https://pierrekorymedicalmusings.com/p/i-am-not-that-into-water-a-departing?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=645524&post_id=213206360&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=69c40d&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
“I Am Not That Into Water” — A Departing Subscriber
The year that made three books, what it cost, and how an ICU doctor ended up on the agronomy charts.
Pierre Kory, MD, MPA
Sep 07, 2026
*** begin quote ***
I promised you the story of how an ICU doctor ended up having one book hit the “#1 New Release in Agronomy and the other as #1 in Agriculture and Food Policy. But wait, the latter is no longer true; now it is #1 in Water Supply and Land Use. Hilarious.
Here it is, and it’s shorter than you’d think. As I neared the end of mapping out the science and mechanisms of Shimanishi’s mineral solution, I was forced to spend a disturbing amount of time in the agronomy, soil biology, and hydrogeology literature.
Disturbing because — what the heck is an ICU doc doing studying agriculture?
Easy. That’s where the science and data on Shimanishi’s minerals lived. There was no medical literature to read. So I had no choice but to develop real working expertise in soil structure, soil biology, and agriculture to understand how plants, soil, microbes, and minerals interact, and how water connects all of them.
I hereby confer upon myself an AI-Assisted Internet Degree in Agronomy, Soil Biology, and Geohydrology.
*** end quote ***
I LOVED this line:
*** begin quote ***
For years, whenever a patient turned up having read deeply enough to propose a better option than the one I’d landed on — rare, but it happened — I’d say: “Which Internet School of Medicine did you go to? I’m impressed.” They loved it.
*** end quote ***
I’ve officially stolen that and added it to my snippets collection.
Adding it to “Old Wives’ Tales that are true“, “Folk Remedies” (cabbage on the knee), “Doctor Google“, “Doctor Oz says“, “Eight hematologists and nine opinions” for why Evy was losing platelets, and CLAUDIA’s diagnosis of “noro virus; not food poisoning”.
I call this group “SNIDE remarks that might be truer that you think”.
I recognize that one out of touch with reality relative who used the inet to self-diagnosis “skin parasites” and ignore the fact, which her dermatologist asked her, “Have you been to sub-Saharan Africa in the last six months or had sex with with someone who has?”. “Doctor Google” has to read with a large grain of salt. The ability to do an internet search does NOT equate to four years in a per-med track in college and four YEARS in medical school. Sometimes it is better; sometimes worse. Argh! Sometimes, a novice blunders into a gold mine; other times a pile of [<synonym for excrement from a male cow>!
p.p.s., “Well, I’m not a <insert profession that requires a lot of study>, I have never played one on TV, and I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but here are some simple thoughts.” (Stolen from a very funny commercial.)
— 30 —
Posted by reinkefj 
Reinke Faces Life 