pathology regarding the right heart valve( tricuspid). He thought for a second and then told me,“ Let me call down to the vegetable farm.” He was referring to the clinic of junkies that had bacteria on their valves from dirty needles that literally ate away at their valves. Wow, did we get some great pathology to show that day but I always thought it was funny that he referred to them as the vegetable farm!
Church, Moscow, Russia Photo by Barry Epstein
Mobile Wood, Mobile Alabama Photo by Barry Epstein
Siesta, Malaga, Spain Photo by Barry Epstein
The company was then sold to Johnson and Johnson and I was helpful in presenting the company’ s technology prior to the purchase. I was then promoted to the head of marketing communications to include trade shows and all communications to the 30,000 US based cardiologists. I radically changed our marketing thrust which went from product features to educational, specifically identifying the vast and growing clinical applications of Doppler Echo. The company then purchased another ultrasound company that was involved in obstetrics, gynecology and radiology and my ultrasonography background was very useful for this. I was responsible for more than 300 trade shows a year however two were the biggest. There were around 30,000 cardiologists attending one show and 50,000 radiologists attending the other. At the time, I didn’ t realize that I was making history with clinically validating and bringing to the worldwide markets a new and proven diagnostic technique in cardiology- Color Doppler Echocardiography- that has been deemed the gold standard for many years.
Business trips overseas were always exciting as I was able to explore several countries. On my first visit to Europe I was sitting in business class up on the top deck of the 747 and I was sitting next to the executive Vice President. He asked me if I had ever been to Europe and I said no. He suggested that I take one of these pills and I would wake up in Amsterdam. Well, I complied with his advice and took the pill. I awoke about 4 hours later with drool running down my chin and I mumbled something to him like are we there yet? He replied that he has some bad news and that we have had some mechanical issues and we had been sitting on the runway for the entire time! After this incident, I never take a sleeping pill until we are airborne. We had a great trip as we spent a couple of days in Amsterdam roaming around and then we drove to a beautiful little town called Delft that had cobble stone streets and bridges, incredible buildings, blue pottery and gouda cheeses. Our final destination was Rotterdam as I was to give a presentation at Erasmus University. Rotterdam was modern and not that nice as it was rebuilt after being bombed in World War 2.
On separate trips I was sent to Malaga in Spain, London, Versailles, Munich, and Moscow and I was able to take my Hasselblad camera with me on most of these trips as well as domestic travel. In Moscow, I met Brezhnev’ s cardiologist just months before Brezhnev died of a heart attack! The Moscow trip was to attend the World Congress of
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