Anyone who comes up with just one idea in his professional lifetime has always seemed
to have purloined it from another who likely has the string of ideas that the open mind
leads to, and is generous with them. I speak from experience as I have observed my fellow
pediatric urologists in the scramble for importance as imaginative residents present
surprisingly original ideas about surgical and diagnostic procedures they must master.
In my own case, the open mind has been a natural, and the curiosity that is thus
fueled seems to have no limit I hope I can demonstrate this as I write.
I had to be unusually fortunate, for neither of my parents put any importance on
ethnicity, color, or religious beliefs, to the degree that my father, the great
story teller, never used a dialect to make a story funny. Personal qualities of
character were all that mattered. The humor had to stand by itself, and national
characteristics of course played a part. However, moral values were never slighted.
A second family trait was the lack of any intent to push us boys to perfection
or to place burdens of ambition, beyond just doing the job, any job, and doing
it well. We were required to enjoy what we were doing. New ideas in any field
were always encouraged, though I must admit to my parents underlying yearning
that somehow one or more of us would become physicians. They were very sure
of the rewards possible when every moment you do something for someone.
And Uncle Bert Meads was the model, for he as the old time surgeon
practitioner had delivered me just as he was becoming a pioneer
in the Urology specialty. But I never felt the pressure, just pride in
little stunts I might have pulled of such as splinting a friend’s arm
after he fell off of the bars or flunking my First Aid Boy Scout test
as Mr. McIntyre demanded his scouts reach their full potentials.
Next page: The Transition..? Metamorphosis.
Introduction
Gifts from Inheritance
Gifts from Inheritance, page 2
Gifts from Inheritance, page 3
The Open Mind
The Transition..? Metamorphosis.
The Process of Getting There
1947....Discovery #1....A Beginning
Discovery #2 (1947): Thrombophlebitis and Pulmonary Embolism Prevention