The Singing Pathologist

Arie Perry, MD, the director of neuropathology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is an expert at recognizing the subtle signs of brain cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other neurological diseases under the microscope.

He also teaches pathology to medical residents, medical students and other professionals at UCSF, and one technique he has developed over his career is to put some of the hard-to-learn facts to music as a way of helping his students learn.

Here he sings the "Meningiomas" song and discusses how he started down this road years ago. Also interviewed is S. Andrew Josephson, MD, who directs the class "Brain Mind and Behavior" for UCSF medical students who learn about subjects like meningioma-type brain tumors with the help of Perry's songs.

"From the surface of the brain and the arachnoidal membrane
Grows a dural neoplasm, meningioma is its name
As a tumor of adults, with sharp margins and slow growth,
It may require the gamma knife, or surgery alone."

"Though most are low-grade, with a bland histology,
There's an aggressive subset, with significant morbidity
Atypical meningiomas, recur quite frequently
Anaplastic cases have a high mortality"

Video by Jason Socrates Bardi
jason.bardi@ucsf.edu
@jasonbardi

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