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FEATURE

LUNG

STORY

SHORT

By Douglas Jenkins, MD

About ten years ago I received an e-mail from our younger son I did enjoy the school visits, perhaps because both my Mom and
that he titled “lung Story Short.” He does have a sense of humor. dad were teachers, but it was not until later that I came to appreciate
With some abbreviation, his message was that he had connected the impact. A lady stopped me in the local grocery store, “dr. Jenk-
with a friend from elementary school via social media. She had fin- ins, thank you so much, my daughter would never touch a cigarette.”
ished her comments by saying that people that smoke make her sick A comment from a young man sitting nearby at a restaurant, “You’re
and “to this day” she thinks about the bag of lungs I brought to doug’s dad aren’t you? You came to class to talk about smoking.”
school that day many, many, years ago. The memories started com- The message from my son that started this piece was almost 30 years
ing back. after the fact. And about three years ago a young man re-introduced
The time was 1981 or 1982. I had become “show and tell” himself, again at a grocery store. The son of a physician, he is now
through the years for our two sons as they went through school, a high school teacher, “dr. Jenkins, every time we reach that module
particularly as I also volunteered with our local lung Association. I in our class, I tell my students about your presentation back then.”
would go to a school class and spend some time talking about lungs, It took me quite a while to realize how fortunate I was to have just
how we defended ourselves from dangers to our lungs from the the right items for, “show and tell.” Talk about feel good! Albeit
outside world and, of course, the special dangers of smoking. miniscule, I offered some assistance as the United States moved
Indeed, I did have a “bag of lungs.” A wonderful lab Officer had from about 50 percent smokers to under 20 percent smokers during
in the far past prepared some lungs that were fixed and dried in the my professional lifetime.
inflated state. The source of the lungs was obscured by time, but I Is there a general message in what is otherwise a personal story?
suspect that some came from the Pathology lab and some perhaps I think so. In the medical field we all develop special knowledge.
from what was then called the “dog lab.” The result of the process Sometimes the use of an example, a parallel, a little careful humor,
is a specimen that looks and feels much like Styrofoam, but it main- or something special for “show and tell” can get a thought or con-
tains the markings and, more importantly for demonstration pur- cept to “stick.” If we can find a way to effectively translate “med-
poses, the pigmentation of the lung. I would pass the specimens ical” to “human,” then we can be better in communication. This
out and ask the students to treat them carefully as they were fragile can be a critical improvement as we work with and for our patients
and return them when they had looked at them and thought about and others we meet.
which specimens might have come from smokers since some of the
specimens clearly had more pigmentation. I always got every lung Dr. Douglas Jenkins is a Life Member of the Bexar County Medical Society.
back and some kids would stay a while to ask questions. He is now semi-retired and working part-time.

30 San Antonio Medicine • June 2019