FEATURE
LA JOIE DID VIVRE AUTHOR Larry Griffin , MD
A
few times in a lifetime , if we are truly fortunate , we encounter people who , though we may not know it until decades later , have a profound effect on our understanding of the world around us and human nature … with both its faults and wonder . I have had the good fortune to meet many such people , though I have , unfortunately , at the time not always had the wisdom or vision to appreciate just how wonderful they were .
I entered practice as a confident , self-assured young physician , educated , well-trained , having just completed a residency and fellowship during which my clinical experiences could not possibly have been more extensive and diverse , mentored by giants in our specialty . I joined the most successful practitioner in the city , and possibly the state , and the two of us took on the world . I don ’ t know how he did it for so many years alone in practice . When I joined him , the workload he already had was more than sufficient for two busy obstetrician-gynecologists , and the overflow from patients he hadn ’ t been able to see quickly built a busy and quite successful practice for me as well . He welcomed me like a younger brother , taught me many things I didn ’ t know I even needed to know , and tolerated and even encouraged my new and sometimes wrong-headed ideas about the modern way to do things , even though he must have known , deep down , that he was teaching me even as he let me think I was teaching him . He and his wife welcomed me with open arms and
made me feel like I was doing them a favor by joining the practice , when it was clearly the other way around .
He never doubted what his goals were in life , and never wanted anything more , professionally , than to be the best doctor he could ever imagine , living to take care of his patients . He never sought academic fame or professional accolades , though he achieved a significant degree of both . He never even thought of leaving his practice for those greener pastures that many of us have sought over our careers . His pasture was the most beautiful green he could imagine , and he spent his entire career nurturing it , re-seeding when necessary , and at times , ridding it of the occasional mistakenly transplanted vegetation . He constantly provided it with the food and water of his own sweat , and on those rare occasions when he would leave it under the care of me or others who would come along in the future , he never let it leave his thoughts and mind . He lived to be his patients ’ doctor … and they absolutely loved him . I will believe until the day I die that he was just as excited to see his patients on the last day of his practice as on the first , and that the last patient he saw in practice believed , as all the others did , that he cared for her welfare and well-being more than any of his other patients . All of them felt like they must be his only patient because he recalled such details of their medical and personal lives .
He started and ended every day with a smile … you know , one of those smiles some people have that simply lights up the room . He was sincerely and joyously happy to be doing what he loved ... providing health care to women . Did he have stresses at times ? Sure
18 LOUISVILLE MEDICINE