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July 1999
Volume 63 |
Number 7
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| Emery A. Rovenstine
Memorial Lecture: Carl C. Hug, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., Will Present
'Patient Values, Hippocrates, Science and Technology' |
Thomas W. Feeley, M.D.,
Chair
Section on Annual Meeting
The 1999 Rovenstine Lecture will be delivered by Carl C. Hug,
Jr., M.D., Ph.D. The title is "Patient Values, Hippocrates, Science
and Technology." Dr. Hug will discuss ethical decision-making
by anesthesiologists as we expand our sphere of influence in the
practice of medicine and confront the challenges of applying unending
advances in science and technology while maintaining a humanistic
and caring approach to our patients.
Dr. Hug is Professor of Anesthesiology and Pharmacology in the
Department of Anesthesiology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
He directed the Cardiothoracic Anesthesiology Division and Fellowship
Program for 16 years at Emory. He has published extensively about
opioids and clinical pharmacology, held numerous visiting professorships
in the United States and abroad and served as President of the
American Board of Anesthesiology, the Association of University
Anesthesiologists and the Foundation for Anesthesia Education
and Research.
Dr. Hug's path to his current position has taken twists and
turns not apparent from reading his curriculum vitae. He was the
first child and only son of Carl C. Hug, Sr., who was a pharmacist
and drug store owner ("Hugs for Drugs"). His mother, Aimee C.
Hug, was told by one of Carl's three sisters at the closing of
her casket, "Mom, you made a difference while here on earth. Now
just don't cause too much trouble up there!"
Dr. Hug came from a family that fostered a strong work ethic.
Starting at age 10, he worked successively as a grocery stockboy,
newspaper carrier, clerk in his dad's store and service station
attendant. The last position allowed him to drive and to work
on automobiles, but this proved to be a great distraction from
school. At age 14, he ran the full-service, two-pump station alone
from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday nights and was never held up!
But in the meantime, he almost flunked Latin.
In high school, he had an academic turnaround, influenced by
two sons of a general practitioner who practiced anesthesiology
and an attraction to mathematics, especially to the logical analysis
of geometry. Although heavily recruited by Sister Gemma to become
a Jesuit priest, he could not see spending 12-plus years beyond
high school to do so. Besides, he had a high school sweetheart,
now his wife, Marilyn, and four years of pharmacy school seemed
more in line with his desire for an early marriage.
During his very first lecture in college, he was so impressed
by Dean Hugh C. Muldoon's presentation that he began to think
of college teaching as an interesting career possibility. He and
Marilyn were married by the end of his sophomore year. Dr. Hug
worked in pharmacy research laboratories to earn extra money and
received encouragement to go to graduate school. When he graduated
from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he had a wife,
two children and an incredulous father who asked, "You want to
do what? "Go to graduate school? How about getting a job?"
Fellowships from the National Institutes of Health and the American
Pharmaceutical Association allowed Dr. Hug to study under pharmacology
chair Maurice H. Seevers, M.D., Ph.D., who had worked with Ralph
M. Waters, M.D., at the University of Wisconsin. Professor Seevers
told Dr. Hug to get an M.D. degree because it was an important
"union card" for medical school faculty in the basic sciences.
An American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Research Scholarship allowed
Dr. Hug to work, alternating six-month periods as a medical student
and as a faculty member and thereby support his wife and, by then,
three children while completing his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees at
the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Emory's great clinical pharmacology program and its intense
anesthesiology residency training combined with Atlanta's warm
climate and Marilyn's Raynaud's disease, led them to move south
in 1971. Dr. Hug completed his anesthesiology internship and anesthesiology
residency in just 26 months, which was important to all members
of his family, which now included five children. All rejoiced
when dad finally completed 15-plus years of post-high school education
(versus 12 for a Jesuit). During his residency, Dr. Hug learned
that he actually liked taking care of patients. Dr. Hug feels
that he has been blessed with four great "bosses," namely his
father, Maurice Seevers, M.D., John Steinhaus, M.D., and John
Waller, M.D. Like good coaches, each gave him the ball, let him
run free with it and did not bother him as long as he scored a
few points and did not make too many penalties. The six best decisions
in his life were marrying Marilyn, ignoring family planning, choosing
anesthesiology, moving to Emory and Atlanta, training in pharmacology
with Dr. Seevers in Ann Arbor and refusing to become a departmental
chair. He considers his greatest blessing to be his family and
the two titles of which he is most proud, "Dad" and "Papa."
The Rovenstine Lecture honors the memory of Emery A. Rovenstine,
M.D. At the time of his death in 1960, Dr. Rovenstine was considered
the most knowledgeable anesthesiologist in the world. He served
as Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology at New York University
Medical Center and was the Director of Anesthesia at Bellevue
Hospital, which he organized in 1935.
Over the course of his 25 years in New York, he trained many
of the country's leading anesthesiologists. Dr. Rovenstine was
born in Atwood, Indiana, and by age 17 had become a teacher in
a one-room grammar school. He later attended Wabash College. His
interest in medicine began during World War I while serving as
a dispatch rider at the front in France. He once commented, "I
would stop by an ambulance pick-up point and maybe talk to some
fellow who was lying there hurt ready to go back. I would take
a message farther front, and when I would return 10 minutes later,
the fellow would be dead. I could not understand how that happened.
We have learned a lot about shock since then." After his discharge,
he taught mathematics, physics and chemistry and saved enough
money to enter medical school in 1923. In medical school, he became
interested in anesthesia and following graduation went to study
anesthesia with Dr. Ralph Waters. Dr. Rovenstine spent five years
with Dr. Waters and was then recruited to New York. At first,
he was treated coldly at Bellevue, but in a short time his fresh
ideas completely reorganized the delivery of anesthesia at Bellevue.
He replaced nurses with young residents who wanted to be part
of this new and exciting specialty. He served on the Army Advisory
Board in World War II and was responsible for putting anesthesiologists
in complete charge of operating rooms in Army Hospitals. Dr. Rovenstine
was a founding member of the American Board of Anesthesiology
and was the eighth President of the American Society of Anesthesiologists,
serving two terms in 1943 and 1944. Dr. Rovenstine received the
ASA Distinguished Service Award in 1957, three years before his
death.
The Rovenstine Lecture honors the memory of this great man in
anesthesiology. As another great pioneer in anesthesiology, Dr.
Hug is certainly a deserving presenter of the 1999 Rovenstine
Lecture. The lecture will be held beginning at 11:15 a.m. on Monday,
October 11, 1999, in the Arena of the Dallas Convention Center.
Thomas W. Feeley, M.D. is the McBride
Professor and Chair of the Departments of Anesthesiology and Critical
Care Medicine, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center,
Houston, Texas.
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