Academic

I need a faculty retreat like I need a hole in the head . . . Hey, wait!

By Kim Krawiec

We had our faculty retreat last week, which, strangely, got me thinking about drilling holes in my head.  So I decided to do some internet digging on the phenomenon.

Via Wired Science, Archeologists have found some amazing things in peat bogs.  Like more than 270 kegs of ?bog butter.?  And lots of bodies (see photo, via Archeology, below), preserved by Sphagnum mosses, which come with preservatives built into their cell walls.  Archaeologists believe the bogs were sites for ritual sacrifices, because many of the bodies appear to have been tortured or ?overkilled.? 

But murder wasn?t all that happened out on the bogs. Multiple trepanated skulls ? that is, skulls with holes drilled in them -- have been found.  (see photo, via Wired Science, below)  Based on the use of the procedure in medieval times, one hypothesis is that the ?operation may have been performed to remove a blood clot or a less-tangible thing like a spirit? from an individual.

Today, according to Wikipedia, ?trepanation is a treatment used for epidural and subdural hematomas, and for surgical access for certain other neurosurgical procedures, such as intracranial pressure monitoring. Modern surgeons generally use the term craniotomy for this procedure.? 

Even now, there?s still a small number of people who think drilling holes in their skulls is therapeutic. See, for example, the website of ITAG (the International Trepanation Advocacy Group) here.

From Wikipedia:

Although considered today to be pseudoscience, the practice of trepanation for other purported medical benefits continues. The most prominent explanation for these benefits is offered by Dutchman Bart Huges (alternatively spelled Bart Hughes). He is sometimes called Dr. Bart Hughes although he did not complete his medical degree. Hughes claims that trepanation increases "brain blood volume" and thereby enhances cerebral metabolism in a manner similar to cerebral vasodilators such as ginkgo biloba. No published results have supported these claims.

Other modern practitioners of trepanation claim that it holds other medical benefits, such as a treatment for depression or other psychological ailments. In 2000, two men from Cedar City, Utah were prosecuted for practicing medicine without a license after they performed a trepanation on an English woman to treat her chronic fatigue syndrome and depression.

However, individuals may practice non-emergency trepanation for psychic purposes. A prominent proponent of the modern view is Peter Halvorson, who drilled a hole in the front of his own skull to increase "brain blood volume".

Here?s a trailer for the documentary, A Hole In the Head, which (although completely disgusting) demonstrates the procedure and the rationales of trepanation's practitioners in some detail.  

Also, according to Paul McCartney, John Lennon wanted Paul to go with him for trepanations, but Paul wasn?t interested.  See video footage here.

As to ?retreat,? it has a few meanings.  (1) An act or process of withdrawing especially from what is difficult, dangerous, or disagreeable; (2) a period of group withdrawal for prayer, meditation, study, or instruction under a director; (3) a place you go (preferably out of town) with golf clubs and/or tennis racquets; or, alternatively, yoga mats and spa treatments.  The first two definitions are from Merriam-Webster.  I made up the third.

But can?t we all agree that if it?s just your colleagues sitting around a classroom talking about curriculum and staffing issues, then it?s a faculty meeting ? albeit an interminably long and boring one ? and not a ?retreat??  Of course, we have to have these and all sorts of other meetings if we are to get anything done, and I doubt that the "retreat" is any more pleasant for the dean than for the rest of us (perhaps less so).  But now that I know a hole in the head is therapeutic, I may have to reorder my "things I don't want to do this week" hierarchy.

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on August 23, 2009 (boomark / email).