A colleague today gave me an update on myRESEARCHhome and the navigators service, two ways Duke University (with funding from the National Institutes of Health) helps scientists and physicians in their research activities. The navigators are people just waiting to help an investigator find the right resource or understand the correct process.
That update reminded me of my Grandpa Sisco, our family navigator who shuttled us around town and to and from the airports and always had the right resource for us—except that one time when I was in high school and I asked him for a mousetrap.
“I don’t have any mousetraps,” he reported. Later that night, he stopped by our house and handed me a brown paper bag with two new mousetraps. For the next 20 years, he always had a spare mousetrap in his desk drawer.
I was reminded of Grandpa Sisco a second time today during a presentation by a former chief communications officer for Mayo Clinic. Grandpa had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in small-town DeKalb, and his physician referred him to Mayo. The treatment worked, and Grandpa lived an active life into his 90s.
© Anton Zuiker