NEWS

Dr. Sanjay Gupta dispenses advice from front lines

Patti Singer
ROC

HENRIETTA – Before heading off into a war zone, Dr. Sanjay Gupta received some advice.

Never sit with your back to the door of a café. Pack duct tape in case you have to move in a hurry and need to fasten your passport and cash to your body.

Write a letter about your life.

“It’s an incredible exercise,” Gupta told approximately 2,000 rapt listeners Saturday in Gordon Fieldhouse during Rochester Institute of Technology’s Brick City Homecoming & Family Weekend. “It was one of the more poignant things I think I’ve ever done.

“Spend a couple of hours thinking about it,” he said. “Who would you write it to? What would you say? What do you want people to remember about you?”

Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent, also is on the staff and faculty at Emory University School of Medicine and is associate chief of neurosurgery at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. He said that his schedule doesn’t give him much time for events like Saturday’s talk as the Frank Horton Distinguished Speaker.

“I love the idea of coming to university campuses, I love the energy of a place like this. I love the idea that people just want to learn for the sake of learning about new things.”

He said RIT President Bill Destler described the school as a collection of “geeks and artists,” which drew laughter as he quipped, “I feel right at home.”

Gupta, 44, alternated between raconteur, lecturer and motivational speaker.

He was self-deprecating when he said that being introduced as one of People magazine’s sexiest men alive throws him off track, and how he once came back from a commercial break with a mouthful of birthday cake.

He talked about the intricacies of the developing brain and the importance of keeping it stimulated throughout life. He segued to war stories and told about sterilizing the bit on a Black and Decker drill to perform brain surgery on a wounded soldier in a dusty Iraq tent, while he was ostensibly embedded with the unit as a journalist.

Speaking as a doctor, he urged the audience to cut back on sugar and said older people often regret not having taken better care of their teeth and their feet.

He encouraged anyone who wants a long life to develop a sense of purpose. He challenged everyone to do one thing every day that scared them. For him, that was being in front of a live audience.

Gupta talked more than 45 minutes — his timer chimed in mid-sentence and he remarked that he must be going long — without mentioning the E-word. But the first question from the audience asked him why the CDC seemed unprepared to deal with Ebola.

Gupta agreed with the assessment. He said that based on how the disease was unfolding in West Africa, it was a matter of time before someone got on a plane to this country and be diagnosed. “There was plenty of time to anticipate this.”

Gupta, who in 2009 withdrew from consideration for Surgeon General, said the U.S. health care system clearly may have been overconfident.

“We’ve been taking care of Ebola for nearly 40 years, but always in Central and West Africa,” he said. “I think there was almost a hubris that we can take care of it over there how can we not take care of it in a big hospital in the United States that has all these resources.”

Gupta’s messages hit home for Elizana Joseph. The sophomore at the University of Rochester is majoring in public health, and she ditched her school’s Meliora weekend for Gupta.

“To hear him speak was very important,” said Joseph, who envisions herself a medical news correspondent.

She particularly tuned in to Gupta’s advice about using our brains to the fullest and living with joy and happiness.

“There’s no limit to ourselves,” she said. “You have the ability to do anything and to do many things well.”

PSINGER@DemocratandChronicle.com

Twitter.com/PattiSingerRoc