Neurological Disease: Dignity, Free Will, and a Reason For Hope | Paul LaPenna, DO

The Thomistic Institute

Christianity, Society & Culture, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality, Thomism, Catholicism

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 12 July 2022

⏱️ 80 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This lecture was given on May 6, 2022 at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Dr. LaPenna's PowerPoint may be found here: tinyurl.com/mr38h43y For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Dr. Paul LaPenna is a neurologist in Greenville, SC and Associate Professor of Neurology at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, Carolinas Campus. Dr. LaPenna completed his neurology residency at Indiana University School of Medicine in 2018. As a neurohospitalist, Dr. LaPenna’s skill set is focused on treatment of neurological emergencies and performing and interpreting electrophysiological studies of the brain and peripheral nervous system. As an Associate Professor of Neurology, Dr. LaPenna has won numerous teaching awards, including Clinical Medicine Professor of the neuroscience curriculum in 2019, 2020, and 2021. For the 2020-2021 academic year, Dr. LaPenna was awarded the Preceptor of the Year. For his care towards patients, he was elected to the Arnold P. Gold Humanism Honor Society in 2016. Dr. LaPenna has an interest in the relationship between science and faith—in particular, the relationship between neuroscience and the soul, the overreaching claims of science, and the dignity of the human person, to name a few. Saint Thomas Aquinas has been a major influence in Dr. LaPenna’s intellectual and faith journey. Dr. LaPenna was previously a collegiate runner and now enjoys running recreationally, hiking, and spending time outdoors. Most of all, he loves his wife Nicole and their two daughters, Catherine and Susanna.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This talk is brought to you by the Tamistic Institute.
0:03.0	For more talks like this, visit us at tamistic institute.org.
0:11.0	Today I'm going to present, because a lot of folks in here are medical students,
0:15.0	I'm going to present a clinical case that was a really challenging clinical case for me,
0:20.0	perhaps one of the most challenging
0:21.8	clinical cases that I've encountered throughout my career. And I'm going to tell it in a way that if
0:28.1	you're not in medicine, you should be able to follow it okay. So kind of in that story, I'm going to
0:35.2	pivot out of it, and I'm going to try to hopefully not too awkwardly weave in some philosophical and theological themes having to do with patient care as well as some other philosophical and theological issues.
0:49.3	Okay. So I'll get started. So the story is about someone by the name of Brian, and Brian's 45 years old.
0:59.6	He's a, by all accounts, he's very successful. He owns his own business. He's married. He has three children.
1:10.7	Everyone that I talked to about him during this setting,
1:13.6	has always told me that he was selling a tremendous grit, worked hard,
1:17.6	took nothing for granted and really loved his family.
1:21.6	And he was an excellent health. He had no previous medical history whatsoever.
1:26.6	He's never really on any medications, with exception to some sinus infections in the past.
1:33.2	So everything was good up until Thursday.
1:35.9	On Thursday, he developed a headache, and he's had some headaches in the past, usually
1:40.5	associated with sinus infections, so he didn't think too much of it. But then he woke up on
1:45.0	Friday, and his head was just pounding. It was significantly worse than it had been the day prior,
1:51.0	and he had never really had a headache like this before. So being the determined person that he is,
1:56.0	he had a meeting that day and he went to his meeting, but he had difficulty concentrating
2:00.0	because the headache was so severe.
	...

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