full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Erica Frenkel: The universal anesthesia machine

Unscramble the Blue Letters


My colleague, Dr. Paul Fenton, was living this reality. He was the ciehf of anesthesiology in a hospital in Malawi, a teaching hsaitopl. He went to work every day in an operating theater like this one, trying to dvleeir anesthesia and teach others how to do so using that same equipment that became so ueirlanble, and frankly unsafe, in his hospital. And after umpteen surgeries and, you can imagine, really unspeakable tragedy, he just said, "That's it. I'm done. That's enough. There has to be something better." He took a walk down the hall to where they threw all those machines that had just crapped out on them, I think that's the scientific term, and he started ternniikg. He took one part from here and another from there, and he tried to come up with a minhcae that would work in the reality that he was facing.

Open Cloze


My colleague, Dr. Paul Fenton, was living this reality. He was the _____ of anesthesiology in a hospital in Malawi, a teaching ________. He went to work every day in an operating theater like this one, trying to _______ anesthesia and teach others how to do so using that same equipment that became so __________, and frankly unsafe, in his hospital. And after umpteen surgeries and, you can imagine, really unspeakable tragedy, he just said, "That's it. I'm done. That's enough. There has to be something better." He took a walk down the hall to where they threw all those machines that had just crapped out on them, I think that's the scientific term, and he started _________. He took one part from here and another from there, and he tried to come up with a _______ that would work in the reality that he was facing.

Solution


  1. deliver
  2. chief
  3. hospital
  4. tinkering
  5. unreliable
  6. machine

Original Text


My colleague, Dr. Paul Fenton, was living this reality. He was the chief of anesthesiology in a hospital in Malawi, a teaching hospital. He went to work every day in an operating theater like this one, trying to deliver anesthesia and teach others how to do so using that same equipment that became so unreliable, and frankly unsafe, in his hospital. And after umpteen surgeries and, you can imagine, really unspeakable tragedy, he just said, "That's it. I'm done. That's enough. There has to be something better." He took a walk down the hall to where they threw all those machines that had just crapped out on them, I think that's the scientific term, and he started tinkering. He took one part from here and another from there, and he tried to come up with a machine that would work in the reality that he was facing.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
room air 4
johns hopkins 3
operating theater 3
safe surgery 2
anesthesia machine 2
enable surgery 2
medical supplies 2
oxygen concentrator 2
pure oxygen 2
percent oxygen 2


Important Words


  1. anesthesia
  2. anesthesiology
  3. chief
  4. colleague
  5. crapped
  6. day
  7. deliver
  8. dr
  9. equipment
  10. facing
  11. fenton
  12. frankly
  13. hall
  14. hospital
  15. imagine
  16. living
  17. machine
  18. machines
  19. malawi
  20. operating
  21. part
  22. paul
  23. reality
  24. scientific
  25. started
  26. surgeries
  27. teach
  28. teaching
  29. term
  30. theater
  31. threw
  32. tinkering
  33. tragedy
  34. umpteen
  35. unreliable
  36. unsafe
  37. unspeakable
  38. walk
  39. work