Yesterday we lost a colleague who was larger than life. He was the kind of teacher that made you feel like you were an Olympic surgeon even when truthfully you were still a floundering novice with waterwings in the shallow end. Nothing much ruffled his feathers in the operating room. If you got to be with him in the OR you knew you were in for a good day and that you would feel more competent leaving the building than you did walking in.
I didn't just rely on his confidence as a resident. There were numerous times as an attending that he came and saved my butt. As I got better and relied on the skills he taught me more and more the times I called him were less frequent but the stakes were also typically higher. In some of my most difficult cases in my career (thus far) he was with me, in the thick of it, standing under the same hot surgery lights together. He always came. You never had to worry he wasn't going to come and help. He would always saunter in, scrub pants slung a little too low, wafting cologne, sometimes eating an apple or drinking coffee from a styrofoam cup and then when he realized he'd have to take a good look at the situation he would take his spectacles from around his neck and clasp them over the bridge of his nose to see what was really going on.
He was the person who encouraged me to go into Pediatric Gynecology. He told me about all the cool surgeries he had seen happen in paediatrics and thought it would be a good fit. He sat on the phone with me once for 45 minutes telling me in granular detail about how to approach getting a fellowship and job in this area. Very few people would suspect it was him but his approval and encouragement propelled me forward. We would talk while he did paperwork in his "office" in the men's locker room at the Old Women's Hospital. He was inappropriate like that and in so many other ways. He would constantly say inappropriate things but there was never any weight behind them because he would crumble into a pile of blushing embarrassment with any witty retort from me. I got used to calling him "Old Man" especially over the last year when he started looking more like one.
Our OR days were on the same day and invariably at some point during one of his breaks between cases he would come in to my OR and see what I was up to. He would always tease me that I was doing something laparoscopically that could be done 10x faster with a cut on the belly. There was often a warm pat on the shoulder on his way out the door back to his own OR. He was terribly stuck in the old ways of surgery even though he had every stitch of skill required to learn the new way. He would tease me but also be a bit proud that I would persist at getting something out laparoscopically that he would think was too big. I was always proud to tell him that I did it - like a toddler reporting back - and he was always begrudgingly amused. I was still reporting back this past Friday night when I texted him about a great case that went perfectly and thanking him for making me a surgeon. He saw that text before he died on Saturday and I'm so thankful I told him how much I appreciated all that he taught me.
We found out he had passed on Monday morning and everyone was shocked but not surprised. He didn't want to tell us he was unwell but we all knew. He gave a lot to his work - he was allowed to keep some things to himself. I think I will remember that day for a long time because I had the most "him" day that is possible to have. I spent the morning in the procedure room he worked in every week for decades. The staff were all choking back emotion but it was obvious. So obvious that I told my first patient of the day what had transpired. She was so gracious and kind. So often we heal patients but they heal us a bit too - that was certainly the case here. "It'll be like he's with us" she said. He would have wanted us to keep working and that's what we did.
My afternoon had a surgical surprise that turned a 45 minute case into a 5 hour one. This type of case is not usually a surprise and involves a lot of planning but obstetrics is full of surprises and we certainly got one yesterday. It was the type of case he was known for and I would have called him but then had the deepest of realizations that I could not call him. The man who always came when I needed help, who would have certainly come for this, couldn't come. I had to take a deep breath and know that he taught me everything I needed to know in that moment and to just get on with it. And I did. I could do it...even without him. I don't know if you ever feel ready until you have to be and what I wouldn't give to report back to him on that case. I will miss the reassurance of his pat on the shoulder in the OR. I hope he was smiling down through those surgical lights in OR 1.
He touched countless lives - he saw women at their most desperate and had the skills to help them. He taught us and as his students we have fanned out across this country and across the world. His impact is not measurable - it's felt every time we pick up a scalpel or teach a resident and reverberates for generations. Rest well Old Man.
