Heroes are everywhere, and many are in medicine

AMA Leader Commentary. By By John C. Nelson MD, MPH, March 21, 2005.

AMA LEADER COMMENTARY

A few words about current events in medical practice

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A message to all physicians from AMA President John C. Nelson, MD, MPH.

Google the word "hero" and you'll find more than 21 million references ranging from military, police and fire heroes to thoughts of the ancient philosophers. Each of us has heroes in our lives.

They call them everyday heroes, the people who act out what the late tennis great, Arthur Ashe, described when he said, "True heroism is remarkably sober, very un-dramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost."

Let me tell you about a few heroes in my life. No. 1 would be my father, Dean F. Nelson, MD, the first obstetrician to become board-certified in Utah back in the early 1950s. He was not only my hero, he was a hero to his patients, revered for his sensitivity, expertise and the outstanding results he obtained.

Dad died at age 56 -- they day before I was to present my senior resident paper dedicated to him. Unfortunately, he never heard it. In those too-few years I knew him, he typified for me what a professional physician was and is and could accomplish.

Another hero would be my most memorable professor, Morton A. Stenchever, MD. A giant in the field of medical genetics, Dr. Stenchever was an educational innovator whose overhaul of the obstetrics curriculum at the University of Utah Medical School took an average program to among the top five in the nation in ob-gyn test results.

A great teacher, he knew the best way to get people to learn is to turn them into teachers. He taught his residents how to teach, making them tutors and mentors to the medical students following in their footsteps. His was a quiet heroism built day by day in countless ways. By moving the fulcrum, so to speak, he leveraged his knowledge, multiplied his effectiveness and remains a hero of medical education to this day.

A third would be my wife's physician, Richard M. Hebertson, MD, who had a profound effect on the way I practice medicine. Personable, witty and thorough, he uses his charming personality to interview his patients in depth, not only gaining routine data but probing in a gentle way to determine the quality of a patient's life, if there were troubles at home, whether domestic violence was present.