Baylor College of Medicine truly gave me “full-time employment.” During my twenty-year career with the College, I usually held three simultaneous positions: Administrator for the Department of Medicine, Director for Faculty Resources, and Administrative Director for the Heart Center. The institution did know how to get the biggest bang for its buck. I like to believe that BCM, besides keeping me extremely busy, did receive some value from my years with the school.
In retrospect, it’s difficult to describe what I did each day in these three offices where I worked on a random basis. Once again, I had little time to keep a journal of what I did each day and how I managed to juggle three positions during those years, as I moved, physically, among my multiple office sites.
At the outset of my career, most of my time was spent in the Department of Medicine in the Fondren-Brown building of The Methodist Hospital (TMH), where I served as the Administrator for the department. My office was located one floor below that of Tony Gotto, M.D., the department’s chairman, to whom I reported. I spent a significant time each day double-stepping in the stairwells between the two floors. This action provided almost a daily opportunity to nod to Dr. Michael E. DeBakey as he, too, rushed from one floor to another between his surgeries and meetings. Most of the time, he recognized my existence. After-all, I theoretically reported to him in my role with the Heart Center, which he headed, as well as in central administration, in which he served as Chancellor, with President William Butler as my immediate supervisor.
DeBakey was, of course, a very interesting leader in medical science both nationally and internationally. Patients were as likely to arrive from Saudi Arabia as they were from every state in the Union as well as every nation in Latin America. I found it fascinating that directional signs throughout The Methodist Hospital were in three languages: English, Spanish and Arabic. There were many stories about the diversity of those seeking medical service with TMH. My favorite one was about the presence of the “king of the Gypsies.” Before his treatment began, a significant pre-deposit had to be made, in order to cover all of the items which would leave the premises when he and his followers dis-encamped upon completion of his medical procedures.
DeBakey, himself, was an imposing figure, racing up and down the stairwells or sitting at a boardroom table. He always wore cowboy boots, often white, with two-inch soles. They were probably very comfortable for standing over a surgery table for long periods and for giving him a taller stance at other times. MED had mellowed from what had been recorded, in earlier times, about his devastating comments toward transgressing colleagues. It was said that following his second marriage to Katrin, a former movie actress from Germany, he had become a calmer person. This change may have been due to the aging-maturing process, itself. His annual Christmas card to us always had a smiling photo of both of them, along with their daughter, Katrina.
My direct interactions with Dr. DeBakey were few. Most of them occurred through his sisters, Dr. Lois or Miss Selma. When I had to draft anything for him, I had to meet with one of them, usually, Dr. Lois, to obtain approval for what I had written. My longest interaction was in the preparation of materials to be presented at an NIH meeting we attended in Bethesda. Of course, he ignored everything I had prepared, but it was a pleasure to see him in action as the spokesman for medical science policy in the country.
The other way to communicate with MED was through Dr. Antonio Gotto, his medical protégé. Dr. Gotto, himself, was an internationally known physician in his specialty of arteriosclerosis. Tony had been a Rhodes Scholar and held a D.Phil. from Oxford as well as his M.D. from Vanderbilt. I reported to him on a daily basis at “five o’clock,” no matter what the actual time might be. Each day I called Jean, his personal assistant, to determine when “five o’clock” would occur on that particular day. Karen was never sure about when I would arrive home. That changed only after I began to commute by bus instead of by personal car. The METRO schedule became more important than Tony’s. There were certain, other “problems” with working through Jean to get to Tony, but that was, no doubt, part of her job. Our relationship did improve once I managed to establish with her the difference between “what Dr. Gotto might say” and “what Dr. Gotto actually said.”