Dr. Rondo with her daughter and grandmother.
Dr. Rondo mentoring her great niece Jalyn.
Dr. Spellman then returned to Louisville and the University’s
School of Medicine. Fortunately, she was surrounded by family
and good friends, because the next few years would continue to
challenge her in ways she couldn’t anticipate.
Medical school was very hard. It was like climbing a mountain,”
she said, looking back. “During my first year, my father had a
massive stroke. Six months later, he had another. I would soon
become one of his primary caregivers.”
Dr. Rondo and her father were extremely close, and she spoke
about his illness with an ache that remains even decades later.
“My dad was my rock,” she said. “In a way, he was my first
patient. As I was studying about the disease processes, the anatomy
and physiology, I’m turning that information around and applying
it to him. He would always say how proud he was of me. If I had
issues, I could always depend on him to lift me up. I was trying to
be the physician I’d want him to have.”
But, her father died just one week before she graduated from
medical school. Dr. Rondo used the time spent caring for her dad
in a positive way. “With his memory in mind, when I sit down with
patients now, I try to think ‘This is someone’s father or mother,
someone’s daughter or son’ no one is defined by just their illness.”
To move forward required a change of scenery, and where
better than New York City? Dr. Rondo arrived just a month after
her graduation for an internship and residency at New York
University’s Downtown Hospital, the closest medical center to
Wall Street and the World Trade Center.
“I was a resident tourist. I loved New York City. I made sure
to see as much as I possibly could, from the plays on Broadway to
the Statue of Liberty. I knew it was the center of the universe,” she
smiled.
Dr. Rondo was there, at the center of the universe, on one of the
most pivotal days of our nation’s history, September 11, 2001. Just
a day earlier, she had celebrated her 30 th birthday in Louisville and
flown back to New York City. She spent the evening of September
10 th out with friends in the shadow of the Twin Towers.
The next morning, she was attending a lecture about
mammography when it happened. “There was a big window in
the back of the auditorium. I was in the front, but could hear
people saying, ‘Oh my God.’ They could actually see the first plane.
Everyone was getting up to look. Eventually I did too and saw the
smoke coming out. We knew we had to get the hospital ready,
because our emergency room would be flooded with patients. We
Dr. Rondo and her great nephew, Kitrell,
shadowing her for the day.
went to the ER, talked to the attendings and got everyone triaged
very quickly.”
A few developments worked in the hospital’s favor. After
the attempted attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, more
experienced physicians at the facility knew a little of what to
expect when a crisis occurred. In addition, the hospital completed
disaster training just two weeks before September 11 th . Still,
nothing could prepare the team for the emotionally and physically
draining days and hours to come.
Recalling those monumental few hours, Dr. Rondo began,
“Before I could draft patients, I had to change. That required a trip
across the street to my apartment. I remember calling my brother,
because I had just heard a second plane hit the towers. That’s when
the fear came in. That’s when I felt like we were being attacked. I
told my brother, ‘I don’t know what’s going on, but tell everyone I
love them, and I have to go.’”
“I went back downstairs and started walking towards the World
Trade Center. I just wanted to see, to be nosey. I didn’t have the
vantage point of watching it on television. All of a sudden, I heard
a sound that in my mind sounded like missiles. In hindsight, it
was the building falling. Hundreds of people began running away
from the building. I did too. I remember thinking that, if this is the
end of my life, thank God I spent time with the people who really
mattered to me.”
Dr. Rondo was a fast runner. She’d competed in cross country
and track in high school. Whatever was coming, she was going to
outrun it if she could. “I was rolling past everyone as we ran away
from the towers. I was out of there,” she said. “I ran straight into
the hospital. I decided that if I was going to die, I was going to die
serving someone else. I didn’t leave the hospital for days.”
When she looked out the window that evening, for the first
time in hours, it looked like the middle of winter. What began as
a clear and beautiful day was now enveloped in smoke and ash.
“Whoever came in, we worked on. Some were burnt beyond
recognition. Some had limbs cut off. We had no idea if more
planes might be coming. It was very scary, but we got through it.”
After the attacks, Dr. Rondo’s initial desire was to stay in New
York City no matter what. But, as her residency concluded in 2002,
she began to think about what a family and home outside of the
big city might look like. Kentucky was sounding like a good idea.
(continued on page 40)
MAY 2019
39