(continued from page 29)
to this day.
In Louisville, Dr. Grimaldi spent his first year as an intern at St. Jo-
seph Infirmary (now Norton Audubon), practicing general medicine.
He became acclimated to his new world quickly but not without a few
speed bumps. “I made friends with many of the interns. They were very
funny. I didn’t know much about slang culture, and it all seemed to be
about baseball. They’d say, ‘The patient is out in left field,’ then look at me
because they knew I had no idea what it meant. Now I know that means
the patient is cuckoo, but then I didn’t know! Another was ‘right off the
bat.’ What’s that?” he laughed.
“For three months, I had headaches. I wasn’t understanding or making
myself understood too well. Then the eureka light bulb came on. I was
voted ‘Best Intern’ at the end of the year. That told me this is a place you
could work hard and be rewarded.”
During a residency at the same hospital, Dr. Grimaldi began to develop
a working relationship with Dr. Charles Dobbs and Dr. Ellis Fuller, both
hematologists and pioneers in the specialty for the state of Kentucky. They
helped him find a position at the University of Louisville’s Hematology
Fellowship and in return he began working with their practice in 1977.
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LOUISVILLE MEDICINE