At The Hospital
The standard salutation
Ask The Professor “How are you”? You know that his standard response is “trying to survive”. So now whenever The Professor greets any acquaintance in the hospital, the response to him is “trying to survive”. And his response is “you appear to be doing a very good job at it”.
And he still appears to be doing a very good job at surviving. A recent comment is that retirement must be a desirable thing. With his crew-cut he was told you appear 15 years younger. He was always told by young nurses and young PAs, “but you still look so young”. He always acknowledges the comment with a smile.
This always reminds me of my mother who told me “if you are told you are slow, be reminded that it is because you take after your father. If he was any faster, you would be 15 years older.” Anyway, the good thing is that the same nurses and PA’s who tell The Professor that he looks so young, tell me that I look so old. This would make my mother very happy appearing to make up for lost years. But I tell the nurses and PA’s that of late he is always in his suite at meetings while I remain in the OR in scrubs. I am therefore almost always sterile.
The Professor continues with his lab experiments. Later I will make reference to his experiments for his four children. I have two children. He has heard my standard response to the frequent question: how many children do you have. My response is always “two known.” I hope to have more children than The Professor by a factor of the “unknown”.
OR: Blood transfusion
Standard protocol for bleeding at breast surgery
“Call for two units of blood. Call the blood bank at 1639.”
No on seems to know that The Professor’s phone extension is 1639. With The Professor operating in the OR, the phone call for blood is never answered. The nurse always responds: “No one picks up the phone.”
“Patient needs a transfusion, keep dialing.”
Anesthetists and nurse anesthetists also try that extension for packed RBCs. For all calls to the Blood Bank at extension 1639 there is always only a dial tone.
No secretary
For all the years that he was Associate Director of Surgery he had no personal secretary. And he needed a secretary because of the way he types. In retirement he still will be picking-and-pecking with index fingers, eyes latched onto his keyboard sitting at his computer in the basement. Hopefully the email notification “FYI with attachment” is now an unnecessary subject line.
Scottish Restaurant
It is lunch break. While he is operating, the OR nurses are changing over. “By the way, you know that there is free food at the Scottish restaurant. Don’t you like Scottish food?”
“But I don’t know of any Scottish restaurant around here.”
“You don’t know that Scottish restaurant McDonald’s? Go there and ask for a plate. They announced that for now the food is free. You didn’t hear the overhead announcement?”
The nurse returns from lunch-break complaining that when she inquired at the McDonald’s cashier she was told there was no free food today.
“You should then ask for the food on Account 109. You didn’t know that?” This is The Professor’s restaurant account number. It is the account number he uses to purchase the carrot cakes the nurses always get from him. I am sure he wants to tell you that if you are not satisfied with the cafeteria’s menu today then just find your way to the Scottish restaurant and place your order to Account 109. I assure you, you won’t be disappointed.
The Plaza
“How could you not have heard of The Plaza. At times its additional stalls extend into the adjacent subway station. For its current location, just Google it. Google for The Plaza.”
The Plaza is recommended to any doctor, resident, student, or nurse who appears to be short-sighted at the EMR on the computer monitor or who appears to be short-sighted at surgery. The spectacles required to correct short-sightedness sell for at most 2 dollars in The Plaza. Most items at The Plaza sell for no more than 99 cents. Then if 99 cents is not good enough for you, you could always go across the street to Pay-With-Coupons instead of going to Payless.
Church
“My Resident is a priest. Didn’t you know that he has his own church.”
The nurse responds “No, I don’t know. Doctor, what is the name of your church? By any chance of luck is my church your church?”
“Maybe. My church is Church of the Painted Breast”. After a pause, the rest is said only to those for whom there is any hope for conversion, not to the pious: “To become a member of my church, my committee has to nominate you. Nomination requires consideration of a selfie taken with your breasts painted circumferentially in your or your parents’ national colors. For most of you here burning with the desire for membership, paint your breasts like a target with red, white and blue concentric circles covering the entire breast. Then email the selfie to the nomination committee. And don’t forget the application fee of 40 dollars. There is no capping to the application fee; i.e., you can submit as much as you can afford. Consider that applications are prioritized highest fees first. It has always been a first come first serve. Additionally, membership guarantees yearly tide: 10% of salary donated tax free to the Church of the Painted Breast. Be reminded that during services and during festivities mandatory offerings of members are scaled according to the aesthetics of the psychedelic parading breasts. Offerings are not based on cup-size. A single-cup sized breast is known to have won the MEGA.”
To some this jargon sounds like a Nigerian Article 4-1-9 violation, that is fraud. “Not in America (said with a Nigerian accent). There could be nothing fraudulent here since the Church of The Painted Breast is registered as a tax exempt religious entity.”
Breast and Cardiac Surgeons
The Professor need not worry about the form the wreath will take over the hearse at his funeral – it will be shaped in the form, his PAs tell me, of a huge breast given that he is a Breast Surgeon. On top the hearse will be gorgeous yellow, and black roses and tulips on a backdrop of green fronds and palms forming a beautiful breast. For all his Cardiac Surgeon colleagues at the Heart Center there are wreaths in the shape of huge hearts.
The Real Professor
This reminds me of his long-time, noble gynecologist friend, the South African born, Dr. Ubuntu. Dr. Ubuntu in his impressive South African accent, “How is the Professor?”.
“He is in his office ‘trying to survive’.”
“But you know that here many want to be called Professor. Many are called professor, but here there is only one Real Professor”. Dr. Ubuntu says this with much conviction.
Professor, Professor Emeritus, Regius Professor
A few years ago he would refer to his close colleagues as professors. In return he would be teased Professor Emeritus, because of course he always was the True Professor. With a British colonial background it must have appeared to him somewhat odd that no one here referred to him as Professor. Of course he is now Professor Emeritus. If he now called anyone Professor Emeritus, I have for him the salutation Regius Professor to the Crown. I would say that if for this Regius Professor there was not the absolute requirement for professorship at Oxford or at Cambridge, then he would have achieved this highest accolade. It goes without saying that The Professor has all the academic titles. His achievements also include the highest national civilian award bestowed by the Nigerian government. And I think this is the award he is most proud of.
History of The Hospital
I recall when The Professor wrote the History of The Hospital for the “Brothers” of the Society of Black Academic Surgeons (SBAS), as he calls co-members of SBAS. The Editor of the Journal of the National Medical Association (JNMA) commented on his prompt and until then only response from the many to whom a request for the history was made. The Editor then said he saw why his accompanying CV was so long. If the then CEO of The Hospital new this, The Professor would have had to answer the question “Where did you find the time to write so many papers?”.
M&M and Basic Science Lectures
He never misses M&M or Basic Science lecture. If he did its because there was a more important meeting elsewhere in the hospital. And it was said he would never become Head of Surgery because he would not tolerate the torture of administrative meetings. But then he was appointed head and his attendance and punctuality at administrative meetings became legendary. Surely he is missed.
He says he is the founder of the Basic Science Lecture Series for surgery residents. And he continued to select the surgical articles for the residents’ Journal Club. You could question the relevance of the articles. But he is reviewer for so many high-impact journals you question his choice at your disadvantage.
Office
Happiest on the computer – emails, forms and reports
The FYI emails were numerous. There was a member of the Surgery Staff that transferred out to another department. She implored: “Please send me no more FYIs”. How many colleagues longed for transfer out of his department for the same reason?
Organized – folders
So many manila folders that it took him a month and a half to clear out his office for retirement.
Delinquent
You want to annoy The Professor. Put him on a delinquent list. He also thinks others should be like him. Proof that this is not so are the repeat, numerous offenders in his FYI email lists with more than 50 unverified EMR notes each. The delinquents will say, what a relief; there are no more FYI emails after his retirement.
The Laboratory
Vacation – just to vacate the premise
Vacation from Hospital meant going to the monastery of the lab in the Black Building at 168th and Fort Washington. The times for vacation work were just longer, that is all. Regular working hours went to any time after 8 pm, 10 pm, midnight, wee hours of the morning, and included all weekends and holidays in between. Dr. Haddad, one of his life-long colleagues and now Professor Emeritus of Nuclear Medicine, and The Professor would drive to the airport to fetch radioactive lab research chemicals. When flights bringing in the radioactive material were delayed, they slept in the airport lobby, waiting for the material to arrive. These are times he must have been forced to have fast food. Know that The Professor only partakes of traditional Nigerian foods.
Articles and abstracts
About writing articles and abtracts for publication, there are events to relate. The best is that of the Japanese (I cann’t recall his name) fellow researcher who had little data from his transplantation experiments. That year the Transplantation Society was having its meeting in Japan. Other non-Japanese researchers had abstracts to present but the Japanese fellow had none. With little data The Professor wrote an abstract for him that was accepted for presentation. The Japanese fellow then presented at the World Transplantation Conference in Japan.
Then there was the year when The Professor’s lab had 4 abstracts accepted for presentation at the Surgical Forum of the Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons. This is when the Program Director asked The Professor, “How did you manage that?”
The Professor has no unpublished manuscript with his name on it. Every manuscript got published. One way to evaluate research effort and success is to look for published abstracts that never became published papers. The Professor has no abstract that did not culminate in a peer-reviewed published paper. Talk about perseverance.
Amazingly, first authors, like then Head of Department of Surgery, of first xenotransplantation fame, God bless his soul, come to The Professor for abstract content and presentation coaching for their abstracts. Now you know how and why he is Professor Emeritus.
ICU
Response to IMG’s with wrong answers to his guestions
The response to IMG’s with wrong answers to his questions was “Not in America. (Pause) Are you a Christian. Do you pray.” The Professor usually stepped slowly backwards with clasped praying hands awaiting another attempt at a response.
There was this bright student who instead of attempting another answer was moving forwards while The Professor retreated. The student instead of answering produced an out-stretched arm – “Be careful, Professor. Don’t fall”. The old ICU, had a low wall with a ledge around the base partially surrounding the cubicles. The student was genuinely concerned about the safety of his professor.
Question
“OK, there are a 101 complications of a blood transfusion. For you, just give me ten. One.”
The advice to PA and medical students rotating through ICU was to obtain a copy of the standard answers to the list of predictable questions The Professor asked. The notes are punctuated with the time that a joke would be made, and with the expected duration of the laughter, like a screen script.
Clinic: Breast exam
There is the PA’s story of The Professor examining a patient in his Breast Clinic. You were not to distract him with a question during his examination less he turned around to answer the question while rolling the nipple between thumb and index still looking for nodules.
Dining
Eating at Work
About snacks, The Professor does not have sweets. He also does not drink sodas, since he considers sodas sweets. I wondered whether he had gone beyond prejudice against food. Whether he was now an adviser to the Mayor promoting taxes on sodas. With no sweets he boasts that his visits to the dentist have only now began. As for drinks, he only has tea, preferably sweetened with honey. No alcoholic beverages. His food cannot have any semblance of fast food. Food must be traditional food. Hence, The Professor almost never has lunch at work. Food at work can only be fish, preferably steamed fish, and must include vegies, and/or fruits.
About the vending carts on the street corners, he says that before serving coffee the cart counter is cleaned with the same brown-white towel for as many moons as he has been at the Hospital. The towel is never washed. Of course The Professor has no food or drink from the vending carts. At work he has no food whatsoever.
He wouldn’t dine at the neighborhood buffet restaurant because, according to a colleague, the Homeless roam into that restaurant, touch, sample and mark food with body fluids.
Conferences and Hotels
In a Chicago hotel what was the reason for the high charge for his preferred tea compared to that for the coffee of others. He suggested to the waiter a charge of 2 dollars for a glass of ice-water.
Surgical Residency
Work ethic and punctuality
Being late for any appointment is a crime. The Professor is never late to work. He is always at work by 5:30 am. He does not leave work before 7 pm. The ostensible excuse for these times is avoidance of the George Washington Bridge traffic. This likely derives from a traumatic experience on the George Washington Bridge. The scene conjured is The Professor having an accident in proximity of the bridge. His crashed car is smoking out of the hood. For him the car was about to burst into flames. He jumps out of the car and runs away from it for dear life. Of course, he knows all about burns, and this has him run even faster. He ran so fast away from his burning car that the cops reached him with racing police cars blaring sirenes. The cops fetched him safely back to the scene of the accident avoiding a secondary pedestrian accident with him being hit by a motor vehicle. Since then he does not cross the Bridge during peak traffic hours. He expects everyone to be early at work when only some of his colleagues and few of his students have had such post-traumatic stress disorder.
Dress code
Coat and tie is a must. “Promise that as a student, resident and doctor you will never be seen in hospital outside the OR without a tie and white coat. You seem to have a preference for pyjamas.” For him scrubs are pyjamas not work clothes. Scrubs must certainly not be used outside the hospital.
Home
Children
But the question of where he found time to have four children is still a valid one. To have his cherished pattern of girl, boy, girl, boy, The Professor claims he used the tested and patented technique. I wonder who were the subjects generating the preliminary and the trial data for the technique. Anyone wishing to have kids of alternating gender are advised to review the manual. For the manual go to the website, assurance-of-progeny-gender. I wonder if visiting this website is the reason for his computer crashing so often.
His son
Now his son is the elephant in the room. I am the grass. Prior to his son having an accident, I told The Professor that a young accident patient of mine didn’t have to die. He should have had a craniotomy. There was failure to rescue that patient. That is the reason why PIs improve morbidity but still produce no gains in mortality. He argued otherwise. But he saw his son in a semicomatose state still communicate relevantly. The Professor was seeing and should now believe. Proof of the young brain’s plasticity. This was an experiment with one subject and no control. The result was 100% survival. This was The Professor’s greatest reward, greater than his highest Nigerian civilian award. His son should have total recovery. His son, my friend, greeted me in an admonishing way, “Hecto… Hecto… Hecto”.
Walk outside the hospital: The Mayor of the county
The Professor’s walks down the Avenue are always longer than I expect. After so many years in this neighborhood, there are many acquaintances on every block greeting “The Mayor”, the appellation given to him by one of his many patients.
“How are you. This is MY doctor.”
“Trying to survive. And how is your daughter.”
“She completed chemo and is now on Tamoxifen. She is doing well.”
“And her twin sister. How is she?”
“She passed on just a few months ago.”
“Sorry to hear. God bless her soul.”
“For all you have done for us, God bless you.”
As always his response was “And I need it.”
