan of the fist bump. According to one survey, forty nine percent of Americans sometimes choose the fist bump over a traditional handshake greeting. The fist bump, made by making a fist and lightly touching knuckles, may be a more fashionable greeting, but for many it’s a pragmatic choice. Many survey participants said they preferred the fist bump because they were afraid of catching germs by shaking hands. Again in this pandemic environment we need to be cognizant of the number one rule of any epidemic/pandemic: protect the uninfected.
QUESTION: What other cultural changes will occur because of this pandemic?
ANSWER: Hopefully, handwashing will become as ubiquitous as handshaking has been. Dr. Fauci also mentioned this in his interview, and handwashing has been constantly emphasized by President Trump and his task force, in conjunction with social distancing as key to mitigating the pandemic.
QUESTION: Will we ever get back to “normal”?
ANSWER: That depends on how you define “normal”. If normal means the casual way that we traveled and interacted with each other prior to this pandemic, then I doubt that will be happening. We will move out of our isolation and social distancing and get back to gatherings, but that will be gradual and determined by the locale and the prevalence of the COVID 19 in each community. Those areas hardest hit, like NYC, will have this memory imprinted on their behavior for a long time.
QUESTION: What about wearing facemasks; will we need to wear facemasks everywhere we go? Will that be part of the new “normal”?
ANSWER: That is a great question. I think you will see more people wearing them than before. When traveling in Asia, one sees many people wearing facemasks even when there is no epidemic/pandemic, or threat of it. If you travel to Paris, when Asian travelers disembark their coaches at the tourist sites, many of them are wearing masks. That has become de rigueur in their culture, in large measure because they have endured SARS, Bird Flu, and many other non-pandemic epidemics. Their memory is vivid of these real healthcare concerns and their response to that memory is understandable. I have begun wearing a mask when I go to the store, and honestly feel kind of awkward. I am used to wearing a mask when on duty in the emergency department, but not in the store. Over time, and with less disease prevalence, widespread mask usage will likely be unnecessary (unless you have a cold).
QUESTION: Any last comments/reflections on hand shaking?
ANSWER: I cannot over emphasize the importance of the first rule of an epidemic: protect the uninfected. That is how an outbreak is kept from becoming an epidemic; it is how an epidemic does not become a pandemic; and it is how you contain a pandemic.
QUESTION: While we look back at prior eras, one from several decades ago was known as Camelot, when President John F. Kennedy living in the White House with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. You wrote a book about your experiences with the First Lady. Tell us about your book and those experiences, and where we may get a copy of it.
ANSWER: My book is title, “Jackie, a Boy and a Dog.” (plus details)
About your guest, author Mark Bruce, D. O.
Mark Bruce grew up with a love for dogs. This became a focal point of Mark’s childhood when the President and Mrs. Kennedy gave him the “pupnik” named Streaker, the grand-pup of Strelka, the first dog to orbit earth in a Soviet Sputnik spaceship, and return alive. Mark maintained a pen-pal relationship with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, with many personal letters, from the 1960’s until the 1980’s.
Today Mark is an emergency medicine physician in Wisconsin, a husband of 42 years to his wife Moira E. O’Brien-Bruce, DO, and a father and grandfather to 5 children, and 7 grandchildren.
Mark has traveled with the international medical ministry in Central America, Asia, Europe, and Africa, and led many teams into the Asian disaster zones for medical relief work.
In addition to clinical duties, Mark is the Ambassador to Belize and Canada for the American College of Emergency Physicians.
About the book…
PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY AND FIRST LADY JACKIE GIVE BOY A DOG FROM THE PRESIDENTIAL KENNELS
Have you ever lost a pet, or had to put your pet to sleep? Even though we try to tell ourselves that it is just an animal, a cat or a dog, there is still a tremendous sense of grief.
Now imagine that you accidentally killed your pet; the sense of loss is amplified. That is precisely what a boy, Mark D. Bruce, felt at the age of 10, when tragedy struck during a backyard baseball game in the summer of 1963. Thus, begins the story of the new book, “Jackie, a Boy and a Dog: A Warm Cold War Story.”
This tragedy connected Mark to the highest profile couple on earth, when in the midst of his sorrow he writes a letter to them, naively asking the question: “I killed my dog; may I have one of yours?” But then the impossible happened. President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy took his request seriously, considering this improbable request, and in the midst of her own sorrow at the loss of their own newborn son, Patrick, granted his wish. Experience the dramatic change of emotion from grief to joy as this tale unfolds. Equally improbable was the subsequent relationship that Jackie and Mark developed, spanning three decades.
The encouragement of the most iconic woman of the 20th century, spurred Mark Bruce to a life of service in the medical profession, touching lives burdened with their own tragedies, around the world. Read what happens when an ordinary boy and then a man, puts his giftedness at God’s disposal. The results are amazing!
Our guest is author Dr. Mark Bruce to tell us more about this amazing story and his new book “Jackie, a Boy and a Dog: A Warm Cold War Story.”
