Читать книгу Welcome Home From Vietnam, Finally - Gus Kappler MD - Страница 10

The third and fourth years of medical school were more clinical, hands on, and a time to decide on one’s specialty. I administered anesthesia, did research in colon surgery, rotated through the notorious Bellevue Hospital, and reaffirmed my passion for surgery. I sought out a hospital where I would operate from day one and chose to apply for a surgical residency headed by Dr. David Hume at the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) in Richmond, Virginia. Dr. Hume had participated in the world’s earliest kidney transplants, directed a universally renowned kidney transplant department, and as chief of surgery was the ultimate teacher. He was also instrumental in redefining death.

Traditionally, death was defined as the stoppage of the heart. The concept of brain death in a patient with a beating heart was essential to move the field of transplant surgery forward. The courts became involved and accepted the change. With this new definition, even though the patient’s brain was dead, his organs were being kept viable and available for transplant.

My first rotation at MCV as an intern was neurosurgery, and I covered the emergency departments (ED). In the sixties, there were two EDs, for segregation was alive and well in Richmond. My first surgery was to drill holes in the skull of a gentleman with a subdural hematoma to relieve the pressure. This was done in the ED as an emergency for the patient was crashing. He did well.

During my third and fourth years in medical school, Robin taught elementary school on 117th Street in Spanish Harlem. She’d often ask me what the new expressions meant that she heard the children utter. Back then it would be perfectly acceptable to have students visit our apartment and even travel to Long Island to visit Robin’s family. She almost blew an FBI investigation across the street from the school by pointing out and complaining of strange men in the boy’s bathroom and interference on the TV monitor. Kimberly Ann Kappler was born on May 15, 1965, just before my graduation. I felt sorry for Robin’s OB GYN for he was favored by most of the pregnant noninsuredmedical-student wives. God bless Dr. Davis. We did gift him a small Steuben-cut glass piece.