A personal account from four decades of cardiac care: is there a case for mechanical heart rhythm management?

Abstract

This chapter offers a personal account based on my nearly 40 years of providing cardiac care in emergency and critical care medicine, and anaesthesiology. First, I must tell you some of my background, since I was supposed to be a surgeon. Seven generations of my family have been in medicine, and the previous three generations were all very prominent surgeons in America. Forty years ago, I was a junior student at Temple University Medical School in Philadelphia, and had just begun my clinical clerkships. Strongly urged by my father to pursue a career in surgery, I decided on training in general and cardiac surgery at the Mayo Clinic. However, all that changed when my then wife informed me in late 1966 that she would enter Temple Medical School in the fall of 1967, the year I would began my internship. Also, Vietnam loomed on the horizon. I was in the Naval Reserves during Medical School, but was unable to obtain deferment to complete my training in General and Cardiac Surgery. Also, I feared service in Vietnam as a General Medical Officer just after my internship, especially in support of a marine combat unit. However, both the Navy and Marines needed trained anaesthesiologists, so I was able to get the necessary deferment to complete my Residency in Anaesthesiology and Fellowship in Pharmacology at Temple. Unfortunately, my first wife was killed in an automobile accident on her way to work at Merck, Sharpe and Dohme in April 1967. However, by then, I was committed to Anaesthesiology and the Navy deferment. In those days, we honoured such commitments. There was no turning back.