He began shaping my life when I was seventeen.
My uncle had told him I wanted to be a doctor. Around midnight a few weeks
later I was awakened. “There has been a terrible accident. A man is badly
hurt. Do you want to help in surgery?”
Gentle reader entertain conjecture
of a time unburdened by paper work, a time free of medical malpractice suits, a
time when physicians not the government or insurance companies determined what
was best for the patient, a time when a good history and physical examination
preempted diagnostic tests. Contemplate when a simpler time rendered medicine
fun and fulfilling.
The era you have imagined had no pagers, no cell phones, no
fax machines, no computers, no copiers, and no highway patrol with radar guns.
The roads were narrow and poorly marked. The cars had no seat belts.
Under this veil of simplicity a
middle-aged man taking a curve in a country road too fast was thrown from his
car. A telephone poll made him a wishbone. He entered the operating room with a
ripped pelvis, two fractured hips, a ruptured spleen and assorted other
injuries considered major on an ordinary Saturday night.
That man’s misadventure introduced
me to the mystery, majesty, and magic of surgery. Except for
back-seat-of-the-car moon flooded nights that surgical experience was the most
fun I had as a teenager.
After that I worked as his surgical
assistant for four summers. In addition to the routine gall bladders,
appendectomies, and bowel and bladder surgery, we also repaired abdominal aneurisms,
patched those gored by bulls, thrown from horses, flipped by tractors, bit by
mules, and hit over the head with beer bottles.
I went with him on house calls. I
sat up with him at night watching over gravely ill patients. I was there when
he told the family that their loved one had inoperable cancer and when we
visited the homes of those who had died. I helped with autopsies and worked in
his lab. By the time I was in medical school I had seen and done more than a
first year surgical resident.
His hands
were small but powerful and steady, always steady. He worked methodically and meticulously. Like
a chess master he had five or six moves planned ahead. He was always on the
offensive, defeating disease, death, and destruction. He never hurried yet he finished
his cases in record time. I never saw him flustered or tired. After a long
night of trauma surgery he was eager to start on the scheduled gall bladders
and hernias.
I was not blinded to his
faults. He was sloppy. Each new day his hair competed with his clothes for most
rumpled. He slumped. Slurred his speech. Chain-smoked. He burped and scratched
at the most inopportune times. His deficiencies would have rendered Emily Post
speechless.
Although he pioneered several
surgical techniques his empirical approaches remained unknown because he was
the least of self-promoters, if that’s a fault. Grimes county citizens and
those that lived beyond had no idea that a surgical Michelangelo lived among
them.
Of all those professional
experiences that are a pleasure to recall my time with Leonard loom largest. He
taught the character and skills of a good physician. He was a modest, kind
gentlemen most informal in his daily contacts beloved by just about everyone
who looked forward to his visits that offered encouragement, optimism and hope
to all he met. To relieve suffering and to heal the sick—that was Leonard’s
work.
Memory can be a perpetual stimulation for living life well. A
yearning for past experiences can be relieved by enthusiasm for things yet
undone.
