Friends, I am posting two units this week to break the monotony of the series. One is Number 9 in the series on Life's lessons - Who taught me what? The other is on Vedic mantras for meditation and prayer.
Dr. F. Howell Wright
Another
great person I came to know was Dr. F. Howell Wright, who was the Chairman of
the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Chicago. He taught me how a
person in position of authority and respect should treat others irrespective of
their positions.
After I
reached Binghamton NY for my internship, I applied to several hospitals for my
pediatric residency. University of Chicago (Bobs Roberts Hospital was its name at
that time. The name has changed twice since then) was one of them. One day, I received a phone call from Dr. Wright.
He said: “I am travelling by Binghamton on my way to Syracuse with my daughter.
I would like to stop by at your hospital and meet with you, since you may not
be able to come to Chicago for interview”. I was stunned, particularly coming from India
where most Professors sit on their “thrones” and look down upon juniors! He came to
my room and interviewed me. Then, called my local mentor Dr. Jim Johnson and
spoke with him.
Later, after
he reached Chicago, he offered a residency at the University of Chicago
Hospitals. By the time I heard from him I had accepted an offer from the
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. I could not accept the offer and I felt guilty
doing so. I felt so guilty that I decided to go and spend a year with Dr. Howell
Wright between my residency and fellowship years at CHOP (1960-61). I am so
glad I did. For one thing, I learnt many more things from him about kindness, compassion
and, clinical medicine. I also learnt important differences between private
practice-based medicine (CHOP) and medicine as practiced by fully paid staff
(University of Chicago).
Dr.
Howell Wright was a Quaker who had studied at Haverford College, Haverford, Pa.
He was such a great gentleman and Statesman. He was President of the American Board
of Pediatrics for a few years. After he retired, he came
back to the Philadelphia area and lived at the Kendall (Longwood). Ramaa and
myself used to visit him often. Those
visits also taught us to consider living our senior years at a
place like the Kendall. Now here I am at the Cokesbury Village.
Dr.
Thomas McNair Scott
Dr. McNair
Scott was a great clinician and a researcher. We (me and Ramaa) used to be
invited to his home during holidays. There we will meet
trainees from several parts of the world and our discussions used to be very
stimulating and interesting about various countries and their cultures. That is
where both of us learnt why it is important to invite trainees to our home and
get to know them and get educated in the process. We had many sessions in our
house with pediatric and rheumatology trainees and recreated the experience we had
in Dr. Scott’s house.
Once I
visited Dr. Scott when he was 98 years old and was living in a Senior Home. I
found that he was learning sign language. When I asked “why”, he said: “Balu, several
people here do not hear well. That is why I am learning sign language so I can
communicate with them”. The lesson for me was: “if he can learn at 98, none of
us have excuse for not learning something new at any age”.
One other
influential teacher at CHOP was Dr. Samuel X.Radbill. He instilled an
interest in the history of medicine in me. He was the one who told me that the
world’s first pediatrician was Jivaka, who was the personal physician to
Buddha. Dr. Radbill also gave me a copy of Kashyapa Samhita in which
this fact is mentioned. If you go to Bangkok, you can see a statue of Jivaka in
a sitting position at the entrance to the famous Golden Buddha shrine.
Dr.
Radbill’s interest was in the history of medicine. He has written several
articles on this subject. (I have given a collections of historic articles written
by him and some historic books on medical subjects to the Library at the
Nemour’s Children’s Hospital). He also had a collection of valuable first
printing (that means soon after invention of the printing press) of of medical books in his personal library whch I had the privilege of seeing and touching.
Experiences
at the Children’s Seashore House (CSSH) and Dr. Henry Cecil
Dr. Cecil
gave me strong education on the grounding principles of chronic care and
coordination of care. Later he helped me become effective in Family-centered, Community-based, culturally sensitive, Coordinated care of children with rheumatic
diseases.
The therapists at the CSSH taught me several things such as: In chronic care in which several professionals are involved, we need one coordinator and decision maker; Parents need one person to talk to. (That is how I started developing the idea of a Nurse Coordinator); Most children with chronic and less common conditions live far away from big cities and academic centers. Therefore, academic centers should develop outreach services. (We conducted such clinics in Pennsylvania for over 20 years); Parents of children with newly diagnosed chronic conditions need support to cope with the impact of the condition on the patient, siblings, parents, and the school system. That realization resulted in the development of Parent support groups.
I had one bad
experience at the Children’s Seashore House which taught me the difference between ambition and vision. I realized that ambition is
self-centered; vision is “other” centered. Vision also needs ambition. But
ambitious people are interested only in their ego and personal advancement.
People with vision care about the “whole” picture and everyone around.
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