President's Address: Knowledge, Compassion and Restless Spirit

Doris and I are the most fortunate people on the face of the Earth. We accept our good fortune with humility and a huge dose of gratitude. Would you imagine that 53 years ago, on June 30, 1955, I and my beautiful and young bride stepped on American soil for the first time at the train station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Figure 1) We were married just 3 weeks earlier, 8000 miles east of Milwaukee, in the Greek Catholic church of Cairo, Egypt. I had just graduated from a medical school (Figure 2) of an ancient world (Figure 3) and was accepted through a serendipitous twist of fate to serve as a medical resident at Milwaukee County Hospital.

Fig. 1.

Fig. 2.

Fig. 3.

Arrival 1955

The big clock in the railroad station told us it was 11:00 pm. I had to report to duty in 9 hours. We were anxious, we were lonely; with nothing in our pockets but uncertainty and fear mixed with dreams and hope. Life ahead of us was a blank canvas yet to be painted. Little did we know that the landscape for that painting was the richest country on Earth. Its richness was not in its material wealth but in the values and beliefs of its people. It was a landscape of equal opportunity in a most powerful country on earth. I speak not of military power, but of the character of its people who honor, not just individual fulfillment, but the struggle to realize the very best that is in us and in those around us as we pursue our God-given talents. A landscape of freedom born of the fiery spirit of a revolution and of equality painted with the ultimate sacrifice of hundreds of thousands in a ravaging civil war.

Only in America

Allow me to share with you what Doris and I have told our grandchildren dozens of times (Figure 4). There is no place on earth that would have extended the arms of opportunity and embraced your grandparents as fully, as fairly, and as freely as we have been. Whatever form of genius drives the American Spirit it should be treasured and nurtured if the honor of the human spirit is to remain alive.

Fig. 4.

Speaking of grand children, about 4 weeks ago I became anxious about what I would say to you in my address this morning. Believe it or not I was struggling. None of my previous Presidential addresses seemed to fit this auspicious and revered group. So, I went to my grandchildren for advice on something youthful and fresh. They said “Grandpa, talk about your greatest accomplishment.”

Puzzled, I paused hesitantly—they quickly said “Tell them about Omar Sharif, your classmate in Cairo, (Figure 5). You remember Dr. Zhivago! Tell them how you spent the summer of 1948 in Paris together, and show them one of your pictures with him. You remember, the one in the rowboat in the Bois de Boulogne.”

Fig. 5.

I said “Kids, I know a much more famous person than Omar. I know President Bush Senior (Figure 6). Remember, he sent each one of you his autographed picture. I also know Bert DuPont and Frederic Billings the III, the leaders of ACCA. After all, how many people do you know with a roman numeral after their name? They said “Sorry Grandpa, Bush, DuPont, and Billings, they don’t rock, but Omar rocks” (Figure 7).

Fig. 6.

Fig. 7.

Bergamo Film Meeting 2006 website. Courtesy of Shawn Roach. http://www.bergamofilmmeeting.it/2006/FOTO/Lean/Dr_Zivago/ZIVAGO02.JPG\.

Clearly, I was going nowhere with this. So I went to Doris for advice—after 53 years together she could read my thoughts before I could even conceive them. After a second of reflection, she said, in an all too familiar measured, solemn, and authoritative tone: “Remember Frank, your favorite poet Gibran. He said that ‘Great truth … does not pass from one being to another by way of human speech. Truth chooses Silence to convey her meaning to loving souls’” (¹).

How poetic—and how unhelpful. Torn between Omar and Silence I had to rely on my own impulses. What could I say that would capture in one phrase or one theme, events that culminated in my standing here. It came to me in the serenity of dawn and splendor of sunrise two weeks ago, and here it is in three words: Life is beautiful!! (Figure 8)

Fig. 8.

LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL

I. First, Life is Beautiful because of What Happens to You that is Beyond Your Control

To be standing here as I approach the 4th decade of my life “from the opposite end” is by itself an achievement, and the trouble is that I can’t take credit for it. Hundreds of individuals helped me on my path to this podium. I asked my assistant to prepare a figure with all their names in order to duly thank them today. The figure was illegible. So I thought with your indulgence, Doris might stand up to represent all those whose contributions allowed me to be up here and to ask for their recognition, through her, in two ways: one, a hug and a kiss that I’ll give her on your behalf – later on – and two, a round of applause that you may give her now.

I have often been asked, “How does one end up living in Iowa for 48 years without being born there?” There are many reasons, but in our case there were two: serendipity and people.

First Serendipity

It all started over 53 years ago—a chance encounter with an American Fulbright scholar and a teacher from Manitowoc, Wisconsin, who was teaching in Cairo. Her name is Agnese Dunne. Her determination, her connection with Marquette University in Milwaukee where she sent her best graduates, and her deep friendship with our parents led a newly married couple, Doris and I, to leave the discrimination and prejudice of an old world and step into the glorious freedom of a new one. On July 1, 1955 I became a Resident in Internal Medicine at Milwaukee County Hospital.

Now move the clock forward two years for another miraculous blessing—a fateful Presidential Act by Dwight Eisenhower as a result of the turmoil in the Middle East in 1956 declared us immigrants. Three years later, serendipity strikes again with its good fortune. A chance meeting with Jack Eckstein in an elevator at American Heart Association scientific sessions in November 1959 led to our move from Milwaukee to Iowa City. We came in June of 1960, in a blue Ford station wagon with all our belongings and three beautiful daughters. Jack and Jean Eckstein invited us for a spaghetti dinner at their home on Grant Street. Our kids loved the spaghetti and therein started a mentor—mentee relationship that would last a lifetime. To Jack Eckstein (Figure 9), my mentor, my dean for 20 years, and my friend of 48 years, I owe so much of what I am. Here he is telling me “Frank, my good friend, this is how it all ends!” Once my mentor, always my mentor!!

Fig. 9.

Life in Iowa City

So I lived in Iowa City for 48 years. Let me tell you why! With your indulgence a brief geographic orientation to what we call home is now appropriate. Iowa City as you see is the heaven of the heartland (Figure 10). It is a place where miracles happen; a place where Shoeless Joe Jackson can reappear from another world to play baseball with Kevin Costner in the Field of Dreams (Figure 11). So Kevin's daughter asks him whether this is heaven and his answer is “No, it's Iowa” (²). It is a place where on Saturday afternoon (Figure 12) football is king and 75,000 fans (Figure 13) can cheer the Hawkeyes when they beat Michigan 26-0; a place where the Medical Center is a billion dollar enterprise (Figure 14); a place where art flourishes (Figure 15), famous for creative writing (Figure 16), where an International Writers Program (Figure 17) has hosted generations of some of the best writers in the world; a place that refutes categorically the ill advised and unwise statement of the secretary general of the Nobel Academy who said recently that literature in the US is too insular and isolated (³). It is a peaceful place as the river winds through it (Figure 18) under covered bridges, where hogs are gentle and sweet, where high culture and good topsoil, the two fragile bases of civilization (⁴) exist in abundance. The richness of the Iowa soil (Figure 19) reflects the essence of life, great challenges, and strong basic values (Figure 20).

Fig. 10.

Fig. 11.

Field of Dreams. AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall. Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press.

Fig. 12.

University of Iowa Kinnick Stadium.

Fig. 13.

University of Iowa Kinnick Stadium.

Fig. 14.

University of Iowa Health Care Campus.

Fig. 15.

University of Iowa Hancher Auditorium.

Fig. 16.

University of Iowa.

Fig. 17.

Compliments of the International Writing Program, University of Iowa.

Fig. 18.

Iowa City.

Fig. 19.

Grant Wood. Stone City. 1930. Art © Estate of Grant Wood/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.

Fig. 20.

American Gothic, 1930 by Grant Wood. All rights reserved by The Estate of Nan Wood Graham/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.

Now let me return to my theme. I have spoken of what happened to me beyond my control and I am certain that each of you can echo similar, if not identical, circumstances where fate and success knocked at your door and brought you here today.

Now the second reason for life to be beautiful:

II. Life is Beautiful because of What we Make Happen with What we are Given

What I was given was an opportunity to live and grow with a number of extraordinary people in a field of corn and dreams. When I came to Iowa, I received a legacy, a legacy of academic excellence that started me on my research career. All I had to do after that (with my late brilliant colleague, Mike Brody) was to nurture that legacy and let it grow. And grow it did, into the Cardiovascular Research Center, an unbelievable network of physician-scientists and basic scientists, each of them achieving recognition in their own right and together creating one of the most successful research enterprises (⁵).

In 1970, Clifton appointed me Chief of Cardiology, and in 1976, Eckstein made me Chairman of Internal Medicine. They handed me opportunities, but it took the genius of dozens of Department Leaders and Division Directors and hundreds of faculty recruited and nurtured over more than three decades to build the Center and the Department of Internal Medicine into the glittering temples of academic excellence they are. Our challenge was first to attract them to Iowa, and once there, we worked our special magic that kept most of them in Iowa. We called it “Iowa glue.” The glue of sharing, helping, working together and having fun together. I would not be standing here without the loyal support of one and all (⁵).

Phases of Bioscience—The Legacy we Inherited

On a more global scale, we the members of ACCA, were given a collective legacy, from the giants of medicine before us (Figure 21). And, with all our colleagues in science worldwide, we have contributed, at an unprecedented scale, to a meteoric progress. In half a century, we went from the horse and buggy of biomedicine to space exploration, from Infectious Disease, the first cycle of our existence, through Physiology and Immunology, and through Molecular Biology.

Fig. 21.

Adapted from Figure 5, Abboud FM. Investing in excellence. J Lab Clin Med. 1987;110(1):3–12 and adapted from Lederberg J. Cycles and fashions in biomedical research. In: Bowers JZ, King EE, eds. Academic medicine: present and future. Rockefeller Archive Center Conference, Pocantico Hills, North Tarrytown, N.Y., 1982:202–16.

Systems Biology

And now, as we link the genome to the patient, and DNA becomes a therapeutic target, we have begun the miraculous cycle of Systems Biology, where concepts of the genetics of disease are expanded to the genetics of health (Figure 22), where an inherited mutation may fail to cause the disease phenotype because protective modifier genes or alleles may compensate for the abnormal phenotype, and this can happen at any level in the hierarchy of a systems process from DNA through protein, to pathways and networks, to cells, tissues, organs, and to the entire organism.

Fig. 22.

Courtesy of Mark Knepper (AHA Council HBPR). Created with the collaboration of Joseph Nadeau. Photo adapted from: (c) 2008 Python (Monty) Pictures Limited.

We, our institutes and centers, our medical schools, and our society have been entrusted with an unbelievable legacy of scientific opportunities. I believe that legacy and that trust are embodied in two precepts:

Precepts to Live By

The first, I remember was passed on to me by my mother. “Health is a crown on the head of the healthy, visible only to the sick. Once we lose that crown, we want to regain it—at any cost.”

The second: “Biomedical science, like any other science seeks the truth. Its uniqueness is that truth translates into hope—hope for the children dying prematurely and the bedridden adults segregated from the pursuit of happiness” (⁶).

The Three Pillars

To survive, those precepts need to be held on three pillars (Figure 23): knowledge, compassion, and a restless spirit.

Fig. 23.

First the Pillar of Knowledge (Figure 24)

Fig. 24.

Knowledge is a Public Good. It is the foundation of a democratic society. In our pursuit of knowledge we should never cede US leadership to any other nation. “Doing so is contrary to the spirit of this nation as anything could be” (⁷).

But what is knowledge (Figure 25)? It is the product of human imagination pushed to its creative limit, coupled with an insatiable curiosity. “Only the imagination is real!” declares William Carlos Williams. “If a man die/it is because death/has first/possessed his imagination” (⁸). And Khalil Gibran echoes “Every beauty and greatness in this world is created by a single thought or emotion inside a man. Everything we see today, made by past generations, was, before its appearance, a thought in the mind of man or an impulse in the heart of a woman” (⁹).

Fig. 25.

Human Intelligence

There is another important link between knowledge, our human intelligence and the biology of life (Figure 26). This is an artist's rendering of the Archean Earth of 5 billion years before the origin of life. We are told that the most important development in the history of our planet, after the origin of life itself, is oxygenic photosynthesis, which evolved 2.7 billion years ago, 250 million years before the appearance of oxygen in the atmosphere. With oxygen from photosynthesis, multicellular animal life and its evolution became possible. John Abelson, Professor of Biology at Cal Tech made the audacious statement that, “although in its infancy from a geological perspective, human intelligence, may be as unique and potent a force for change on Earth as photosynthesis was.” He then asks: “Will human intelligence lead to a flowering of the earth, or will it lead to the extinction of life? It is too early to say. Geology tells us that we will have to wait 2 billion years to know” (¹⁰).

Fig. 26.

Adapted from John Abelson, Bulletin of the American Academy, Spring 2007.

What I don’t understand is why it will take 2 billion years to know. In fact, two weeks ago with what was happening on Wall Street I thought that was it. But that was economy not geology. In that context I have an observation to share with you. It really is a parody. A parody of 3 gases. O₂ gave us life on earth; NO prolonged our life with coronary dilation and restored our vigor with erectile function, but now, with excessive CO₂ and its greenhouse effect, our planet is becoming hot in addition to flat and crowded. It is, according to Thomas Friedman, “threateningly unstable” (¹¹). Once again with intelligence and creativity, discipline and ingenuity, America should lead the world in healing our earth. We will decrease CO₂ emissions drastically and will adopt a strategy of clean energy.

I have spoken of knowledge and imagination; intelligence and biology of life. I now address the second pillar of our precepts—Compassion. Knowledge without compassion is inhuman.

Pillar of Compassion

It is in compassion, that the full realization of the miracles of medicine resides (Figure 27). The miracles of medicine need a heart and not just a mind; they need the hand of compassion—what mind and science cannot cure, a heart and a soothing hand can miraculously heal. In a white coat ceremony address that I gave to our first year medical students I mentioned that the most essential of ideals in a medical world, dependent on science and technology, is compassion.

Fig. 27.

Albert Einstein

I know there are those who say that science and compassion are incompatible. Let me dispel that notion with this quote from none other than Albert Einstein (Figure 28). “From the standpoint of daily life there is one thing we do know, a human is here for the sake of other humans … for the countless unknown souls with whose fates we are connected with a bond of sympathy” (¹²). So much humaneness in a simple quote from a great scientist.

Fig. 28.

The Legacy of John Cozart

One of the best examples that I can share with you of a compassionate physician-patient encounter was written in JAMA a few years ago by Dr. John Cozart. At that time, John was one of my interns. His article was entitled “The Legacy” (¹³). In it he said the following:

• I left the ER, exhausted, and suddenly realized that Phil's mother was still on her way to the hospital. How could I tell her that her son had died? A few minutes later she walked up to me at the nurse's station. I knew immediately that she understood what had happened by the stricken look on my face. “I’m so sorry. Phil's gone,” I said. “I just wish I could have done more for him.” “Doctor, [she said] I know you loved my baby, and he knew it too. And that's as good as any medicine you could have given him.”

• But I didn’t tell you much about his patient, Phil.

• Phil was six feet two and muscular, with piercing blue eyes. He was 19 and he was back in the hospital with another relapse of acute lymphocytic leukemia. As a result of chemotherapy, he sported only a few wisps of blond hair.

• Cozart was starting the 2nd month of his internship. He approached Phil's bed, which had a sign posted over it that read “Caution: Day Sleeper.” Cozart shook Phil awake and then realized he had made a big mistake. “Can’t you read, you idiot?” Phil yelled. “That sign is up there for a reason.” He went on to inform Cozart that his opinion of doctors, especially interns was very low. Cozart continues in his article, saying:

• As the days passed, I found myself spending as much time with him [Phil] as I could. I answered his questions and explained the results of his numerous tests. One day I asked Phil what his life had been like before he became sick. “Before this leukemia got me down, [Doc], I used to ride a Harley and party all night … I could drink a six-pack of beer in less than 3 minutes.” Phil really came alive at night. Dressed in his favorite Guns N’ Roses T-shirt and armed with a high-powered water gun shaped like an M-16, Phil terrorized the nurses. On the day of Phil's discharge, before his fatal emergency room readmission, Cozart walked into Phil's room to say “good-bye.” He spotted Phil picking up his water gun. Quickly Cozart ducked for cover. “Hey, don’t worry, [Doc],” he [Phil] said, “I won’t shoot you. I’m going home today and won’t have much use for this thing. It worked really well on you—got you in shape. Why don’t I just leave it with you, so you can blast the nurses if they get out of line?”

• The high-powered water gun, shaped like an M-16 is the legacy. Cozart, the young doctor, gave it to his next patient Billy, who was lying face down on his bed softly sobbing after he’d had induction chemotherapy. Cozart went to Billy and said, “My friend Phil used to shoot the nurses when they got out of line. Sometimes he would even shoot me. This helped him get through some tough times, and I think he would have wanted you to have it. Would you like to give it a try?”

After relating this story I told the freshman class: “let your white coat be a symbol of your compassion and the Golden Rule of love and caring that should guide your relationship with your patients. Remember Cozart's legacy and Phil's mother's consolation, ‘Doctor, [she said to Cozart] I know you loved my baby and he knew it too. That's as good as any medicine you could have given him’ ” (¹³) (Figure 29). When a patient's mother tells you those things, you will have achieved greatness as a physician (¹⁴).

Fig. 29.

Pillar of the Restless Human Spirit

So after knowledge and compassion a third pillar to support our precepts is a restless human spirit.

Rage of Passion

I sometimes refer to it as a rage (Figure 30)—not the rage of madness or anger, but a rage of passion and of integrity. Strong feelings and intense desire to right what is wrong. Such a rage should be the normal human reaction to disease that shackles the human spirit; rage should be the normal reaction to the fact that in the midst of our affluence, there are 46 million uninsured adults and 10 million uninsured children. Rage should be our reaction to the arrogance and fraud in managed care corporations.

Fig. 30.

A case in point, hot off the press right now in our own backyard: We, the University of Iowa Physicians, filed a lawsuit against a health plan corporation that functions as a preferred-provider organization (¹⁵). The corporation mistakenly failed to apply our agreed-upon billing rates for certain services resulting in a shortfall of ∼$400,000. Instead of reimbursing us, they tried to persuade us to join in a scheme to recover the lost revenue through additional charges imposed on future patients. The alleged scheme was to increase patient fees long enough to recover the money that had been lost and then revert back to the normal, agreed-upon fees. We would not be party to a fraud to be perpetrated on our future patients; our rage of passion was provoked. The corporate values will not replace our professional integrity, hence the lawsuit.

So, when it comes to patient care, I submit to you that you and I do know what is right (Figure 31). Bill Bean, my predecessor as chair of medicine at Iowa, was President of our Association in 1967, and may be remembered by some of you because of his hilarious remarks on Omphalosophy (¹⁶). Bill could also be inspiring with his simple philosophy. He wrote: “In the patient-physician relationship, the physician's action should always be decided by determining for whose benefit? If it is for the patient, it is good. If for the doctor, it may not be. It is as simple as that.”

Fig. 31.

Rage of Integrity

Another rage that is stirring in the halls of our academy is one of Integrity provoked by seductive and destructive market forces, and distorted values.

We seem to be living in times when ideals are challenged by pragmatism, expediency, and even greed. Our concept of what is sensible, of what is ethical, becomes blurred with rationalizations. The “What's in it for me” phenomenon threatens all human interactions in a civilized society.

We are vulnerable in 3 areas:

• Patents,

• Support of Clinical Research, and

• Support of Education

A Report of the AAMC-AAU Advisory Committee on Financial Conflicts of Interest in Human Subjects Research addresses the current challenges and the cultural shifts that are occurring in our research universities (Figure 32). The report states that: “In the past the development of products for the marketplace was discouraged and even looked down upon by research faculty. Today we are encouraged to form our own companies (¹⁷).”

Fig. 32.

Courtesy of the American Association of Medical Colleges. Copyright © 2008 American Association of Medical Colleges. All rights reserved.

Patents and the Bayh-Dole Act

“The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 accelerated this shift by allowing faculty and institutions to retain title to the intellectual property resulting from their federally supported research (¹⁷)” (Figure 33). Indeed, in 2002 The Economist referred to the Bayh-Dole Act as “possibly the most inspired piece of legislation to be enacted in America over the last half-century” (¹⁸). However, with the new commercial incursions into the academy, “the risks to the integrity of the research mission of academic institutions and their faculty in this new paradigm are decidedly higher” (¹⁷).

Fig. 33.

Profit ahead of Wonder

A New York Times article entitled When Academia Puts Profit Ahead of Wonder concludes that research decisions are now being made based on possible profits and not the inherent value of knowledge. “ ‘Blue sky’ research is put aside in favor of immediate market potential” (¹⁹). Scientific secrecy may not be necessarily a new phenomenon. “When James Watson and Francis Crick were homing in on DNA's double-helix structure in the 1950s, they zealously guarded their work from prying eyes until they could publish their findings, to be certain that they would get the credit for making the discovery.” But “They didn’t try to patent it, and somebody doing the same work today would certainly take a crack at patenting the double helix” (²⁰).

We do need to have a clearer appreciation and affirmation of where true academic values lie.

Corporate Invasion of Clinical Research. The Angels Protect us!

As recently as last month some flagrant examples of corporate invasion of our Academic values were portrayed in two articles published in JAMA and commented on by two editors whose last names coincidentally evoke angelic connections (Figure 34). One is Dr. Catherine DeAngelis, Editor of JAMA and the other is Dr. Marcia Angell, past Editor of NEJM. In her article Industry-Sponsored Clinical Research—A Broken System (JAMA Sept. 3, 2008), Dr. Angell begins her remarks by saying “Drug companies now finance most clinical research on prescription drugs, and there is mounting evidence that they often skew the research they sponsor to make their drugs look better and safer” (²¹). Companies are alleged to manipulate data analysis to minimize the increased mortality associated with their drug. Dr. DeAngelis is quoted as saying “The influence that the pharmaceutical companies, the for- profits, are having on every aspect of medicine … is so blatant now you’d have to be deaf, blind and dumb not to see it … We have just allowed them to take over, and it's our fault, the whole medical community” (²²).

Fig. 34.

The photos of Dr. Marcia Angel and Dr. Catherine DeAngelis were obtained from their bios on a National Institutes of Health web site.

Conflict of Interest is Rampant

Perhaps most alarming is the fact that many members of the 16 standing committees of the FDA have financial ties with drug companies, and the requirement that they recuse themselves from decisions involving drugs from those specific companies are frequently waived by the FDA authorities.

Trust and Accountability

The situation is alarming also with respect to Industry support of Medical Education. Relman reports that “CME is more than half supported by industry” (²³). I hope we all agree when he says “The responsibility for medical education should be entirely in the hands of the medical profession and funding should not compromise, or even call into question, the integrity and independence of what is taught or of the physicians who teach” (Figure 35). As I end these remarks on our restless human spirit, I pray that we don’t let the greed and self indulgence, that are now eroding our economic institutions and threatening our democracy, also erode our temples of knowledge, our integrity and our human spirit.

Fig. 35.

So, for my final message I want to return to the beauty of life.

After what happens to us beyond our control, and what we make happen with what we are given, I believe that the ultimate beauty is in the rewards we seek and the legacy we leave.

The True Rewards

As teachers, what is our true reward? I received a letter some time ago from Ann Hedderman, a graduate of our residency program. She writes “It has been five years since I completed my training at the University of Iowa. I know that you have seen many trainees go through, and I don’t expect you will remember me. I did, however, want to write and let you know how grateful I am for the training I received.” She continues, “I remember my first day of orientation for internship when you spoke to my class and said the following: ‘When we get to the point that it becomes a habit for us to call in before we went to sleep every night to check on our patients, then we would have become the physicians you hoped we would become’ (actually, I think we all thought you were a bit crazy?). However, by the time I left Iowa, I was, indeed, doing that and continued to do it at the institution where I went to pursue my career.

“I remember also,” she continued, “that at our resident class dinner you used a wonderful quote from Gibran who happened to be one of my favorite writers. In The Prophet, he wrote about teachers. ‘If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold, of your own mind”’ (²⁴). She ends, “I am grateful to my teachers there who helped me do just that.”

I hope you agree with me that Ann Hedderman's letter and especially the bit about “we all thought you were a bit crazy” is a treasure. It tells of the power, privilege and true reward of being a teacher.

The Legacy of Mentorship we Leave

And in the end, dear colleagues, life is as beautiful as the legacy we leave behind. Our academic legacy is in the heart and mind of our mentees. Many of you remember the Presidential address of Jerry Barondess, “A Brief History of Mentoring” (²⁵). It stands as an eloquent masterpiece on the subject to be read over and over.

A couple of years ago when I was at the AAP/ASCI meeting, there was a forum on mentoring, and President Olefsky of AAP came to me, as I sat in the audience, to say that one of the participants may be tied up, and would I mind getting up to the podium in a half hour or so to join the two other speakers to say a few words about mentoring. So, I scribbled some thoughts on the back of an envelope, since I don’t do well with ad libbing. I found that envelope in my travel folder a couple of weeks ago. I compared what a mentor does to what a family member does.

The inspiration for the family analogy comes really from the fact that the Greek mythology King, Odysseus, who had to go to one of the Trojan Wars entrusted the care, protection, guidance and education of his only son to a loyal friend and teacher named Mentor. So, Mentor was a surrogate father.

So, I said the mentor is like a father to you. He nurtures you, pushes you to work hard, puts food on your table and money in your pocket, helps you get grants, teaches you how to fish the big ones and how to swim with sharks, helps you take your first step and cheers you up when you fall. He helps you write your first paper, your first abstract, your first grant.

I also said: the mentor is like a mother to you—often tells you that you are the best, lets you cry on her shoulder, and tells you when you’re working too hard, to slow down. She teaches you to be sensitive in your criticism and generous in your sharing, to have balance in your life and to see the beauty around you.

The mentor is like an older sibling, bossing you sometimes, defending you in school, tooting your horn, introducing you to the important cliques.

Finally, the mentor is a friend, ready to lift your burdens, soothe your pain, share your joys, be your confidant, listen to you and hear you even when you are silent.

The historian, James W. Loewen, writes that many African societies divide humans into three categories: those still alive; the Sasha, who are dead but whose memory lives on; and the Zamani who have no one to keep their memory alive (²⁶). So my wish to you is (Figure 36) may you become a Sasha in your afterlife and through eternity, because the legacy you bequeath to your students and mentees is eternal.

Fig. 36.

So, since I started this address with gratitude I’ll end with gratitude. I am deeply grateful.

• Grateful to my children, Mary, Susan, Nancy and Anthony, who spent more time waiting for me than with me and are still willing to have me grandfather their eight children to allow me to redeem myself. To them I hope to leave a legacy of love that is expressed in a most precious quote of Mother Teresa. The quote is “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”

• I am grateful to Doris who made this, as well as everything else in our family life, possible. Praxithea, the mother of Hippocrates told her son: “Hippocrates, don’t always be a physician. The help you have needed is the help only a wife could give you. Through her you would learn the other half of life. Without her, you may live to be only half a man” (²⁷). Now I say to Doris: “Doris the help I have needed is the help only you could give me. Through you I learned the other half of life. Without you, I may have lived to be only half a man.”

• I am grateful in the end to all of you. I have received much more than I have given and much more than I deserve.

So, cheers dear colleagues! I wish you the very best that life can offer (Figure 37) and that's a chance to do a million small things with great love!

Fig. 37.

Thank you.

F.M. Abboud