doing rotations like nephrology and gastroenterology . In that final year of medical school , he researched general surgery programs , looking for places with strong emphasis on cardiac . He considered the University of Louisville , but landed on the University of Alabama at Birmingham , where the Chair of the Department of Surgery at the time was Dr . John Kirklin . In the 1950s , while at the Mayo Clinic , Dr . Kirklin performed the first series of open-heart operations using a heart-lung machine . Dr . Pollock was ecstatic to have the opportunity to train under such a legend in his field .
At the time , there was no match program for fellowship , and while he knew he wanted to pursue cardiac surgery , he knew he first had to get through his five years of general surgery . However , UAB had other plans .
“ I guess they just knew that I was going to do cardiac because on the last day of my internship , year one , a cardiac surgeon told me I was accepted to do my fellowship at UAB , so I knew then that I ’ d be staying there . I was a little bit dumbfounded that it happened so soon because I didn ’ t even apply .”
For the first three years , Dr . Pollock and his class of 20 junior
residents were on call every other night .
“ If you woke up at home , you knew you ’ d be at the hospital that night . If you woke up in the hospital , if you got any sleep , you knew you could go home that night . It was a tough residency .”
Over those three years , their class size dropped to just four residents and by year five , Dr . Pollock was Chief Resident . At that point , he was no longer sleeping in the hospital , unless he was on Trauma , but it was still just as intense with new responsibilities like managing junior residents and handling schedules with attendings . In his fourth year , UAB launched an air ambulance program .
“ The nights you weren ’ t on trauma call , you were on call to fly with the air ambulance . You would fly out to some place and bring a burn patient back or someone who was sick and needed emergency surgery . It was pretty busy those last few years .”
After finishing his general surgery residency in 1985 , he went straight into a one-year cardiac surgery fellowship , followed by a two-year residency in cardiac surgery . In the final two years , he was able to train under Dr . Albert Pacifico , known for his extremely high
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