Everyone Needs a Hero

Who are the heroes in my life?  That is an easy answer, and only one person has filled that role; my father.  He was one of a kind!  I would go out of my way to emulate him, then and now.

I remember going with Dad to one of his medical school lectures at UTMB in Galveston as a small tyke.  The room was expansive, dark, with the only light coming from the slide projector as Kodachrome pictures of tissue samples stained with H&E went one after the other.  Boring stuff, and a foreshadowing of my future.  I remember being so proud of Dad, of the feel of the medical environment that he brought me into….the mystery of the human body, when it worked well and when it was broken.  There must have been a childcare snafu of sorts for him to have me along that day.  Mom was working 2 pharmacy jobs at the time, and Dad was filling in as a pharmacist at Texas Drug as well, for night shifts.  He forgot I was at his side when the lecture was over, and he was chatting it up with his friends in the foyer smoking a cigarette.  He casually dropped his right hand that was holding the cig, and it burned my left inner forearm by accident as I huddled next to him.  I let out a major wail, and he put the cigarette out as he scooped me up to take me home.  That incident did not deter me from wanting to always be at his side whenever he asked.

There were unique smells in our house, including the smell of the medical textbooks I would open and peruse.  The doctor bag he received at his medical school graduation contained his stethoscope, his otoscope/ophthalmoscope, and a sphygmomanometer (blood pressure cuff).  I loved the smell of medicine, loved playing with the tuning fork that played the C note I would later find out was used for neurologic evaluations.  I would hit it over and over to hear that note, the score of which I would follow later.

Since Dad was a pediatrician, many of my friends were his patients in the small East Texas town of Greenville.  No one spoke ill of him among my classmates, and being his son brought me immediate status with them.  I realized that being a doctor was instant goodwill among most people (as long as you were a “good” doctor).  In the sixth grade, I made up my mind…it was medicine for me!  When my classmates would bring new toys for show-and-tell, I would bring old xrays of my broken arm and put them up to the light and show everyone my right arm fracture.  On one occasion, when a pop quiz over organs of the body was underway, I could not help myself when Mr. Lamb pointed to an organ and (sensing no one else knew what it was) blurting out “pancreas”.  Mr. Lamb immediately scolded me for giving away the answer, as my ADD and occasional lack of self control was exhibited; he did so with a grin and a wink.

The only time I remember Dad asking me to go out for lunch with him alone was during my junior year of college, as I was nearing the end of my own education at the UT Austin College of Pharmacy as a legacy to my Mom and Dad.  I was applying to medical schools, and Dad sat across from me and began to relay the truth of medicine as he saw it.  “Medicine is not what you think it is…it is all about gimmicks.  The gastroenterologists have scope procedures, the cardiologists have cardiac caths, the ortho docs do joint replacements.  That is what drives doctors; the procedures, doing as many as possible to make a living.”  It was not the Hollywood-created persona of Dr. Kildare, Ben Casey, MD, or Marcus Welby MD that I saw before me on television growing up, but at times a profession driven by many other things than care for patients.  “Why don’t you go to dental school?  It is much less stressful, just as honorable, and what I would do if I had to do it over again.”  I replied, “and mess in the mouths of people all day?  No thanks!”  Of course, he had to later rib me about my chosen specialty of OBGyn by stating, “so you didn’t want to mess in mouths all day…what are you doing now?!”

There was one day I will never forget that occurred in the early days of my own medical practice in Austin, Texas.  I was trying to build my own goodwill, my own reputation in the community.  Being the son of Carl Pevoto, MD went a long way toward that goal, since he was well-known and respected by his peers as a trauma physician at Brackenridge Hospital in his newer and ultimate specialty of Emergency Medicine.  Dad (and his fellow ER docs) would call me if an unassigned gynecologic patient came into the ER and would need care.  One such patient came in with an ectopic pregnancy that was bleeding, and I gladly came in to assume her care.  While I was in the OR with my gloved, sterile hands removing the bleeding ruptured fallopian tube that threatened the patient’s life, I glanced out to see my dad standing in the shadows outside the operating theatre I was using, watching me, wiping a tear from his eye as he slinked away knowing I had discovered him observing.  I knew at that moment that he was proud of me, making my decision to pursue medicine the right one.  Dad, I know that you are watching me now from heaven with all of your buddies, and I am so happy that you are proud of me.  I hope that I can likewise be a hero for someone as you have been for me!