Navy diver and diving medical officer.“ It was awesome training,” he said.“ But I was not built for it. It almost broke me.”
To this day, he considers Navy Dive School the hardest thing he has ever done. But the experience also opened doors to an adventure few physicians will ever experience. When a Navy research project sought volunteers to spend time aboard a submarine, he immediately signed up. He spent two months on a Trident missile submarine in the Pacific, participating in the research project.
“ It was unbelievable,” he said.“ I still think submarines are the greatest machine man’ s ever built.”
After completing his training, he was assigned to Submarine Group 7 in Japan, where he spent three years as a medical officer. He took shorter rides on attack submarines and immersed himself in a completely different culture and military community. He loved it. He also learned something that would prove invaluable in medicine: You don’ t have to know everything yourself.
“ You live and die by a team,” he said.
When he eventually left the Navy and came to Louisville for pediatric residency, the transition was jarring. He had spent three years overseas and was suddenly back in the American healthcare system. He hadn’ t taken care of small children in years. There were medications and lab tests he had never encountered. His belongings were still making their way from Japan on a ship.
“ I was really lost for about two months,” he said.
But the team around him helped him find his footing. He relied on his fellow residents, asking questions when he needed help. In return, his own experiences gave him knowledge they didn’ t have, particularly his experience with adult medicine. The lesson was familiar.
“ You learn to trust people that you don’ t even know, but you know they have your back,” he said.
That trust became particularly important as he developed his career in pediatrics and hospital medicine. He believes strongly that medicine isn’ t a place for the“ cowboy” mentality – the idea that the smartest or strongest physician should be able to handle everything alone.
“ The guy that wants to do it himself and cowboy it, that never works out,” he said.
Instead, effective medicine requires people to communicate, rely on one another and bring different strengths to the same problem. He sees that philosophy play out every day in his current role as Pediatric Division Chief and pediatric hospitalist with Norton Children’ s Hospital. His group has grown from seven physicians when he joined to 32 now.
“ We have a great team,” he said.“ We take very good care of our patients, have very little turnover and it’ s just a great group.”
Despite the administrative and academic responsibilities that come with leadership, he said the best part remains the same: seeing patients. His team practices family-centered rounds, with everyone on the team going into each room together, discussing the child’ s care with the family, answering questions and examining the patient.
“ We’ re seeing these families on their worst day,” he said.“ But if we can go in the room and put them at ease, to see the tension in the room dissipate, that’ s rewarding.”
It is another version of the same team lesson he learned in the Navy. Everyone has a role, everyone contributes and everyone works toward the same goal. In this case, the goal is to get
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