More to the story
As the anesthesiologist in Yang Chih-yao's (
Your story reported me saying that I had warned Yang's father of the risk that anesthesia could cause an infection during the surgery and Yang's father saying that I was telling lies because "No doctor advised against the surgery."
I wish to reiterate that I did explain sincerely before the procedure the potential risks of both surgery and anesthesia.
Yang suffered from a kind of congenital heart disease called "tetralogy of fallot." He did not develop a normal pulmonary vasculature, which meant that his lungs did not experience adequate blood-gas exchange during ventilation. The management of such cases is always a challenge and a stress for an anesthesiologist.
The operation itself, not the anesthesia, causes bacteremia (germs in the blood) which will potentially cause endocarditis or even brain infection after surgery. The anesthetics used during the operation will potentially compromise the heart function, which had already deteriorated.
I explained all of this to his father without using medical jargon or any form of "professional arrogance" before the operation. It is true that I did not stop his father from consenting to the procedure. That decision is ultimately the family's, based on the judgement of the surgeon.
Yang Chih-yao did awake from anesthesia and recovered well in our pediatric intensive-care unit until the moment after he was extubated.
I told the media at a press conference held by Legislator Tuan Yi-kang (
What concerns me is the words you used in you report -- they really hurt my feelings. I am also concerned English-speaking readers will develop a negative image of me when they read this report.
I did my graduate study at the University of Minnesota and lived there for years. I know how important one's honesty and credibility are. I do hope that you can report my viewpoint.
Shen Jeng-tieng
Attending anesthesiologist,
Tri-Service General Hospital
KK is not the answer
Sun Ta-chien's (
First, KK is a university linguistics-pronunciation guide and is only appropriate for university linguistics classes. It should not be used in any lower-level class.
Second, students starting to learn English should be taught that every letter has a sound, or at least has significance. For example, "b" says buh, "k" says kuh, "p" says puh, in a very similar manner to bopomofo. To say that this works only in English-speaking countries is nonsense. Taiwanese teachers can't teach what they don't know, and most know KK, not natural phonics.
I have a class that started a year ago. I started from ABC. My students knew nothing. Now, they are reading just fine using natural phonics. I had a student join for a time who had studied KK previously. He was gloriously confused between the KK symbols and the ABCs. He couldn't spell simple words. A different approach might be appropriate, but to teach KK in beginners' classes would be a very serious mistake and leave the nation further behind in English-language education than it already is.
Not wanting to close on a negative note, I would like to congratulate the common people on the street who make an effort to speak English with me. The construction worker, the lunchbox cook, the gas station attendant and many others. Keep working. Taiwan will soon be an English-speaking country. (And it will happen even sooner if you can ditch KK altogether.)
Shervin Marsh
Ilan County
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS