 Recently Terry Donat, MD served as an Invited Guest Oral Examiner for all of this year’s Primary Certification and Maintenance of Certification Oral Examinations. Dr. Donat has served for the past two years as one of the six American Board of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (ABFPRS) Written Examination Reviewers charged with determining each year’s specific Board examination contents and protocols. The annual two-day Written and Oral Examinations for candidates from the United States and Canada pursuing certification by the ABFPRS was given on June 22-24 in Washington DC. Furthermore, this was the initial year for the ABFPRS offering its Maintenance of Certification Examination required each decade for recertification of its current and future Diplomats. More information about the ABFPRS is available at www.abfprs.org.
 Dr. Terry Donat has been designated as “Best of Class” in Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery by Best of the US, LLC (www.bestofus.com). The Best of the U. S. lists, representing 120 professions and specialties in all 50 states and Washington, DC, are compiled through an extensive survey in which hundreds of thousands of service professionals in the U.S. are solicited to share their qualifications to be considered for listing as "best of class". The first of The Best of the U. S. (2006) is based on more than 1,000,000 queries of service professionals in the United States.
Their selection process is based on identifying those professionals who have continued their education, provide leadership in their industry, and have been recognized by their peers, their industry and their community as the best.
Catching a yawn? Myths debunked
By Jessica Young -
GateHouse News Service -
Thu Jul 12, 2007, 05:30 AM CDT
Western Suburbs, IL -
You’re in a meeting. A colleague suddenly extends her jaw and slowly inhales, politely covering her yawn with a
hand.
Try as you might to stifle a reflexive mouth gape, it’s a futile battle since, frankly, it was a lost cause from the getgo.
You give in and open wide, squeezing your eyes shut and balling your fists while breathing in. It’s a thoroughly
gratifying experience.
People often tease about yawning being contagious. But is it an urban legend? And if not, what causes a yawn to set off such a chain reaction?
Nature News Service said 40 to 60 percent of people who see a photographic or televised scene with someone
yawning will yawn themselves.
“It’s an odd behavior quirk that is suggestible to those around you,” said Dr. Terry Donat, an otolaryngologist out
of DuPage Medical Group’s Glen Ellyn and Naperville offices. “It’s one of the most complete pieces of evidence
that we are not in complete control of our minds.
“The ‘If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?’ scenario actually works here,” he laughed. “You can
technically point the finger and say, ‘He made me do it’ as an excuse.”
Dr. John Porcelli, a pulmonary and sleep medicine expert stationed out of the group’s Lombard and Wheaton
locations, agreed.
“The phenomenon exists, but we don’t really know why,” he said. “It’s sort of a mystery. But even as I’m talking
right now, I’m unsuccessfully fighting the urge to yawn.”
There might be plenty more pressing matters in the world of science, but people are continually fascinated by the
yawn. Several theories have developed over the years, fueling Rumorville gossip, but experts have been able to
discard some myths while bolstering others.
Monkey see, monkey do
False
Just like little Emma stands in her mommy’s vanity applying lipstick unconsciously impersonating her heroine, you
unintentionally model your actions after a neighbor when someone yawns.
Experts say:
“It’s pre-programmed in us. We’re never formally taught how to copy or respond to yawns, so we weren’t gradually
conditioned behaviorally,” Donat said. “It’s not that we’re mimicking - there’s more to it than that. But the
response is involuntary and out of our control.”
Dr. Robert Provine, professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County
and leading yawning expert, was published in major journals for an experiment in which he exposed participants
to five-minute series of 30 videotaped repetitions of adult yawning sequences or people smiling. Those who
viewed yawns were more than twice as likely to succumb as those who watched people smiling.
But he still concluded “contagious yawning definitely does not involve a conscious desire to replicate the observed
act (’I think I’ll yawn just like that person did’) - we yawn whether we want to or not.”
Physiological folklore
False
Yawning is induced by the body’s need to increase its oxygen supply and expel excess carbon dioxide. The group
susceptibility factor derives from the hypothesis that your access to oxygen is decreased and the repository of
carbon dioxide is increased when more people are in your locale breathing the same air and producing larger
quantities of gaseous waste.
Experts say:
This line of thought was perpetuated by the knowledge that yawning increases the heart rate by up to 30 percent,
which causes the blood stream to absorb oxygen at a faster pace and acts as an energizer.
But a study Provine conducted addressed this common misconception. He tested subjects’ breath levels of carbon dioxide that were 100 or more times greater than the concentration of
air, and there was no corresponding dramatic increase in their yawning frequency. Provine also found that
participants breathing 100 percent oxygen weren’t inhibited from yawning.
Additionally, the report points out that there is no influx of yawning while exercising, even though strenuous
physical activity should warrant a rise in respiratory capacity and speed.
“Even though a yawn goes through the breathing system, we’re not doing it for a respiratory reason,” Donat said. “People erroneously attribute yawning to the need for more oxygen flow in the body. It’s actually based in the
transition from switching from an active to an inactive mental state or vice versa.”
Prehistoric folklore
True
Yawning is an evolutionary remnant and an inherent animalistic trait. The survival of the fittest premise takes
precedent here. The action served as a signal to other “herd” members to get everyone on the same page. Others
are compelled to respond in kind.
Experts say:
“It is a leftover primitive instinct and a vestige of early communication skills between a species,” said Dr. Timothy
McGee, a pulmonologist and sleep disorder specialist at Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield. “Before there was
language, it was a way for the group to get in sync. It was a visual cue meant to regulate the herd’s sleep cycle.”
When night falls and the wild becomes a dangerous place to navigate, a yawn signifies to the group that the
leader has decided it’s time to settle in and catch some shut-eye.
Donat concurred.
“If the alpha chimp yawns, you follow orders,” he said.
Sympathy card folklore
True
Feeling the pain of others in distress or worn down comes naturally. Yawning has ties to an emotion-processing
part of the brain, so you yawn to show your compassionate side.
Experts say:
Donat pointed to a study funded by the Finnish government that investigated brain scans of participants caught in
the act of yawning. Researchers concluded that the area of the brain that is aroused during yawning is the
amygdala, which is linked to emotion and the unconscious interpretation of facial expression.
“Yawning functions as an emotional agreement,” he said. “So if you see or hear another person and think they’re
tired or bored, your brain automatically empathizes and acknowledges the other person’s state.
“But even though all vertebtrate animals experience yawning, you have to have a certain degree of
self-awareness for contagious yawning to work, when triggerred” Donat added.
“We haven’t gotten any great light bulb moment answers,” McGee said. “We’re still figuring things out. It’ll be
interesting to see where things go, though.” |
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