Page 19 - Layout 1

the great books, and hosted students for holidays.
Jack joined the medical staffs of Thayer and Sisters hospi-

tals and was involved in the Mansfield Clinic. As the only
cardiologist in Central Maine, Jack was rapidly successful in
his practice. Colleagues looked to him for consultation with
their most complex medical problems. As there was no psy-
chiatrist in town, and he was willing to take on patients with
major psychiatric components to their illness, he helped
many of the community’s more challenging patients. He was
an advocate for public health championing among other ini-
tiatives, adoption of the new polio vaccine. Jack frequently
took his son Robert on weekend rounds with him leaving
him, as a small boy, to be doted upon in the nurse’s station
where the inevitable question was “will you become a doctor
like your dad?”

For a private practice physician, Jack was a prolific author.
Over his short career in Waterville, he contributed six articles
to the Maine Medical Journal. His contributions spanned
his primary specialty in cardiology (eg. Wolf Parkinson
White syndrome) but also more fundamental issues such as
end of life care and discrepancies in laboratory reports.

In March 1963, Jack (age 39) noticed an unusual ecchy-
mosis where his medical bag rubbed his leg. Checking his
own blood smear, he diagnosed his own acute myelogenous
leukemia. In this infant era of hematologic malignancy ther-
apy, he died during induction chemotherapy at Tufts which
was likely nitrogen mustard induced thromobocytopenia re-
sulting in a cerebral hemorrhage . . . less than a week after
his self-diagnosis.

At the time of his memorial, he was eulogized as a bril-
liant diagnostician, compassionate caregiver, dedicated
family man, and a humanitarian who made generous con-
tributions to his community. The back rows of the packed
synagogue were occupied by dozens of nuns, nurses from
Sister’s Hospital, who needed to obtain special dispensation
from the bishop to attend. A short time before his death
he had been named Chief of Medicine of the Seton Hospi-
tal then under construction. This facility has a room dedi-
cated to his memory.

Adam V. Ratner, MD is Chairman of The
Patient Institute, Vice President of BCMS,
Clinical Professor of Radiology and The Stew-
art and Marianne Reuter Endowed Professor
of Medical Humanities at UT Health San
Antonio.

visit us at www.bcms.org 19