Cardiologist Eric Topol is director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute and author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care. Before giving a talk on the future of technology and medicine, he sat down in the Zócalo green room where he said that he generally follows the rules-on the road and at the dinner table.
Q. How far over the speed limit do you drive?
A. Less than 10 miles per hour over. I don’t want to get a traffic infraction. So if it’s 65 I won’t go above 75. I try to be like 73, something like that.
Q. What was your first computer?
A. I had an IBM-it was the first personal computer back in 1983. I bought it when I was a fellow in cardiology at Johns Hopkins. It was a few thousand dollars, and not very functional compared to the standards of today.
Q. What’s the least heart-healthy thing you’ve eaten this week?
A. I’m pretty health-conscious about what I eat, so I really don’t stray too often. And I can’t even think of anything I ate that was not healthy food.
Q. What’s the last thing you lost?
A. Reading glasses, which is a big deal when you you have presbyopia-the inability to read because of aging.
Q. What was the most important year of your life?
A. It’s pretty clear: 1979. That was the year that I got married to Susan, my wife, and that was also the year that I graduated from medical school, and the year I started my residency at UC San Francisco.
Q. Who was your childhood hero?
A. I was a big basketball fan, so Bill Bradley was a big idol because he was a scholar/athlete and part of the Knicks dynasty.
Q. What’s your perfect Sunday morning?
A. A very leisurely read of The New York Times, from cover to cover, and with a nice pot of coffee, with maybe some bagels and smoked salmon and some fruit. That would probably be as good as it gets-with my family and our dog, sitting outside on our patio.
Q. To whom do you tell your secrets or make your confessions?
A. My wife especially but also my daughter, Sarah. We’re very close, so I confide in her quite a bit too.
Q. What’s your ugliest piece of furniture?
A. We have a couple of-not necessarily ugly-cane chairs that are very uncomfortable to sit in. We have a very ugly couch. We have quite a few pieces of ugly furniture that need to go.
Q. Who sings the soundtrack to your life?
A. I’m really into soul music-songs like Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long”-and I’m a big Marvin Gaye fan. A lot of that music is about love and passion, emotion-so that would probably be my soundtrack, that type of music and the message.
*Photo by Aaron Salcido.