Art as an Expression of the Human Condition

摘要

Richard L. Prager, MDView Large Image | Download PowerPoint SlideI would like to take us on a journey this morning; before I do so, clearly one does not stand at a podium like this alone, but because of the support, commitment, and efforts of one’s teachers, colleagues, friends, and our families, all of whom help make us who we are.Growing up in a very supportive family in northern New Jersey, and after completion of college and medical school in the northeast, I was trained in general surgery at the University of Michigan and was fortunate to obtain a thoracic surgical residency under Dr Herbert Sloan at the University of Michigan, where I was trained, educated, and mentored by a young Mark Orringer, Douglas Behrendt, who went on to be chair at Iowa, Otto Gago, who eventually recruited me to his superb private practice position in Ann Arbor, and Marvin Kirsh, the consummate educator who had a role in educating four decades of cardiac and thoracic trainees.My first position after residency was at Vanderbilt University under Harvey W. Bender, Jr, MD, a former President of the Southern Thoracic Surgical Association, a mentor, leader, master surgeon, and educator, who by his style and commitment quietly allowed me to clarify and incorporate the goals and standards for my career. John W. Hammon, MD, joined the faculty at Vanderbilt the same time I did, July 1978, and was a colleague there for 5 years; a gifted surgeon and teacher, he has become a lifelong friend, and is a former STSA President.I returned to Ann Arbor in 1983, recruited by Dr Otto Gago, and spent 16 years at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital as a cardiac and thoracic surgeon before being recruited to lead the adult cardiac faculty at the University of Michigan in late 1999. During this time we evolved from a section in the Department of Surgery to our own Department of Cardiac Surgery, and I have had the pleasure to have Michael Deeb, Steven Bolling, Francis Pagani, Himanshu Patel, Jonathan Haft, Matthew Romano, Bo Yang, Donald Likosky, Jenna Hirsch-Romano, Ming Sing Si, Rick Ohye, and Edward L. Bove as friends and colleagues.This unique career moment allows me the opportunity to introduce our family. Laurie and I are most fortunate to have 5 children who are creating their own lives throughout the country. Four of the 5 are here today: Jeremy the oldest and his wife Amanda and their 2 children from Denver, Colorado; Meghan and her 2 children from Chicago; Eliza and her friend Dan Flanagan from St. Louis; and T.J. the youngest, and his wife Boo from Chicago; unfortunately, Mary could not be here today. Again, I would not be standing before you today were it not for the love and support of my wife and best friend, Laurie.Art as a means to express one’s feelings or sense of reality is a consistent theme throughout time. Today’s journey will look at the origins of our specialty of thoracic surgery through the social, cultural, and scientific aspects of tuberculosis and a story told in art by a young thoracic surgeon. First, I feel I must establish my art credentials before this audience. In 1964, as a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania, I took a one semester art course, “Introduction to Western Art: The Renaissance to the Modern Era,” which set the stage for my expertise. Second, I was educated as a thoracic surgeon by Dr Herbert E. Sloan, whose wife Doris, a Johns Hopkins educated nurse, helped create the docents for the University of Michigan Museum of Art, and there is an endowed lectureship in her name at the Museum of Art. Third, my first date with my lovely wife was at the Art Institute of Chicago. Finally, one of my teachers, Joe D. Morris, a faculty member with Drs Alexander, Haight, and Sloan at the University, was the senior surgeon in the group I joined at?St. Joseph Mercy Hospital. He was a surgeon and artist-sculpture. He had a unique set of original negatives, and these are a part of the foundation of this presentation.As Jared Diamond discusses in his