100 Years Later, Legacy of Patient Care Carries Us Forward
By Jonathan P. Gertler, MD
I had the privilege of starting my professional life as a clinician-scientist. After my medical education and surgical training, I spent 15 years in academia, most of it at the Massachusetts General Hospital as a vascular surgeon and investigator. My transposition into the world of biotechnology, novel medical technologies, and other fields has been gratifying and fruitful. But it's important to remember one’s roots.
This month, I had the distinct pleasure of attending the celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Division of Cardiology at the MGH. My presence there was less related to my many friends and colleagues from my era in vascular surgery and more related to the fact that my father was Paul Dudley White’s Cardiology fellow from 1948 to 1952. Called the Father of Cardiology in the United States, Dr. White helped establish the American Heart Association and served as executive director of the National Advisory Heart Council to oversee the creation of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
My father, Menard M. Gertler MD DSc., along with Paul Dudley White, led the project and wrote the first book, published in 1952, explaining the ideas of risk factors for atherosclerotic heart disease. I attended the one-hundredth anniversary representing my family from that far away time. The most striking aspect of the meeting was the legacy of care in the history of cardiology. The most senior department member attending was Roman DeSanctis, the revered MGH cardiologist and one of the great clinicians in the institution’s history. He was followed and supported by a host of others, all of whom could tie their legacy back to Paul Dudley White.
In my father’s estimation, with a few historical gymnastics, White could link his legacy back to Dr. William Harvey—the man who discovered circulation as we now know it. The lesson in the room from the celebrants was not about self-congratulation or the greatness of the cardiology unit. It was about dedication to the patient. It was about the migration from the invention of the stethoscope to our current diagnostic, interventional, surgical, and therapeutic powers to intervene in cardiac disease and help patients live a life very different from the one to which they would have been doomed in previous generations.
This dedication to the patient carries me today, although I left my surgical life in 2001. My great love of what I currently do still stems from this ethic of patient centricity. For the vast majority of us working in life sciences, patient care is first and foremost. In times of upheaval and political strife, we hear about the negatives of our industry and it is important to police ourselves and ensure we remain eternally focused on what it is that allows us to succeed —improvement in the way in which we prevent and treat disease.
Despite the outliers in our world who are pasted across the press, this great tribute to MGH Cardiology reminded me of how academia, science, industry, and even finance can work together to promote a greater good – with rewards that transcend the measures by which the business press and the political world might judge us. My friends and colleagues in leadership positions of academic departments and institutes, mature and growing companies, scientific endeavors and raw startups, visionary investment firms and charitable and patient advocacy foundations, share that view and make me very proud to be a part of this extraordinary ecosystem. We are ultimately dedicated to the improvement of our health as a people, a nation, and the world.
The night of the celebration, with the display of Paul Dudley White’s rocking chair, stethoscope, and the vastly contributing people in the room, was a wonderful reminder.