OPINION
poke your eye out on an IV pole every second in those ICUs ( or threaten to have someone else ’ s poked out if he did not relinquish his improving patient ’ s bed to your dying GI bleeder in the MEC , stat ).
The roof was locked , but we got up to the 16 th floor , where once in a while you could sleep for a few minutes . The stairwells are the same ! They even smelled the same .
We joined the noon conference , where a formerly imprisoned woman spoke on the criminally dreadful state of Georgia ’ s inmate medical care . After 50 minutes , depressed and starving after my 0500 breakfast , I snuck out and , convinced that no actual housestaff would now appear , snagged one of their unclaimed chicken burritos and scarfed half of it down .
Then we met up with Henry and Mike and went to Emory University Hospital in the fancy part of town . Amazingly , and because they have built a new high-tech tower , the hallways and the whole place looked unchanged . From the back of Emory you can walk through the Lullwater Estate and end up at the VA , which was all renovated as well . But we scored a picture of Mike under the sign for the VA Eye Clinic , where he had first met his future wife , an eye doctor . He looked really handsome and really happy in that photo .
Mike is from Louisville ( St . X grad ); we talked as we walked , and he reminded me that I had been his first Grady resident when he was a total rookie , July 1 , 1987 , at Grady , feeling lost in the halls , suffocated by the workload and scared he would hurt somebody . He was so grateful then , he said , to end up with a UofL person who understood where he was coming from , who had his back 1,000 %, who understood the painful desperation of homesickness and who could translate for him what our patients meant when they “ talked Grady ” ( the “ poor ” blood , the “ weak ” blood , the “ bad ” blood , the “ thin ” blood and their “ grinds ” complaints , for instance ).
As an intern himself , he took care of Ty Cobb , and they became friends . Many of you have read his musings in The Green Journal for the American Journal of Medicine . He ’ d published probably a hundred but collected 35 for us : Wives Know and Second Opinion , one of my favorites , which he closes with this statement : “ From that day to this , I guard against thinking of patients as interesting . Diseases are interesting . Patients are sick .”
Dr . Hardison started each VA Morning Report ( second-year residents ran the medicine wards there and were on the hot seat , having admitted overnight ) by putting the patient ’ s chest film up on the viewbox for all to study . He ’ d listen to your brief recitation and then thunder , “ Whatdja do THAT for ??!!” as you shrank down in distress . Sometimes , he meant it , and sometimes , he was joshing . He taught me more about maneuvers to enhance the physical exam than anyone I ’ d met yet . I told him , last week , that my patients here had asked me , incredibly often , why I did such an extensive physical exam – “ Nobody ‘ every ’ did that before , why ’ d you do that part ?”
My answer to them was , “ I was taught by the best , who themselves were taught by giants of American medicine – Eugene Stead and the like .”
All of us in medicine stand on the shoulders of giants . All of us bear a duty to carry on , to teach the young , to maintain the standard , to model what truly caring means . Ask yourself : could you let a medical student shadow you ? Could you teach a nurse practitioner student how to take a pulse ? They all need you .
After all , one day , we ’ ll need them .
Dr . Barry is an internist and Associate Professor of Medicine ( Gratis Faculty ) at the University of Louisville School of Medicine , currently retired and mulling her next moves .
I was amazed to discover that my compatriots had not had nightmares , years later , of being summoned to the MEC by the Admitting Resident ’ s voice growling “ 4055 , 4055 , 4055 ” from the beeper . And none of them remembered either the Emory hospital artificial-voiced paging system , Simon , who talked so slowly that I had murder always in my heart . “ 6-----6-----7-----7-----niiiiiiiiiiiiiiine , PLEASE call extension 3 …… 5 …… 8 …… SIX !” It ’ s a credit to my mother that I did not throw that beeper against the wall . I ’ d have been ashamed to tell her , after all .
But the best came last : the next day we had lunch with Dr . Joe B . Hardison , who ’ d been our Chief of Medicine at the VA for , well , forever . He is now 89 , just recently widowed , and his ability to tailor an encyclopedic physical exam to each patient is legendary .
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