EP205, Harley Rotbart: Using Coincidences to Live without Regret

A renown Pediatrician offers coincidence awareness as a key to No Regrets Living. Some astounding medical coincidences illustrate this idea.

In this episode, Harley Rotbart discusses phenomenal medical coincidences and relates them to the question of fate. He also addresses the problems with the Law of Very Large Numbers: the favorite explanation for coincidences by statisticians. This “law,” which cannot be proven, asserts that the strange events will inevitably occur in our busy world with its infinite opportunities for overlapping events.

Connecting with Coincidence with Bernard Beitman, MD (CCBB) is now offered as both an audio podcast--anywhere that podcasts are available--and in video format on the Connecting with Coincidence YouTube channel. Please SUBSCRIBE to our channel to be notified when future episodes are posted! Also available, there are 138 archived episodes of the CCBB podcast available, HERE.

Our guest Dr. Harley Rotbart has been a nationally renowned infectious diseases specialist, pediatrician, parenting expert, speaker, and educator for nearly four decades. He is Professor and Vice Chair Emeritus of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Colorado. He is the author of more than 175 medical and scientific publications, and five previous books for general audiences: Miracles We Have Seen; 940 Saturdays; No Regrets Parenting; Germ Proof Your Kids; and, The On Deck Circle of Life, which was endorsed by baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, Jr. Dr. Rotbart was named to Best Doctors in America for 18 consecutive years, as well as receiving numerous other national and local awards for research, teaching, and clinical work. He serves on the Advisory Boards of Parents Magazine and Parents.com and makes numerous media appearances every year, including two media tours with American Idol finalists to promote influenza prevention and two appearances on the Dr. Oz Show to discuss medical miracles. Dr. Rotbart writes his own blog at www.harleyrotbart.com. “Coach Harley” coached youth baseball and basketball for 16 years, including 8 years at the high school level. Dr. Rotbart and his wife, Sara, live in Denver, Colorado, and are the parents of three big kids and the grandparents of three little kids. Learn more at https://www.harleyrotbart.com.

Our host Dr. Bernard Beitman is the first psychiatrist since Carl Jung to attempt to systematize the study of coincidences. He is Founding Director of The Coincidence Project. His book, and his Psychology Today blog, are both titled Connecting with Coincidence. He has developed the first valid and reliable scale to measure coincidence sensitivity, and has written and edited coincidence articles for Psychiatric Annals. He is a visiting professor at the University of Virginia and former chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He attended Yale Medical School and completed a psychiatric residency at Stanford. Dr. Beitman has received two national awards for his psychotherapy training program and is internationally known for his research into the relationship between chest pain and panic disorder. Learn more at https://coincider.com.