Dr. Morton Kasdan
S
EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION AWARD
urgeon Dr. Morton
Kasdan credits his mentor, the late Dr. Harold
Kleinert, with teaching him
never to give up. In 1991, Stephen Powell experienced Kasdan’s skill and tenacity when
the Centre College glass artist
accidentally pushed his hand
through a window, and Kasdan
helped motivate him following
successful surgery. The artist regained full use of his hand, and
says he owes his career to Kasdan, who became a friend. “I look up
to him as an artist,” Powell says, because of his approach to surgery,
and to life, with skill, creativity and compassion.
About 15 years ago, Kasdan noticed that medical students weren’t
being taught how to hold surgical instruments or how to handle
tissue, so he started offering weekly Sunday suture workshops at his
home. Now, about 100 students apply through a lottery each year
for four to six slots per four-week session. The students learn not
only how to handle a surgical needle, but how to handle themselves
as doctors. Kasdan gives them his own printed “Advice You Won’t
Find in Medical Textbooks,” which begins, “Professionalism does
not arrive with your white coat; it is a behavior, an attitude that
requires effort.”
Kasdan also teaches University of Louisville medical students and
residents at the Louisville Veteran’s Administration Medical Center,
where Chief of Surgery Dr. Earl Gaar, who worked for Kasdan as a
college grad, also considers him a mentor. “He’s not just influenced
me,” Gaar says. “He’s influenced hundreds of people.” Lexington
surgeon Dr. Theo Gerstle, one of Kasdan’s original Sunday suture
workshop students, credits Kasdan with his decision to become a
plastic surgeon. Of the trim and diminutive Kasdan, Gerstle says,
“It’s hard to quantify how huge a human being he is.”
Dr. Rosemary Ouseph
COMPASSIONATE PHYSICIAN AWARD
D
r. Rosemary Ouseph says
she was attracted to nephrology as a medical
specialty because it enables a
physician to do “total patient
care.” It’s clear that what Ouseph
means by “total patient” goes
beyond an individual’s physical
health.
In her role as Director of the
Clinical Transplantation and
Kidney Disease Program at the
University of Louisville, Ouseph
oversees some 70 kidney transplants a year, and is as concerned
about the emotional well being of patients as she is about the physical
challenges, which can include the potentially deadly risk of organ
rejection. Ouseph is so skilled at handling the effects of any sort of
transplantation on the lives of patients that she also works with U
of L’s hand transplant program.
Dr. George Aronoff, former Chief of U of L’s Division of Nephrology, explains that transplantation, starting with getting on
the waiting list for a kidney, through surgery and follow-up care,
is extremely complex. Patients need an indefatigable advocate, he
says, “and Rosemary is that.”
The recipient of two kidney transplants, Andreas Price, 49, says
Ouseph’s “calming spirit” put him at ease when he came under her
care some 20 years ago. Price knows a thing or two about spirit:
He’s an ordained minister, and says Ouseph gives patients and their
families the time they need to understand and get comfortable with
the long, potentially risky process of transplantation.
Ouseph relishes the transformation of a patient’s life when a successfully transplanted kidney can take the place of dialysis, which
patients must undergo multiple times a week. “People are putting
their whole faith that you will take care of them,” she says. “Taking
care of kidney transplant patients is the best of all worlds.”
THE DOCTORS’ BALL
The Doctors’ Ball will be held on Saturday, October 18th at The Louisville Marriott Downtown. The event begins
with cocktails and silent auction at 6:30 p.m., followed by dinner, awards, and dancing until midnight with Body
& Soul. Tickets are $250. The charity event benefits the Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s Foundation, which focuses
on enhancing patient care, funding medical resear