Carol Patton

Tracy Gulling-Leftwich, DO, remembers Chewy very well. He was a 70-pound English bulldog she was caring for last year on behalf of the Rescue Ohio English Bulldogs, an English bulldog rescue group.

She soon learned that Chewy was anemic and suffered from bone cancer of the jaw. Ironically, considering his name, he could barely chew, so Dr. Gulling-Leftwich and her husband, Samuel Leftwich, pureed his food, spoon-fed the animal, and administered around-the-clock pain medications for roughly two weeks. But his pain grew too intense, and Chewy had to be euthanized.

For many people, that would end their experience with an animal organization. People typically compare the heartbreaking experience to losing a beloved family member or friend. But as an animal lover and hospitalist at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Gulling-Leftwich has no intentions of looking the other way whenever an animal—or human—is in need. Ever since she was in college, she has been rescuing lab rats and dogs, trying to keep them happy, healthy, and loved throughout their relatively short lives.

Underground Railroad

Dr. Gulling-Leftwich graduated from the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Erie, Penn., in 2007. The following year, she pursued an osteopathic rotating internship at the University of Connecticut. While attending the same university from 2008 to 2010, she completed a traditional, categorical, allopathic medicine residency.

After completing her medical education, she held several positions. She worked as a teaching hospitalist at the Hartford Hospital for one year, served as a primary-care physician for the next three years at The Hospital of Central Connecticut, and then joined the Cleveland Clinic as a hospitalist in 2014.

Her involvement in animal rescue began many years earlier while attending undergraduate school at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Penn. She tells the story how one student at the college kidnapped a rat from the school’s neuroscience lab just before Christmas break.

Since the student’s mother would not allow her to bring a rat home over the six-week holiday, Dr. Gulling-Leftwich babysat him until she returned. However, the student intended on releasing him into the wild. Fearing the worst, that the rat could not fend for itself since it had been caged and fed for many months, Dr. Gulling-Leftwich convinced the student to relinquish custody of the rat to her.

That’s how it all began. Dr. Gulling-Leftwich named the rat Templeton. She suspects he died of a pituitary tumor four years later; still, that’s a long life for a rat. Most live just two years. Just shows what a little love can do.

Since then, she has rescued approximately 21 rats from Kentucky and Connecticut. Years ago, she says, there were multiple Yahoo chat groups of people involved in an underground railroad of sorts for rescued lab rats. People would often drive the rats to different cities, even across state borders, so these rats could enjoy a permanent home.

While she has never broken into a research lab, her opinion is torn on animal research. She believes it is not necessary for consumer products, such as makeup, but can see its value in other fields of science like the development of new medications.

“What I can hope for is that we work toward finding a way of not requiring animals for research in the future,” she says.

Full House

After getting married in 2013, Dr. Gulling-Leftwich told her husband she wanted a dog. But because of their hectic schedules, no one would be home to care for the animal, so the couple waited another two years to adopt a rescue animal.

 

In 2015, they had purchased a house in Cleveland when they adopted Boomer, a pug and beagle designer breed, as their family pet.

“I had really wanted an English bulldog. They’re just cute, their face is squishy,” she says, adding she had been monitoring English bulldog rescue websites. “I won’t buy a puppy. I will only get a dog that needs a home.”

In September that year, the rescue organization emailed a desperate plea to its followers. Can anyone rescue an English bulldog named Chewy? Dr. Gulling-Leftwich immediately filled out the paperwork and adopted him. But Chewy only stayed with them for two weeks before he was euthanized. She brought him to the vet after he attacked Boomer.

“Chewy wasn’t being a jerk,” she says. “His attacking behavior had to do with his pain and discomfort. He had blood everywhere around his mouth. We had a hard time letting him go.”

One month later, another English bulldog named Olive joined their family. She’s roughly two years old and weighs only 30 pounds mainly because of her disease: congenital cardiomyopathy. They plan to care for Olive until she dies.

She says Olive takes six pills a day for her condition and occasionally receives nitroglycerin when she overexerts herself and passes out.

Meanwhile, Dr. Gulling-Leftwich and her husband care for one rat named Harvey and a cat called Lily in addition to the two dogs. Boomer doesn’t like Olive. Olive doesn’t like the cat. And both dogs and the cat pay no attention to the rat.

“My husband says rescuing animals and taking care of people is one of my more endearing qualities,” she says. “Then he follows it up with, ‘No, you can’t have that bunny that needs a home.’”

She believes caring for these animals balances her work in hospital medicine. While hospital patients often are in pain, act grouchy, and appear unappreciative, she says her four-legged family members are always excited to see her and routinely demonstrate unconditional love.

“You definitely have to be open-minded because you never know what you’ll be walking into when you rescue an animal,” she says, adding that rescue groups tend to pay for vet bills and medicine. “You have to be prepared for what potentially could be the worst.”

---

Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.

Tracy Gulling-Leftwich, DO, remembers Chewy very well. He was a 70-pound English bulldog she was caring for last year on behalf of the Rescue Ohio English Bulldogs, an English bulldog rescue group.

She soon learned that Chewy was anemic and suffered from bone cancer of the jaw. Ironically, considering his name, he could barely chew, so Dr. Gulling-Leftwich and her husband, Samuel Leftwich, pureed his food, spoon-fed the animal, and administered around-the-clock pain medications for roughly two weeks. But his pain grew too intense, and Chewy had to be euthanized.

For many people, that would end their experience with an animal organization. People typically compare the heartbreaking experience to losing a beloved family member or friend. But as an animal lover and hospitalist at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Gulling-Leftwich has no intentions of looking the other way whenever an animal—or human—is in need. Ever since she was in college, she has been rescuing lab rats and dogs, trying to keep them happy, healthy, and loved throughout their relatively short lives.

Underground Railroad

Dr. Gulling-Leftwich graduated from the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Erie, Penn., in 2007. The following year, she pursued an osteopathic rotating internship at the University of Connecticut. While attending the same university from 2008 to 2010, she completed a traditional, categorical, allopathic medicine residency.

After completing her medical education, she held several positions. She worked as a teaching hospitalist at the Hartford Hospital for one year, served as a primary-care physician for the next three years at The Hospital of Central Connecticut, and then joined the Cleveland Clinic as a hospitalist in 2014.

Her involvement in animal rescue began many years earlier while attending undergraduate school at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Penn. She tells the story how one student at the college kidnapped a rat from the school’s neuroscience lab just before Christmas break.

Since the student’s mother would not allow her to bring a rat home over the six-week holiday, Dr. Gulling-Leftwich babysat him until she returned. However, the student intended on releasing him into the wild. Fearing the worst, that the rat could not fend for itself since it had been caged and fed for many months, Dr. Gulling-Leftwich convinced the student to relinquish custody of the rat to her.

That’s how it all began. Dr. Gulling-Leftwich named the rat Templeton. She suspects he died of a pituitary tumor four years later; still, that’s a long life for a rat. Most live just two years. Just shows what a little love can do.

Since then, she has rescued approximately 21 rats from Kentucky and Connecticut. Years ago, she says, there were multiple Yahoo chat groups of people involved in an underground railroad of sorts for rescued lab rats. People would often drive the rats to different cities, even across state borders, so these rats could enjoy a permanent home.

While she has never broken into a research lab, her opinion is torn on animal research. She believes it is not necessary for consumer products, such as makeup, but can see its value in other fields of science like the development of new medications.

“What I can hope for is that we work toward finding a way of not requiring animals for research in the future,” she says.

Full House

After getting married in 2013, Dr. Gulling-Leftwich told her husband she wanted a dog. But because of their hectic schedules, no one would be home to care for the animal, so the couple waited another two years to adopt a rescue animal.

 

In 2015, they had purchased a house in Cleveland when they adopted Boomer, a pug and beagle designer breed, as their family pet.

“I had really wanted an English bulldog. They’re just cute, their face is squishy,” she says, adding she had been monitoring English bulldog rescue websites. “I won’t buy a puppy. I will only get a dog that needs a home.”

In September that year, the rescue organization emailed a desperate plea to its followers. Can anyone rescue an English bulldog named Chewy? Dr. Gulling-Leftwich immediately filled out the paperwork and adopted him. But Chewy only stayed with them for two weeks before he was euthanized. She brought him to the vet after he attacked Boomer.

“Chewy wasn’t being a jerk,” she says. “His attacking behavior had to do with his pain and discomfort. He had blood everywhere around his mouth. We had a hard time letting him go.”

One month later, another English bulldog named Olive joined their family. She’s roughly two years old and weighs only 30 pounds mainly because of her disease: congenital cardiomyopathy. They plan to care for Olive until she dies.

She says Olive takes six pills a day for her condition and occasionally receives nitroglycerin when she overexerts herself and passes out.

Meanwhile, Dr. Gulling-Leftwich and her husband care for one rat named Harvey and a cat called Lily in addition to the two dogs. Boomer doesn’t like Olive. Olive doesn’t like the cat. And both dogs and the cat pay no attention to the rat.

“My husband says rescuing animals and taking care of people is one of my more endearing qualities,” she says. “Then he follows it up with, ‘No, you can’t have that bunny that needs a home.’”

She believes caring for these animals balances her work in hospital medicine. While hospital patients often are in pain, act grouchy, and appear unappreciative, she says her four-legged family members are always excited to see her and routinely demonstrate unconditional love.

“You definitely have to be open-minded because you never know what you’ll be walking into when you rescue an animal,” she says, adding that rescue groups tend to pay for vet bills and medicine. “You have to be prepared for what potentially could be the worst.”

---

Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.

Tracy Gulling-Leftwich, DO, remembers Chewy very well. He was a 70-pound English bulldog she was caring for last year on behalf of the Rescue Ohio English Bulldogs, an English bulldog rescue group.

She soon learned that Chewy was anemic and suffered from bone cancer of the jaw. Ironically, considering his name, he could barely chew, so Dr. Gulling-Leftwich and her husband, Samuel Leftwich, pureed his food, spoon-fed the animal, and administered around-the-clock pain medications for roughly two weeks. But his pain grew too intense, and Chewy had to be euthanized.

For many people, that would end their experience with an animal organization. People typically compare the heartbreaking experience to losing a beloved family member or friend. But as an animal lover and hospitalist at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Gulling-Leftwich has no intentions of looking the other way whenever an animal—or human—is in need. Ever since she was in college, she has been rescuing lab rats and dogs, trying to keep them happy, healthy, and loved throughout their relatively short lives.

Underground Railroad

Dr. Gulling-Leftwich graduated from the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Erie, Penn., in 2007. The following year, she pursued an osteopathic rotating internship at the University of Connecticut. While attending the same university from 2008 to 2010, she completed a traditional, categorical, allopathic medicine residency.

After completing her medical education, she held several positions. She worked as a teaching hospitalist at the Hartford Hospital for one year, served as a primary-care physician for the next three years at The Hospital of Central Connecticut, and then joined the Cleveland Clinic as a hospitalist in 2014.

Her involvement in animal rescue began many years earlier while attending undergraduate school at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Penn. She tells the story how one student at the college kidnapped a rat from the school’s neuroscience lab just before Christmas break.

Since the student’s mother would not allow her to bring a rat home over the six-week holiday, Dr. Gulling-Leftwich babysat him until she returned. However, the student intended on releasing him into the wild. Fearing the worst, that the rat could not fend for itself since it had been caged and fed for many months, Dr. Gulling-Leftwich convinced the student to relinquish custody of the rat to her.

That’s how it all began. Dr. Gulling-Leftwich named the rat Templeton. She suspects he died of a pituitary tumor four years later; still, that’s a long life for a rat. Most live just two years. Just shows what a little love can do.

Since then, she has rescued approximately 21 rats from Kentucky and Connecticut. Years ago, she says, there were multiple Yahoo chat groups of people involved in an underground railroad of sorts for rescued lab rats. People would often drive the rats to different cities, even across state borders, so these rats could enjoy a permanent home.

While she has never broken into a research lab, her opinion is torn on animal research. She believes it is not necessary for consumer products, such as makeup, but can see its value in other fields of science like the development of new medications.

“What I can hope for is that we work toward finding a way of not requiring animals for research in the future,” she says.

Full House

After getting married in 2013, Dr. Gulling-Leftwich told her husband she wanted a dog. But because of their hectic schedules, no one would be home to care for the animal, so the couple waited another two years to adopt a rescue animal.

 

In 2015, they had purchased a house in Cleveland when they adopted Boomer, a pug and beagle designer breed, as their family pet.

“I had really wanted an English bulldog. They’re just cute, their face is squishy,” she says, adding she had been monitoring English bulldog rescue websites. “I won’t buy a puppy. I will only get a dog that needs a home.”

In September that year, the rescue organization emailed a desperate plea to its followers. Can anyone rescue an English bulldog named Chewy? Dr. Gulling-Leftwich immediately filled out the paperwork and adopted him. But Chewy only stayed with them for two weeks before he was euthanized. She brought him to the vet after he attacked Boomer.

“Chewy wasn’t being a jerk,” she says. “His attacking behavior had to do with his pain and discomfort. He had blood everywhere around his mouth. We had a hard time letting him go.”

One month later, another English bulldog named Olive joined their family. She’s roughly two years old and weighs only 30 pounds mainly because of her disease: congenital cardiomyopathy. They plan to care for Olive until she dies.

She says Olive takes six pills a day for her condition and occasionally receives nitroglycerin when she overexerts herself and passes out.

Meanwhile, Dr. Gulling-Leftwich and her husband care for one rat named Harvey and a cat called Lily in addition to the two dogs. Boomer doesn’t like Olive. Olive doesn’t like the cat. And both dogs and the cat pay no attention to the rat.

“My husband says rescuing animals and taking care of people is one of my more endearing qualities,” she says. “Then he follows it up with, ‘No, you can’t have that bunny that needs a home.’”

She believes caring for these animals balances her work in hospital medicine. While hospital patients often are in pain, act grouchy, and appear unappreciative, she says her four-legged family members are always excited to see her and routinely demonstrate unconditional love.

“You definitely have to be open-minded because you never know what you’ll be walking into when you rescue an animal,” she says, adding that rescue groups tend to pay for vet bills and medicine. “You have to be prepared for what potentially could be the worst.”

---

Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.

When Rana Tan, MD, was a young child, she often played with dolls, dressing them up and inventing stories about them. Teachers would comment to Dr. Tan’s parents about her creativity and that she belonged on stage or behind the scenes, writing plays or movies. But her parents discouraged any profession relating to the arts, wanting a more respectable career for their daughter.

To some, there is nothing more respectable than medicine. After graduating medical school at the University California, Davis in 1990, Dr. Tan spent the next four years at Mercy Hospital in San Diego, completing a one-year internship, two years of residency, and another year of chief residency. Then from 1994 to 1997, she pursued a pulmonary and critical-care fellowship at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

After training for seven years, Dr. Tan worked in private practice in Bremerton, Wash., practicing pulmonary and critical-care medicine for the next eight years, and then joined Sound Physicians as a hospitalist in 2005 at Harrison Medical Center in Bremerton. Since 2010, she has served as its chief hospitalist.

Despite all of her education and training, Dr. Tan never forgot about her dolls or how much fun she had creating their life stories.

For years, much of her creativity had been bottled up and was ready to be unleashed. But how? The answer sat a few blocks away from Harrison: the Bremerton Community Theater. For the past 17 years, Dr. Tan has volunteered for the theater by performing in numerous plays, creating costumes and set designs, and directing more than a dozen plays for the youth theater program.

“As much as I enjoy my career, I don’t know if I could just do medicine,” says Dr. Tan, adding that acting demands her to explore a wide variety of emotions, which enables her to better understand and connect with her patients. “I’m incredibly fortunate that we have a community theater down the street and am afforded the opportunity to do all sorts of things that keep me balanced.”

Curtains Up

Back in 1999, Dr. Tan auditioned for Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, a 1976 play by Ed Graczyk about the reunion of childhood friends in drought-stricken Texas.

“This community theater had a very strong clique of people who acted in everything,” she says, adding that the same directors tapped the same actors for various roles. “It was very difficult to break in. I was very lucky that I was cast as Joanne in this play.”

Over the next two years, she repeatedly auditioned for various plays, but she never got so much as a thank you, let alone a callback. It seemed her acting career was over before it even started. But luck was on her side. She received an audition notice from a local director who had not volunteered at the theater for some time and didn’t have a preset agenda for casting.

“I got one of the lead parts in Rumors,” she says, referring to a Neil Simon play. “Then I was cast in more and more plays.”

Of all the roles she has performed, two are most memorable: Kate Keller in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons and Sister Aloysius in John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt: A Parable.

Dr. Tan explains that both roles spoke to her in different ways. Even though she never personally experienced the plights of the characters, she understood them, related to them, and became them on stage.

 

“I’m very grateful for having these two theater experiences,” she says.

Like many community theaters, Bremerton is staffed by volunteers. Out of necessity, Dr. Tan was asked to help with set design and also costuming. To boost interest in the arts and ticket sales, the theater also established a club for children between ages 6 and 18. It produced one show, but the youth program wasn’t well-organized and soon fizzled. Simultaneously, Dr. Tan wrote an adaption of Little Red Riding Hood, which revived the program and was chosen for the summer play in 2007.

Since then, she has directed 15 more plays, including Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, and A Seussified Christmas Carol. She says her favorite, however, was a spoof on the Law & Order television show called Law & Order: Fairy Tale Unit.

Confidence and Coyotes

Each play at the community theater may involve up to 50 cast members, including children.

“We have children who are incredibly shy, you can’t hear them on stage, and they run to sit next to their parents,” she says. “Sometimes, by the end of the audition process, their voices are stronger and they’re more confident because we audition in groups. By the end of the rehearsal process, they’re not clinging to their parents anymore.”

As a director, she has never yelled or raised her voice to any child actor. When she needs children to be quiet to listen to her rules or instructions, she uses a hand signal called “Quiet Coyote.” (Touch your thumb to your third and fourth fingers and raise your index finger and pinkie to resemble a coyote’s head.) She says they immediately stop talking and start listening.

One of her favorite youth theater memories happened several years ago, when one parent said that her six-year-old daughter wanted to dress up as Dr. Tan for Halloween by styling her hair in a bun, wearing glasses, and carrying a clipboard.

“Even though I may be exhausted at the end of the day, I still head straight to the theater,” Dr. Tan says, adding that her husband, Eric Spencer, a professional actor, is the theater’s technical director.

“Every heaviness that I have on my shoulders from the hospital is now gone. It resets me and puts me in a different place. For that, I will always be grateful.” TH

---

Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.

When Rana Tan, MD, was a young child, she often played with dolls, dressing them up and inventing stories about them. Teachers would comment to Dr. Tan’s parents about her creativity and that she belonged on stage or behind the scenes, writing plays or movies. But her parents discouraged any profession relating to the arts, wanting a more respectable career for their daughter.

To some, there is nothing more respectable than medicine. After graduating medical school at the University California, Davis in 1990, Dr. Tan spent the next four years at Mercy Hospital in San Diego, completing a one-year internship, two years of residency, and another year of chief residency. Then from 1994 to 1997, she pursued a pulmonary and critical-care fellowship at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

After training for seven years, Dr. Tan worked in private practice in Bremerton, Wash., practicing pulmonary and critical-care medicine for the next eight years, and then joined Sound Physicians as a hospitalist in 2005 at Harrison Medical Center in Bremerton. Since 2010, she has served as its chief hospitalist.

Despite all of her education and training, Dr. Tan never forgot about her dolls or how much fun she had creating their life stories.

For years, much of her creativity had been bottled up and was ready to be unleashed. But how? The answer sat a few blocks away from Harrison: the Bremerton Community Theater. For the past 17 years, Dr. Tan has volunteered for the theater by performing in numerous plays, creating costumes and set designs, and directing more than a dozen plays for the youth theater program.

“As much as I enjoy my career, I don’t know if I could just do medicine,” says Dr. Tan, adding that acting demands her to explore a wide variety of emotions, which enables her to better understand and connect with her patients. “I’m incredibly fortunate that we have a community theater down the street and am afforded the opportunity to do all sorts of things that keep me balanced.”

Curtains Up

Back in 1999, Dr. Tan auditioned for Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, a 1976 play by Ed Graczyk about the reunion of childhood friends in drought-stricken Texas.

“This community theater had a very strong clique of people who acted in everything,” she says, adding that the same directors tapped the same actors for various roles. “It was very difficult to break in. I was very lucky that I was cast as Joanne in this play.”

Over the next two years, she repeatedly auditioned for various plays, but she never got so much as a thank you, let alone a callback. It seemed her acting career was over before it even started. But luck was on her side. She received an audition notice from a local director who had not volunteered at the theater for some time and didn’t have a preset agenda for casting.

“I got one of the lead parts in Rumors,” she says, referring to a Neil Simon play. “Then I was cast in more and more plays.”

Of all the roles she has performed, two are most memorable: Kate Keller in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons and Sister Aloysius in John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt: A Parable.

Dr. Tan explains that both roles spoke to her in different ways. Even though she never personally experienced the plights of the characters, she understood them, related to them, and became them on stage.

 

“I’m very grateful for having these two theater experiences,” she says.

Like many community theaters, Bremerton is staffed by volunteers. Out of necessity, Dr. Tan was asked to help with set design and also costuming. To boost interest in the arts and ticket sales, the theater also established a club for children between ages 6 and 18. It produced one show, but the youth program wasn’t well-organized and soon fizzled. Simultaneously, Dr. Tan wrote an adaption of Little Red Riding Hood, which revived the program and was chosen for the summer play in 2007.

Since then, she has directed 15 more plays, including Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, and A Seussified Christmas Carol. She says her favorite, however, was a spoof on the Law & Order television show called Law & Order: Fairy Tale Unit.

Confidence and Coyotes

Each play at the community theater may involve up to 50 cast members, including children.

“We have children who are incredibly shy, you can’t hear them on stage, and they run to sit next to their parents,” she says. “Sometimes, by the end of the audition process, their voices are stronger and they’re more confident because we audition in groups. By the end of the rehearsal process, they’re not clinging to their parents anymore.”

As a director, she has never yelled or raised her voice to any child actor. When she needs children to be quiet to listen to her rules or instructions, she uses a hand signal called “Quiet Coyote.” (Touch your thumb to your third and fourth fingers and raise your index finger and pinkie to resemble a coyote’s head.) She says they immediately stop talking and start listening.

One of her favorite youth theater memories happened several years ago, when one parent said that her six-year-old daughter wanted to dress up as Dr. Tan for Halloween by styling her hair in a bun, wearing glasses, and carrying a clipboard.

“Even though I may be exhausted at the end of the day, I still head straight to the theater,” Dr. Tan says, adding that her husband, Eric Spencer, a professional actor, is the theater’s technical director.

“Every heaviness that I have on my shoulders from the hospital is now gone. It resets me and puts me in a different place. For that, I will always be grateful.” TH

---

Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.

When Rana Tan, MD, was a young child, she often played with dolls, dressing them up and inventing stories about them. Teachers would comment to Dr. Tan’s parents about her creativity and that she belonged on stage or behind the scenes, writing plays or movies. But her parents discouraged any profession relating to the arts, wanting a more respectable career for their daughter.

To some, there is nothing more respectable than medicine. After graduating medical school at the University California, Davis in 1990, Dr. Tan spent the next four years at Mercy Hospital in San Diego, completing a one-year internship, two years of residency, and another year of chief residency. Then from 1994 to 1997, she pursued a pulmonary and critical-care fellowship at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

After training for seven years, Dr. Tan worked in private practice in Bremerton, Wash., practicing pulmonary and critical-care medicine for the next eight years, and then joined Sound Physicians as a hospitalist in 2005 at Harrison Medical Center in Bremerton. Since 2010, she has served as its chief hospitalist.

Despite all of her education and training, Dr. Tan never forgot about her dolls or how much fun she had creating their life stories.

For years, much of her creativity had been bottled up and was ready to be unleashed. But how? The answer sat a few blocks away from Harrison: the Bremerton Community Theater. For the past 17 years, Dr. Tan has volunteered for the theater by performing in numerous plays, creating costumes and set designs, and directing more than a dozen plays for the youth theater program.

“As much as I enjoy my career, I don’t know if I could just do medicine,” says Dr. Tan, adding that acting demands her to explore a wide variety of emotions, which enables her to better understand and connect with her patients. “I’m incredibly fortunate that we have a community theater down the street and am afforded the opportunity to do all sorts of things that keep me balanced.”

Curtains Up

Back in 1999, Dr. Tan auditioned for Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, a 1976 play by Ed Graczyk about the reunion of childhood friends in drought-stricken Texas.

“This community theater had a very strong clique of people who acted in everything,” she says, adding that the same directors tapped the same actors for various roles. “It was very difficult to break in. I was very lucky that I was cast as Joanne in this play.”

Over the next two years, she repeatedly auditioned for various plays, but she never got so much as a thank you, let alone a callback. It seemed her acting career was over before it even started. But luck was on her side. She received an audition notice from a local director who had not volunteered at the theater for some time and didn’t have a preset agenda for casting.

“I got one of the lead parts in Rumors,” she says, referring to a Neil Simon play. “Then I was cast in more and more plays.”

Of all the roles she has performed, two are most memorable: Kate Keller in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons and Sister Aloysius in John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt: A Parable.

Dr. Tan explains that both roles spoke to her in different ways. Even though she never personally experienced the plights of the characters, she understood them, related to them, and became them on stage.

 

“I’m very grateful for having these two theater experiences,” she says.

Like many community theaters, Bremerton is staffed by volunteers. Out of necessity, Dr. Tan was asked to help with set design and also costuming. To boost interest in the arts and ticket sales, the theater also established a club for children between ages 6 and 18. It produced one show, but the youth program wasn’t well-organized and soon fizzled. Simultaneously, Dr. Tan wrote an adaption of Little Red Riding Hood, which revived the program and was chosen for the summer play in 2007.

Since then, she has directed 15 more plays, including Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, and A Seussified Christmas Carol. She says her favorite, however, was a spoof on the Law & Order television show called Law & Order: Fairy Tale Unit.

Confidence and Coyotes

Each play at the community theater may involve up to 50 cast members, including children.

“We have children who are incredibly shy, you can’t hear them on stage, and they run to sit next to their parents,” she says. “Sometimes, by the end of the audition process, their voices are stronger and they’re more confident because we audition in groups. By the end of the rehearsal process, they’re not clinging to their parents anymore.”

As a director, she has never yelled or raised her voice to any child actor. When she needs children to be quiet to listen to her rules or instructions, she uses a hand signal called “Quiet Coyote.” (Touch your thumb to your third and fourth fingers and raise your index finger and pinkie to resemble a coyote’s head.) She says they immediately stop talking and start listening.

One of her favorite youth theater memories happened several years ago, when one parent said that her six-year-old daughter wanted to dress up as Dr. Tan for Halloween by styling her hair in a bun, wearing glasses, and carrying a clipboard.

“Even though I may be exhausted at the end of the day, I still head straight to the theater,” Dr. Tan says, adding that her husband, Eric Spencer, a professional actor, is the theater’s technical director.

“Every heaviness that I have on my shoulders from the hospital is now gone. It resets me and puts me in a different place. For that, I will always be grateful.” TH

---

Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.

Not much intimidates Jasen Gundersen, MD, president of the acute care services division at TeamHealth, an outsourcer of hospital-based clinical and specialty services based in Knoxville, Tenn. Besides traveling 150,000 miles a year overseeing 2,500 hospitalists at 285 facilities, Dr. Gundersen has climbed frozen waterfalls in Vermont and New Hampshire, raced in bicycle competitions, and skied mountains towering 10,000 feet.

But his love for adventure is now focused below the surface. Over the years, he has spent many weekends diving in open waters surrounding southeast Florida; Cozumel, Mexico; Turks and Caicos; and the Cayman Islands. He believes there’s no place on Earth that is as peaceful, serene, or even magical as under the ocean.

Reclaimed Passion

Growing up in Connecticut, Dr. Gundersen and his family frequently vacationed in the Bahamas, where he was introduced to scuba diving.

“As a teenager, I really loved diving,” he recalls. “Every time we went to the Bahamas, I always tried to go diving or snorkeling.”

However, the harsh Connecticut winters and frigid Atlantic Ocean prevented him from diving. More delays followed, namely medical school. After graduating from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine in 2000, Dr. Gundersen completed his three-year residency in family medicine at the UMass Memorial Medical Center. During the next two years, he worked as a physician and hospitalist at the Family Health Center of Worcester, a federally qualified health center where he did everything from examining sore throats to delivering babies.

In 2005, he launched a small hospital medicine program at the University of Massachusetts that quickly grew and bumped up his title to division chief for hospital medicine. Then in January 2011, he accepted a new position as chief medical officer at TeamHealth, requiring him and his wife, Elizabeth, also a hospitalist, to move to Florida.

Within several weeks, the couple started diving near their home in Pompano Beach. He says Elizabeth, his “diving buddy,” was eager to learn and developed a passion for scuba diving that rivals his own.

“We did 80 to 90 dives in the first year we were down there,” Dr. Gundersen says, explaining that unlike many sports, diving doesn’t require athletic ability, size, or strength. “We normally did recreational diving, where you basically can always swim slowly straight to the surface. You don’t stay down long enough that you build up enough bubbles in your system that you have to stop on the way up.”

Sharks and Shipwrecks

Since then, Dr. Gundersen purchased a 38-foot powerboat, became a PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) open-water scuba instructor, and earned a U.S. Coast Guard 50-ton master captain’s license. He and Elizabeth are certified for advanced nitrox and decompression diving, technical diving that requires the use of different gases to decompress when heading to the surface, and diving in overhead environments, such as caves or shipwrecks.

“One of our favorite wrecks is called the USS Spiegel Gove that sits on the ocean floor in Key Largo,” he says, adding that on occasion, they also swim with hammerhead sharks. “The walls of the ship go 30 feet up on each side. You can swim where they loaded the cargo and see the old crane above you. It’s spectacular.”

Among their favorite spots to dive is Eagle Ray Pass in Grand Cayman, where entire schools of spotted eagle rays live, he says, adding that 17 rays swam and floated around them during one dive.

Fortunately, after some initial costs, he says the sport isn’t too expensive, roughly around $1,500 to get started. Basic scuba gear costs approximately $1,000. Likewise, certifications can run $350 a piece. Boat trips range between $60 and $100, unless you prefer shore diving, where you park at the beach and simply swim into the ocean. Then add a few extra dollars to fill your tank with air.

 

Scary and Serene

Although the Gundersens are accomplished divers who prefer warm waters and flat seas, Dr. Gundersen says only one moment of one dive actually scared him.

Years ago, he, Elizabeth, and a friend were wreck diving. Diving protocol is based on follow the leader, where divers swim into wrecks one at a time, follow each other, and signal their turns. Somehow, their friend unintentionally swam in between Dr. Gundersen and his wife. Elizabeth and the friend then turned to see something inside the wreck, but the friend failed to signal to Dr. Gundersen that they were turning.

“I went a bit farther and turned around,” Dr. Gundersen recalls. “He and Elizabeth were gone. It gave me a moment of panic. I’m particularly careful about staying with my diving buddy and making sure we don’t get lost. It wasn’t dangerous but broke the cardinal rule of what you’re supposed to do when diving. I swam back and found them.”

While that was a rare experience, he says diving, when done properly, is the most peaceful and serene activity that people may experience. When under water, all you hear are your air bubbles. There are no cellphones ringing, emails or texts to respond to, or work issues to resolve.

“Work-life balance is a really big deal for me and my team to prevent burnout,” Dr. Gundersen says. “It allows me to have my personal time to enjoy and relax so when I’m back at work on Monday, my batteries are recharged. I’m ready to go.” TH

---

Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.

Not much intimidates Jasen Gundersen, MD, president of the acute care services division at TeamHealth, an outsourcer of hospital-based clinical and specialty services based in Knoxville, Tenn. Besides traveling 150,000 miles a year overseeing 2,500 hospitalists at 285 facilities, Dr. Gundersen has climbed frozen waterfalls in Vermont and New Hampshire, raced in bicycle competitions, and skied mountains towering 10,000 feet.

But his love for adventure is now focused below the surface. Over the years, he has spent many weekends diving in open waters surrounding southeast Florida; Cozumel, Mexico; Turks and Caicos; and the Cayman Islands. He believes there’s no place on Earth that is as peaceful, serene, or even magical as under the ocean.

Reclaimed Passion

Growing up in Connecticut, Dr. Gundersen and his family frequently vacationed in the Bahamas, where he was introduced to scuba diving.

“As a teenager, I really loved diving,” he recalls. “Every time we went to the Bahamas, I always tried to go diving or snorkeling.”

However, the harsh Connecticut winters and frigid Atlantic Ocean prevented him from diving. More delays followed, namely medical school. After graduating from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine in 2000, Dr. Gundersen completed his three-year residency in family medicine at the UMass Memorial Medical Center. During the next two years, he worked as a physician and hospitalist at the Family Health Center of Worcester, a federally qualified health center where he did everything from examining sore throats to delivering babies.

In 2005, he launched a small hospital medicine program at the University of Massachusetts that quickly grew and bumped up his title to division chief for hospital medicine. Then in January 2011, he accepted a new position as chief medical officer at TeamHealth, requiring him and his wife, Elizabeth, also a hospitalist, to move to Florida.

Within several weeks, the couple started diving near their home in Pompano Beach. He says Elizabeth, his “diving buddy,” was eager to learn and developed a passion for scuba diving that rivals his own.

“We did 80 to 90 dives in the first year we were down there,” Dr. Gundersen says, explaining that unlike many sports, diving doesn’t require athletic ability, size, or strength. “We normally did recreational diving, where you basically can always swim slowly straight to the surface. You don’t stay down long enough that you build up enough bubbles in your system that you have to stop on the way up.”

Sharks and Shipwrecks

Since then, Dr. Gundersen purchased a 38-foot powerboat, became a PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) open-water scuba instructor, and earned a U.S. Coast Guard 50-ton master captain’s license. He and Elizabeth are certified for advanced nitrox and decompression diving, technical diving that requires the use of different gases to decompress when heading to the surface, and diving in overhead environments, such as caves or shipwrecks.

“One of our favorite wrecks is called the USS Spiegel Gove that sits on the ocean floor in Key Largo,” he says, adding that on occasion, they also swim with hammerhead sharks. “The walls of the ship go 30 feet up on each side. You can swim where they loaded the cargo and see the old crane above you. It’s spectacular.”

Among their favorite spots to dive is Eagle Ray Pass in Grand Cayman, where entire schools of spotted eagle rays live, he says, adding that 17 rays swam and floated around them during one dive.

Fortunately, after some initial costs, he says the sport isn’t too expensive, roughly around $1,500 to get started. Basic scuba gear costs approximately $1,000. Likewise, certifications can run $350 a piece. Boat trips range between $60 and $100, unless you prefer shore diving, where you park at the beach and simply swim into the ocean. Then add a few extra dollars to fill your tank with air.

 

Scary and Serene

Although the Gundersens are accomplished divers who prefer warm waters and flat seas, Dr. Gundersen says only one moment of one dive actually scared him.

Years ago, he, Elizabeth, and a friend were wreck diving. Diving protocol is based on follow the leader, where divers swim into wrecks one at a time, follow each other, and signal their turns. Somehow, their friend unintentionally swam in between Dr. Gundersen and his wife. Elizabeth and the friend then turned to see something inside the wreck, but the friend failed to signal to Dr. Gundersen that they were turning.

“I went a bit farther and turned around,” Dr. Gundersen recalls. “He and Elizabeth were gone. It gave me a moment of panic. I’m particularly careful about staying with my diving buddy and making sure we don’t get lost. It wasn’t dangerous but broke the cardinal rule of what you’re supposed to do when diving. I swam back and found them.”

While that was a rare experience, he says diving, when done properly, is the most peaceful and serene activity that people may experience. When under water, all you hear are your air bubbles. There are no cellphones ringing, emails or texts to respond to, or work issues to resolve.

“Work-life balance is a really big deal for me and my team to prevent burnout,” Dr. Gundersen says. “It allows me to have my personal time to enjoy and relax so when I’m back at work on Monday, my batteries are recharged. I’m ready to go.” TH

---

Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.

Not much intimidates Jasen Gundersen, MD, president of the acute care services division at TeamHealth, an outsourcer of hospital-based clinical and specialty services based in Knoxville, Tenn. Besides traveling 150,000 miles a year overseeing 2,500 hospitalists at 285 facilities, Dr. Gundersen has climbed frozen waterfalls in Vermont and New Hampshire, raced in bicycle competitions, and skied mountains towering 10,000 feet.

But his love for adventure is now focused below the surface. Over the years, he has spent many weekends diving in open waters surrounding southeast Florida; Cozumel, Mexico; Turks and Caicos; and the Cayman Islands. He believes there’s no place on Earth that is as peaceful, serene, or even magical as under the ocean.

Reclaimed Passion

Growing up in Connecticut, Dr. Gundersen and his family frequently vacationed in the Bahamas, where he was introduced to scuba diving.

“As a teenager, I really loved diving,” he recalls. “Every time we went to the Bahamas, I always tried to go diving or snorkeling.”

However, the harsh Connecticut winters and frigid Atlantic Ocean prevented him from diving. More delays followed, namely medical school. After graduating from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine in 2000, Dr. Gundersen completed his three-year residency in family medicine at the UMass Memorial Medical Center. During the next two years, he worked as a physician and hospitalist at the Family Health Center of Worcester, a federally qualified health center where he did everything from examining sore throats to delivering babies.

In 2005, he launched a small hospital medicine program at the University of Massachusetts that quickly grew and bumped up his title to division chief for hospital medicine. Then in January 2011, he accepted a new position as chief medical officer at TeamHealth, requiring him and his wife, Elizabeth, also a hospitalist, to move to Florida.

Within several weeks, the couple started diving near their home in Pompano Beach. He says Elizabeth, his “diving buddy,” was eager to learn and developed a passion for scuba diving that rivals his own.

“We did 80 to 90 dives in the first year we were down there,” Dr. Gundersen says, explaining that unlike many sports, diving doesn’t require athletic ability, size, or strength. “We normally did recreational diving, where you basically can always swim slowly straight to the surface. You don’t stay down long enough that you build up enough bubbles in your system that you have to stop on the way up.”

Sharks and Shipwrecks

Since then, Dr. Gundersen purchased a 38-foot powerboat, became a PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) open-water scuba instructor, and earned a U.S. Coast Guard 50-ton master captain’s license. He and Elizabeth are certified for advanced nitrox and decompression diving, technical diving that requires the use of different gases to decompress when heading to the surface, and diving in overhead environments, such as caves or shipwrecks.

“One of our favorite wrecks is called the USS Spiegel Gove that sits on the ocean floor in Key Largo,” he says, adding that on occasion, they also swim with hammerhead sharks. “The walls of the ship go 30 feet up on each side. You can swim where they loaded the cargo and see the old crane above you. It’s spectacular.”

Among their favorite spots to dive is Eagle Ray Pass in Grand Cayman, where entire schools of spotted eagle rays live, he says, adding that 17 rays swam and floated around them during one dive.

Fortunately, after some initial costs, he says the sport isn’t too expensive, roughly around $1,500 to get started. Basic scuba gear costs approximately $1,000. Likewise, certifications can run $350 a piece. Boat trips range between $60 and $100, unless you prefer shore diving, where you park at the beach and simply swim into the ocean. Then add a few extra dollars to fill your tank with air.

 

Scary and Serene

Although the Gundersens are accomplished divers who prefer warm waters and flat seas, Dr. Gundersen says only one moment of one dive actually scared him.

Years ago, he, Elizabeth, and a friend were wreck diving. Diving protocol is based on follow the leader, where divers swim into wrecks one at a time, follow each other, and signal their turns. Somehow, their friend unintentionally swam in between Dr. Gundersen and his wife. Elizabeth and the friend then turned to see something inside the wreck, but the friend failed to signal to Dr. Gundersen that they were turning.

“I went a bit farther and turned around,” Dr. Gundersen recalls. “He and Elizabeth were gone. It gave me a moment of panic. I’m particularly careful about staying with my diving buddy and making sure we don’t get lost. It wasn’t dangerous but broke the cardinal rule of what you’re supposed to do when diving. I swam back and found them.”

While that was a rare experience, he says diving, when done properly, is the most peaceful and serene activity that people may experience. When under water, all you hear are your air bubbles. There are no cellphones ringing, emails or texts to respond to, or work issues to resolve.

“Work-life balance is a really big deal for me and my team to prevent burnout,” Dr. Gundersen says. “It allows me to have my personal time to enjoy and relax so when I’m back at work on Monday, my batteries are recharged. I’m ready to go.” TH

---

Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.

Movement is key to hospitalist Jaime Upegui, MD,  who says riding a motorcycle is a lot like yoga, "you have to focus on the moment, the task at hand." Listen to more of our interview:

Movement is key to hospitalist Jaime Upegui, MD,  who says riding a motorcycle is a lot like yoga, "you have to focus on the moment, the task at hand." Listen to more of our interview:

Movement is key to hospitalist Jaime Upegui, MD,  who says riding a motorcycle is a lot like yoga, "you have to focus on the moment, the task at hand." Listen to more of our interview:

Hospitalist Jaime Upegui, MD, division president at Apogee Physicians in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, knows exactly what he wants to do when he retires years from now: sell everything he owns and ride his motorcycle around the world.

So far, the 39-year-old physician leader has driven across the U.S. at least five times, including a 24-day, 11,700-mile trip during which he visited every state that bordered Canada, Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. In spite of snow, ice, rain, wind, and searing 126-degree Farenheit heat, nothing stopped him.

Dr. Upegui is a modern-day explorer who enjoys making the journey as much as getting to the destination. Riding is his personal form of yoga, a meditative experience that demands he stay in the moment and allows him to escape life’s daily frustrations. Ever since he started riding motorcycles at age five, he’s been hooked and has no plans of shifting into neutral.

Driven by Change

Every day at work, Dr. Upegui, an internal medicine specialist, helps hospitalists thrive in a changing medical world where they’re constantly being pushed and pulled in multiple directions. “It’s an exciting career that’s full of unexpected changes,” he says. “I work hard every day on building great teams that produce stellar results.”

He brings that same level of enthusiasm to his after-work activities, which include skydiving, tango dancing, scuba diving, snowboarding, and rock climbing. His passion for change and adventure stems from his childhood.

Listen to more of our interview with Dr. Upegui.

Dr. Upegui was born in Colombia and raised predominantly in the cities of Cali and Medellín. His mother, Rocio, was a painter and ballet dancer; his father, Jaime Sr., was a poet and musician. He spent most of his childhood with his mother, who moved frequently in search of new inspirations. During his childhood, he attended 13 different schools and lived in more than 30 different homes in the U.S., Colombia, and Spain. In 2003, he finished medical school, graduating from Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Medellín. He worked as an attending physician in the emergency department there for three years before moving to New York City to complete his residency in internal medicine at St. Luke’s–Roosevelt Hospital Center.

Throughout medical school and his residency, Dr. Upegui’s personal interests extended beyond motorcycling to skydiving and tango dancing, a skill he initially learned to love from his father. Dr. Upegui says he enjoys nothing more than learning, so he’s attracted to activities that require a high degree of training or technical expertise.

“I like to do things that make me feel like I’m proficient at something that’s difficult,” he says.

He vividly remembers the first time he jumped out of a plane, in 2002.

“It was thrilling, it was exciting, it was ego-boosting, it was self-gratifying, it was an adrenaline rush,” Dr. Upegui explains, adding that he taught English to the owner of the skydiving center in Colombia in exchange for free jumps. “The most exciting part is the decision to take the leap. That critical moment still gives me butterflies.”

Over the next six years, he jumped approximately 150 times, then stopped for roughly seven years to handle the demands of school and work, and to avoid the actual cost of skydiving, which is pricey at roughly a few hundred dollars per jump. But, over the years, he missed it, so he resumed skydiving earlier this year.

In between, he learned to tango through private and group lessons. Last year, he traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, for an intensive weeklong course and an international tango gathering. He also travels to “milongas,” get-togethers for professional and student tango dancers that are held in various cities worldwide.

 

“Tango has two core elements: showing your intention to move forward and allowing your partner to accept the invitation to follow your lead,” he says. “It’s a beautiful combination of assertiveness, determination, and then negotiation, followed by permission to proceed, depending upon how the conversation is going during the dance.”

No Regrets

Procrastination is not a familiar word to Dr. Upegui.

“The time frame between something that I want to do and [actually] doing it is very short,” he says. “If I want to do something, I just look at how I can get to it as soon as it’s available.”

Motorcycling ranks as his number one passion. Last year, he completed a 7,000-mile trip without taking any time off from his current job, which requires him to lead, manage, and often meet with hospitalist teams nationwide. He traveled via back roads on weekends to a major city, left his bike at the airport, and then hopped on a plane to wherever he needed to be for work. Instead of flying home for the weekend, he’d return to the airport to pick up his bike and travel to the next city he wanted to visit, which could be 1,000 miles away.

“The cool thing about the road is that random people help you,” he says. “The hotels would keep my clothes and luggage, and airport parking employees would help me park my motorcycle in a safe place and keep my helmet in their office.”

Dr. Upegui says childhood experiences that focused on momentum and movement laid the foundation for his mobile and adventuresome lifestyle. Movement, variability, and change have become the guiding factors in his life. Perhaps that’s why he chose to be a hospitalist. Among the youngest fields in medicine, the specialty is always growing, changing, and evolving.

“If you take any change in life as just a new stage of a new moment and you just perform your best in this current situation, then that will allow you to always be flexible to what’s happening in front of you,” Dr. Upegui says. “I love my work, family, Apogee, and the opportunities I have had. I could die completely satisfied today, knowing that I’ve done the best I could and searched for happiness every day.”

---

Hospitalist Jaime Upegui, MD, division president at Apogee Physicians in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, knows exactly what he wants to do when he retires years from now: sell everything he owns and ride his motorcycle around the world.

So far, the 39-year-old physician leader has driven across the U.S. at least five times, including a 24-day, 11,700-mile trip during which he visited every state that bordered Canada, Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. In spite of snow, ice, rain, wind, and searing 126-degree Farenheit heat, nothing stopped him.

Dr. Upegui is a modern-day explorer who enjoys making the journey as much as getting to the destination. Riding is his personal form of yoga, a meditative experience that demands he stay in the moment and allows him to escape life’s daily frustrations. Ever since he started riding motorcycles at age five, he’s been hooked and has no plans of shifting into neutral.

Driven by Change

Every day at work, Dr. Upegui, an internal medicine specialist, helps hospitalists thrive in a changing medical world where they’re constantly being pushed and pulled in multiple directions. “It’s an exciting career that’s full of unexpected changes,” he says. “I work hard every day on building great teams that produce stellar results.”

He brings that same level of enthusiasm to his after-work activities, which include skydiving, tango dancing, scuba diving, snowboarding, and rock climbing. His passion for change and adventure stems from his childhood.

Listen to more of our interview with Dr. Upegui.

Dr. Upegui was born in Colombia and raised predominantly in the cities of Cali and Medellín. His mother, Rocio, was a painter and ballet dancer; his father, Jaime Sr., was a poet and musician. He spent most of his childhood with his mother, who moved frequently in search of new inspirations. During his childhood, he attended 13 different schools and lived in more than 30 different homes in the U.S., Colombia, and Spain. In 2003, he finished medical school, graduating from Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Medellín. He worked as an attending physician in the emergency department there for three years before moving to New York City to complete his residency in internal medicine at St. Luke’s–Roosevelt Hospital Center.

Throughout medical school and his residency, Dr. Upegui’s personal interests extended beyond motorcycling to skydiving and tango dancing, a skill he initially learned to love from his father. Dr. Upegui says he enjoys nothing more than learning, so he’s attracted to activities that require a high degree of training or technical expertise.

“I like to do things that make me feel like I’m proficient at something that’s difficult,” he says.

He vividly remembers the first time he jumped out of a plane, in 2002.

“It was thrilling, it was exciting, it was ego-boosting, it was self-gratifying, it was an adrenaline rush,” Dr. Upegui explains, adding that he taught English to the owner of the skydiving center in Colombia in exchange for free jumps. “The most exciting part is the decision to take the leap. That critical moment still gives me butterflies.”

Over the next six years, he jumped approximately 150 times, then stopped for roughly seven years to handle the demands of school and work, and to avoid the actual cost of skydiving, which is pricey at roughly a few hundred dollars per jump. But, over the years, he missed it, so he resumed skydiving earlier this year.

In between, he learned to tango through private and group lessons. Last year, he traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, for an intensive weeklong course and an international tango gathering. He also travels to “milongas,” get-togethers for professional and student tango dancers that are held in various cities worldwide.

 

“Tango has two core elements: showing your intention to move forward and allowing your partner to accept the invitation to follow your lead,” he says. “It’s a beautiful combination of assertiveness, determination, and then negotiation, followed by permission to proceed, depending upon how the conversation is going during the dance.”

No Regrets

Procrastination is not a familiar word to Dr. Upegui.

“The time frame between something that I want to do and [actually] doing it is very short,” he says. “If I want to do something, I just look at how I can get to it as soon as it’s available.”

Motorcycling ranks as his number one passion. Last year, he completed a 7,000-mile trip without taking any time off from his current job, which requires him to lead, manage, and often meet with hospitalist teams nationwide. He traveled via back roads on weekends to a major city, left his bike at the airport, and then hopped on a plane to wherever he needed to be for work. Instead of flying home for the weekend, he’d return to the airport to pick up his bike and travel to the next city he wanted to visit, which could be 1,000 miles away.

“The cool thing about the road is that random people help you,” he says. “The hotels would keep my clothes and luggage, and airport parking employees would help me park my motorcycle in a safe place and keep my helmet in their office.”

Dr. Upegui says childhood experiences that focused on momentum and movement laid the foundation for his mobile and adventuresome lifestyle. Movement, variability, and change have become the guiding factors in his life. Perhaps that’s why he chose to be a hospitalist. Among the youngest fields in medicine, the specialty is always growing, changing, and evolving.

“If you take any change in life as just a new stage of a new moment and you just perform your best in this current situation, then that will allow you to always be flexible to what’s happening in front of you,” Dr. Upegui says. “I love my work, family, Apogee, and the opportunities I have had. I could die completely satisfied today, knowing that I’ve done the best I could and searched for happiness every day.”

---

Hospitalist Jaime Upegui, MD, division president at Apogee Physicians in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, knows exactly what he wants to do when he retires years from now: sell everything he owns and ride his motorcycle around the world.

So far, the 39-year-old physician leader has driven across the U.S. at least five times, including a 24-day, 11,700-mile trip during which he visited every state that bordered Canada, Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. In spite of snow, ice, rain, wind, and searing 126-degree Farenheit heat, nothing stopped him.

Dr. Upegui is a modern-day explorer who enjoys making the journey as much as getting to the destination. Riding is his personal form of yoga, a meditative experience that demands he stay in the moment and allows him to escape life’s daily frustrations. Ever since he started riding motorcycles at age five, he’s been hooked and has no plans of shifting into neutral.

Driven by Change

Every day at work, Dr. Upegui, an internal medicine specialist, helps hospitalists thrive in a changing medical world where they’re constantly being pushed and pulled in multiple directions. “It’s an exciting career that’s full of unexpected changes,” he says. “I work hard every day on building great teams that produce stellar results.”

He brings that same level of enthusiasm to his after-work activities, which include skydiving, tango dancing, scuba diving, snowboarding, and rock climbing. His passion for change and adventure stems from his childhood.

Listen to more of our interview with Dr. Upegui.

Dr. Upegui was born in Colombia and raised predominantly in the cities of Cali and Medellín. His mother, Rocio, was a painter and ballet dancer; his father, Jaime Sr., was a poet and musician. He spent most of his childhood with his mother, who moved frequently in search of new inspirations. During his childhood, he attended 13 different schools and lived in more than 30 different homes in the U.S., Colombia, and Spain. In 2003, he finished medical school, graduating from Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Medellín. He worked as an attending physician in the emergency department there for three years before moving to New York City to complete his residency in internal medicine at St. Luke’s–Roosevelt Hospital Center.

Throughout medical school and his residency, Dr. Upegui’s personal interests extended beyond motorcycling to skydiving and tango dancing, a skill he initially learned to love from his father. Dr. Upegui says he enjoys nothing more than learning, so he’s attracted to activities that require a high degree of training or technical expertise.

“I like to do things that make me feel like I’m proficient at something that’s difficult,” he says.

He vividly remembers the first time he jumped out of a plane, in 2002.

“It was thrilling, it was exciting, it was ego-boosting, it was self-gratifying, it was an adrenaline rush,” Dr. Upegui explains, adding that he taught English to the owner of the skydiving center in Colombia in exchange for free jumps. “The most exciting part is the decision to take the leap. That critical moment still gives me butterflies.”

Over the next six years, he jumped approximately 150 times, then stopped for roughly seven years to handle the demands of school and work, and to avoid the actual cost of skydiving, which is pricey at roughly a few hundred dollars per jump. But, over the years, he missed it, so he resumed skydiving earlier this year.

In between, he learned to tango through private and group lessons. Last year, he traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, for an intensive weeklong course and an international tango gathering. He also travels to “milongas,” get-togethers for professional and student tango dancers that are held in various cities worldwide.

 

“Tango has two core elements: showing your intention to move forward and allowing your partner to accept the invitation to follow your lead,” he says. “It’s a beautiful combination of assertiveness, determination, and then negotiation, followed by permission to proceed, depending upon how the conversation is going during the dance.”

No Regrets

Procrastination is not a familiar word to Dr. Upegui.

“The time frame between something that I want to do and [actually] doing it is very short,” he says. “If I want to do something, I just look at how I can get to it as soon as it’s available.”

Motorcycling ranks as his number one passion. Last year, he completed a 7,000-mile trip without taking any time off from his current job, which requires him to lead, manage, and often meet with hospitalist teams nationwide. He traveled via back roads on weekends to a major city, left his bike at the airport, and then hopped on a plane to wherever he needed to be for work. Instead of flying home for the weekend, he’d return to the airport to pick up his bike and travel to the next city he wanted to visit, which could be 1,000 miles away.

“The cool thing about the road is that random people help you,” he says. “The hotels would keep my clothes and luggage, and airport parking employees would help me park my motorcycle in a safe place and keep my helmet in their office.”

Dr. Upegui says childhood experiences that focused on momentum and movement laid the foundation for his mobile and adventuresome lifestyle. Movement, variability, and change have become the guiding factors in his life. Perhaps that’s why he chose to be a hospitalist. Among the youngest fields in medicine, the specialty is always growing, changing, and evolving.

“If you take any change in life as just a new stage of a new moment and you just perform your best in this current situation, then that will allow you to always be flexible to what’s happening in front of you,” Dr. Upegui says. “I love my work, family, Apogee, and the opportunities I have had. I could die completely satisfied today, knowing that I’ve done the best I could and searched for happiness every day.”

---

Lance Maki, MD, has accomplished many things in his life. He joined the Air Force and flew KC-135 tankers as an aircraft commander, and he served as a flight surgeon and T-38 instructor pilot. As an OB/GYN physician, he worked in private practice. Now he is a bicoastal hospitalist and intimacy therapist. Still, it’s what he does in his spare time that attracts the most attention.

Dr. Maki is a tandem surfer and ballet dancer.

Tandem what? Ballet dancer? The kind who wears tights, stands on his tiptoes, and leaps into the air?

Make no mistake. At 5 feet, 10 inches and 190 pounds, this 68-year-old doctor is no weakling. Ballet requires the strength and coordination to leap high into the air while doing the splits. Tandem surfing demands even more skill and similar strength. The sport requires surfers to lift someone half their weight or more above their head and hold them in various poses while riding four- to six-foot high ocean waves on a surfboard less than two feet wide.

“We live in a crazy world,” says Dr. Maki, explaining that very little compares to surfing with dolphins and manatees. “When you enjoy life, you’re well-rounded and have that mind-body-spirit connection. You’re going to be a much better doctor and much more pleasant to be around.”

Practice, Persistence, and Prayers

Dr. Maki’s fascination with the ocean began in 1960, when his family vacationed in California. The following year, when he was in high school, they moved from his hometown in St. Johns, Mich., to La Mirada, Calif. During his senior year of high school, he says he surfed 150 days.

Back then, surfing was simply fun, nothing more. While attending California State University at Fullerton, he rarely surfed. There were too many things to do. In 1967, he married Kristine, now a nurse practitioner, and he joined the Air Force in 1972. He served as a pilot for the next 12 years.

The couple had six children from 1970 to 1982. Two years later, on an Air Force scholarship at age 37, he attended Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine in Lubbock.

After graduating from medical school in 1988, he returned to active duty and completed his OB/GYN residency at Wright State University and Miami Valley Hospital, which were affiliated with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. He spent another four years as an OB/GYN doctor and flight surgeon at Griffiss Air Force base in upstate New York. After retiring from the Air Force in 1996, he moved his family to Tipton, Ind., where he started an OB/GYN private practice.

That same year, his 14-year-old son started exhibiting normal teenage behavioral problems. Before it got out of hand, Kristine suggested that Dr. Maki enroll him in a structured and positive activity like surf camp.

“I said there aren’t any oceans in Indiana. I can’t surf anymore,” recalls Dr. Maki, now a devout Catholic who prays for a good and safe surf once he gets past the breakers.

Still, Kristine persisted, so Dr. Maki found a surf camp in San Clemente, Calif. As it turned out, Michael didn’t care for surfing and, as Dr. Maki quickly discovered, surfing wasn’t like riding a bike. It takes a while to remember how to just stay on the board.

 

“I went surfing and was absolutely terrible,” he says. “I was ready to quit, but people encouraged me to get on a big, old, fat surfboard, and pushed me into a wave. All of a sudden, it was like I was back surfing in high school.”

Dr. Maki’s renewed interest in surfing quickly evolved into his favorite passion. The family moved again, to Florida in 2002. Dr. Maki has worked as a locum tenens hospitalist for Ob Hospitalist Group at various facilities in California and Florida.

Through his surfing network, he learned about tandem surfing. Although Kristine and his friends believed he was “too old” and “too much of a klutz,” he was determined. So, in 2007, he traveled to Hawaii and—at the age of 60—learned how to tandem surf. Ironically, Kristine found him the perfect tandem partner—a family friend who was five years his junior and half his size and weight.

For almost two years, they trained with an Olympic gymnast learning lifts.

“He would have us lie down on the mat and, over and over again, get up as fast as we could and go into a lift,” he says. “Florida waves are very short-lived. We worked like mad at that.”

Dance, Dance, Dance

Besides surfing every other day, Dr. Maki has taken 90-minute ballet classes twice a week for the past five years. He works with a trainer for an hour, also twice a week.

“Without bragging, I have to say I’m much better now than I was when I first started surfing back in 1960,” he says. “I do pushups, calisthenics, and use a ballet bar and a balancing training board called an indo board.”

In 2012, he and his tandem surfing partner went on the International Tandem Surf Association’s world tour. They surfed in contests in Virginia, California, Hawaii, Florida, and France, earning 11th place overall.

But this year, he’s taking time off. Not to worry, though. When he turns 70, he plans on returning to the World Tandem Tour.

The break, he says, will allow him to focus more on his ballet. For the past three holiday seasons, he has played the role of Herr Drosselmeyer in The Nutcracker at Cocoa Village Playhouse in Cocoa Village, Fla.

“I hope to be dancing ballet and tandem surfing until I can’t walk anymore, because they’re so much fun,” Dr. Maki says. “If you have a positive attitude and do your best to be happy with what you’re doing at work—some days can be brutal as a hospitalist—it carries over to your patients and they heal faster. You don’t get healed by medicine alone.”

---

Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.

Lance Maki, MD, has accomplished many things in his life. He joined the Air Force and flew KC-135 tankers as an aircraft commander, and he served as a flight surgeon and T-38 instructor pilot. As an OB/GYN physician, he worked in private practice. Now he is a bicoastal hospitalist and intimacy therapist. Still, it’s what he does in his spare time that attracts the most attention.

Dr. Maki is a tandem surfer and ballet dancer.

Tandem what? Ballet dancer? The kind who wears tights, stands on his tiptoes, and leaps into the air?

Make no mistake. At 5 feet, 10 inches and 190 pounds, this 68-year-old doctor is no weakling. Ballet requires the strength and coordination to leap high into the air while doing the splits. Tandem surfing demands even more skill and similar strength. The sport requires surfers to lift someone half their weight or more above their head and hold them in various poses while riding four- to six-foot high ocean waves on a surfboard less than two feet wide.

“We live in a crazy world,” says Dr. Maki, explaining that very little compares to surfing with dolphins and manatees. “When you enjoy life, you’re well-rounded and have that mind-body-spirit connection. You’re going to be a much better doctor and much more pleasant to be around.”

Practice, Persistence, and Prayers

Dr. Maki’s fascination with the ocean began in 1960, when his family vacationed in California. The following year, when he was in high school, they moved from his hometown in St. Johns, Mich., to La Mirada, Calif. During his senior year of high school, he says he surfed 150 days.

Back then, surfing was simply fun, nothing more. While attending California State University at Fullerton, he rarely surfed. There were too many things to do. In 1967, he married Kristine, now a nurse practitioner, and he joined the Air Force in 1972. He served as a pilot for the next 12 years.

The couple had six children from 1970 to 1982. Two years later, on an Air Force scholarship at age 37, he attended Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine in Lubbock.

After graduating from medical school in 1988, he returned to active duty and completed his OB/GYN residency at Wright State University and Miami Valley Hospital, which were affiliated with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. He spent another four years as an OB/GYN doctor and flight surgeon at Griffiss Air Force base in upstate New York. After retiring from the Air Force in 1996, he moved his family to Tipton, Ind., where he started an OB/GYN private practice.

That same year, his 14-year-old son started exhibiting normal teenage behavioral problems. Before it got out of hand, Kristine suggested that Dr. Maki enroll him in a structured and positive activity like surf camp.

“I said there aren’t any oceans in Indiana. I can’t surf anymore,” recalls Dr. Maki, now a devout Catholic who prays for a good and safe surf once he gets past the breakers.

Still, Kristine persisted, so Dr. Maki found a surf camp in San Clemente, Calif. As it turned out, Michael didn’t care for surfing and, as Dr. Maki quickly discovered, surfing wasn’t like riding a bike. It takes a while to remember how to just stay on the board.

 

“I went surfing and was absolutely terrible,” he says. “I was ready to quit, but people encouraged me to get on a big, old, fat surfboard, and pushed me into a wave. All of a sudden, it was like I was back surfing in high school.”

Dr. Maki’s renewed interest in surfing quickly evolved into his favorite passion. The family moved again, to Florida in 2002. Dr. Maki has worked as a locum tenens hospitalist for Ob Hospitalist Group at various facilities in California and Florida.

Through his surfing network, he learned about tandem surfing. Although Kristine and his friends believed he was “too old” and “too much of a klutz,” he was determined. So, in 2007, he traveled to Hawaii and—at the age of 60—learned how to tandem surf. Ironically, Kristine found him the perfect tandem partner—a family friend who was five years his junior and half his size and weight.

For almost two years, they trained with an Olympic gymnast learning lifts.

“He would have us lie down on the mat and, over and over again, get up as fast as we could and go into a lift,” he says. “Florida waves are very short-lived. We worked like mad at that.”

Dance, Dance, Dance

Besides surfing every other day, Dr. Maki has taken 90-minute ballet classes twice a week for the past five years. He works with a trainer for an hour, also twice a week.

“Without bragging, I have to say I’m much better now than I was when I first started surfing back in 1960,” he says. “I do pushups, calisthenics, and use a ballet bar and a balancing training board called an indo board.”

In 2012, he and his tandem surfing partner went on the International Tandem Surf Association’s world tour. They surfed in contests in Virginia, California, Hawaii, Florida, and France, earning 11th place overall.

But this year, he’s taking time off. Not to worry, though. When he turns 70, he plans on returning to the World Tandem Tour.

The break, he says, will allow him to focus more on his ballet. For the past three holiday seasons, he has played the role of Herr Drosselmeyer in The Nutcracker at Cocoa Village Playhouse in Cocoa Village, Fla.

“I hope to be dancing ballet and tandem surfing until I can’t walk anymore, because they’re so much fun,” Dr. Maki says. “If you have a positive attitude and do your best to be happy with what you’re doing at work—some days can be brutal as a hospitalist—it carries over to your patients and they heal faster. You don’t get healed by medicine alone.”

---

Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.

Lance Maki, MD, has accomplished many things in his life. He joined the Air Force and flew KC-135 tankers as an aircraft commander, and he served as a flight surgeon and T-38 instructor pilot. As an OB/GYN physician, he worked in private practice. Now he is a bicoastal hospitalist and intimacy therapist. Still, it’s what he does in his spare time that attracts the most attention.

Dr. Maki is a tandem surfer and ballet dancer.

Tandem what? Ballet dancer? The kind who wears tights, stands on his tiptoes, and leaps into the air?

Make no mistake. At 5 feet, 10 inches and 190 pounds, this 68-year-old doctor is no weakling. Ballet requires the strength and coordination to leap high into the air while doing the splits. Tandem surfing demands even more skill and similar strength. The sport requires surfers to lift someone half their weight or more above their head and hold them in various poses while riding four- to six-foot high ocean waves on a surfboard less than two feet wide.

“We live in a crazy world,” says Dr. Maki, explaining that very little compares to surfing with dolphins and manatees. “When you enjoy life, you’re well-rounded and have that mind-body-spirit connection. You’re going to be a much better doctor and much more pleasant to be around.”

Practice, Persistence, and Prayers

Dr. Maki’s fascination with the ocean began in 1960, when his family vacationed in California. The following year, when he was in high school, they moved from his hometown in St. Johns, Mich., to La Mirada, Calif. During his senior year of high school, he says he surfed 150 days.

Back then, surfing was simply fun, nothing more. While attending California State University at Fullerton, he rarely surfed. There were too many things to do. In 1967, he married Kristine, now a nurse practitioner, and he joined the Air Force in 1972. He served as a pilot for the next 12 years.

The couple had six children from 1970 to 1982. Two years later, on an Air Force scholarship at age 37, he attended Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine in Lubbock.

After graduating from medical school in 1988, he returned to active duty and completed his OB/GYN residency at Wright State University and Miami Valley Hospital, which were affiliated with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. He spent another four years as an OB/GYN doctor and flight surgeon at Griffiss Air Force base in upstate New York. After retiring from the Air Force in 1996, he moved his family to Tipton, Ind., where he started an OB/GYN private practice.

That same year, his 14-year-old son started exhibiting normal teenage behavioral problems. Before it got out of hand, Kristine suggested that Dr. Maki enroll him in a structured and positive activity like surf camp.

“I said there aren’t any oceans in Indiana. I can’t surf anymore,” recalls Dr. Maki, now a devout Catholic who prays for a good and safe surf once he gets past the breakers.

Still, Kristine persisted, so Dr. Maki found a surf camp in San Clemente, Calif. As it turned out, Michael didn’t care for surfing and, as Dr. Maki quickly discovered, surfing wasn’t like riding a bike. It takes a while to remember how to just stay on the board.

 

“I went surfing and was absolutely terrible,” he says. “I was ready to quit, but people encouraged me to get on a big, old, fat surfboard, and pushed me into a wave. All of a sudden, it was like I was back surfing in high school.”

Dr. Maki’s renewed interest in surfing quickly evolved into his favorite passion. The family moved again, to Florida in 2002. Dr. Maki has worked as a locum tenens hospitalist for Ob Hospitalist Group at various facilities in California and Florida.

Through his surfing network, he learned about tandem surfing. Although Kristine and his friends believed he was “too old” and “too much of a klutz,” he was determined. So, in 2007, he traveled to Hawaii and—at the age of 60—learned how to tandem surf. Ironically, Kristine found him the perfect tandem partner—a family friend who was five years his junior and half his size and weight.

For almost two years, they trained with an Olympic gymnast learning lifts.

“He would have us lie down on the mat and, over and over again, get up as fast as we could and go into a lift,” he says. “Florida waves are very short-lived. We worked like mad at that.”

Dance, Dance, Dance

Besides surfing every other day, Dr. Maki has taken 90-minute ballet classes twice a week for the past five years. He works with a trainer for an hour, also twice a week.

“Without bragging, I have to say I’m much better now than I was when I first started surfing back in 1960,” he says. “I do pushups, calisthenics, and use a ballet bar and a balancing training board called an indo board.”

In 2012, he and his tandem surfing partner went on the International Tandem Surf Association’s world tour. They surfed in contests in Virginia, California, Hawaii, Florida, and France, earning 11th place overall.

But this year, he’s taking time off. Not to worry, though. When he turns 70, he plans on returning to the World Tandem Tour.

The break, he says, will allow him to focus more on his ballet. For the past three holiday seasons, he has played the role of Herr Drosselmeyer in The Nutcracker at Cocoa Village Playhouse in Cocoa Village, Fla.

“I hope to be dancing ballet and tandem surfing until I can’t walk anymore, because they’re so much fun,” Dr. Maki says. “If you have a positive attitude and do your best to be happy with what you’re doing at work—some days can be brutal as a hospitalist—it carries over to your patients and they heal faster. You don’t get healed by medicine alone.”

---

Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.

Excerpts of The Hospitalist's interview with Dr. Ruth Ann Crystal, who is attempting to create a website with videos of historical medical practice.

Excerpts of The Hospitalist's interview with Dr. Ruth Ann Crystal, who is attempting to create a website with videos of historical medical practice.

Excerpts of The Hospitalist's interview with Dr. Ruth Ann Crystal, who is attempting to create a website with videos of historical medical practice.

When Ruth Ann Crystal, MD, performed her residency at Stanford University Medical Center more than 15 years ago, she often worked side by side in the operating room with one of her favorite professors, Bert Johnson, MD, a skilled surgeon and obstetrician. While performing vaginal hysterectomies, Dr. Johnson would often share stories of when he was a resident back in the 1950s at the Chicago Maternity Center (CMC) and delivered babies for poor families on Chicago’s south side.

One of the stories Dr. Johnson told was about a time when he and another medical student were called to a home to “turn a baby that was stuck,” recalls Dr. Crystal, now a hospitalist at El Camino Hospital, which supports two campuses in Mountain View, Calif., and Los Gatos, Calif. They were going to administer ether, which is highly flammable, to the young mother to relax the uterus and help turn the baby, but then realized that a wood fire was burning. As the woman writhed in pain, they doused the flames with water.

“He said it was like Dante’s Inferno as smoke filled the room,” Dr. Crystal says. “It was quite the scene.”

Stories told by Dr. Johnson and other physicians who worked at the CMC during medical school or residency in the 1950s are legendary. They reflect a time in medicine when doctors not only made house calls, but also stayed in the family’s home until the baby was delivered, getting glimpses into the life of the poor. In an effort to preserve these stories, Dr. Crystal wanted to produce a one-hour PBS documentary called Catch the Baby. But financial realities set in, and she now plans to convert the stories into short vignettes that will be posted on a website by the same name for medical humanities classes.

“I thought, ‘Wow, this is an amazing part of history that shouldn’t be lost,’” says Dr. Crystal, who also supports a private practice. “The Chicago Maternity Center was an incredible place that, for almost 80 years, taught medical students how to be self-sufficient.

They learned “to count on their own skills and [find] ways of solving problems in very real situations when being sent out to these deliveries.”

Big Plans, No Budget

During her residency, Dr. Crystal videotaped approximately seven hours of interviews with Dr. Johnson about his experiences at CMC. She planned to write a book about the 80-something-year-old doctor, who still owns a ranch, ropes cattle, and, at one time, headed the California Beef Council; however, her job, growing family, and well, life, simply got in the way.

Then, in 2009, roughly a decade later, one of her patients mentioned that she knew a film crew who produced documentaries for PBS. Dr. Crystal asked for an introduction.

Members of the film crew were excited about the project. Their first task was to create a trailer for the documentary. They spent an entire day filming Dr. Johnson at his ranch telling stories about kitchen table deliveries in the slums and doing activities around the ranch, like roping cattle with a fellow cowboy—someone he actually delivered as a baby years ago. More film was later shot at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center of Dr. Johnson performing a C-section and vaginal delivery with a resident and medical student.

The four-minute and 20-second trailer cost $37,000, she says, explaining that the money was mostly raised through donations from Dr. Johnson’s “cowboy friends” who also owned ranches in the area. It is still posted on the original website Dr. Crystal created: www.CatchTheBaby.com.

 

Now came the hard part—fundraising.

“I found out that I would have to raise between $650,000 and $700,000 to make a one-hour film,” Dr. Crystal says. “I tried, but I’m a doctor and don’t like asking people for money. I realized that probably wasn’t going to happen.”

But she wasn’t willing to abandon the project. So she turned her attention to YouTube, which, by then, had been online for four years. At the time, shorter videos were popular. Dr. Crystal had to develop a new plan.

Her current goal is to build a website that would highlight the CMC stories, which would be part of a medical humanities course at medical schools across the country. Medical students, residents, and other doctors could learn about the history of medicine and obstetrics. She says there are many lessons to be learned that don’t involve medical procedures, such as the impact of social and cultural issues on a physician’s ability to deliver healthcare.

“We need to look back on the important lessons the medical students learned at the CMC,” she says. “Not about how to do specific procedures, but how to interact with patients who may be very different from themselves.”

There seems to be plenty of interest in the topic; Dr. Crystal has since built a Twitter following of 5,700 people who read articles she tweets about medicine’s past, present, and future (@CatchTheBaby).

Still, she needs to build the website, edit the hours of film into short films, and then post them on the website with a study guide. The cost, she says, could run anywhere between $35,000 and $65,000.

“I don’t necessarily have to work with people who are PBS documentarians,” she says, adding that over recent years she has contacted several university film professors and students who turned down the project because it was too much to tackle. “I’d like to use a crowd-funding [platform like] Kickstarter or Indiegogo to raise the money, so I could edit the film.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Johnson is getting older and would enjoy seeing this project completed. So would his friends who helped pay for the trailer and original filming, says Dr. Crystal. Besides, she believes these stories can help new doctors better balance their focus between technology and face time with patients.

“Medical school education is changing quite a bit,” she says. “Despite advances in technology, we can’t forget we’re treating a human being first.”

---

Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.

When Ruth Ann Crystal, MD, performed her residency at Stanford University Medical Center more than 15 years ago, she often worked side by side in the operating room with one of her favorite professors, Bert Johnson, MD, a skilled surgeon and obstetrician. While performing vaginal hysterectomies, Dr. Johnson would often share stories of when he was a resident back in the 1950s at the Chicago Maternity Center (CMC) and delivered babies for poor families on Chicago’s south side.

One of the stories Dr. Johnson told was about a time when he and another medical student were called to a home to “turn a baby that was stuck,” recalls Dr. Crystal, now a hospitalist at El Camino Hospital, which supports two campuses in Mountain View, Calif., and Los Gatos, Calif. They were going to administer ether, which is highly flammable, to the young mother to relax the uterus and help turn the baby, but then realized that a wood fire was burning. As the woman writhed in pain, they doused the flames with water.

“He said it was like Dante’s Inferno as smoke filled the room,” Dr. Crystal says. “It was quite the scene.”

Stories told by Dr. Johnson and other physicians who worked at the CMC during medical school or residency in the 1950s are legendary. They reflect a time in medicine when doctors not only made house calls, but also stayed in the family’s home until the baby was delivered, getting glimpses into the life of the poor. In an effort to preserve these stories, Dr. Crystal wanted to produce a one-hour PBS documentary called Catch the Baby. But financial realities set in, and she now plans to convert the stories into short vignettes that will be posted on a website by the same name for medical humanities classes.

“I thought, ‘Wow, this is an amazing part of history that shouldn’t be lost,’” says Dr. Crystal, who also supports a private practice. “The Chicago Maternity Center was an incredible place that, for almost 80 years, taught medical students how to be self-sufficient.

They learned “to count on their own skills and [find] ways of solving problems in very real situations when being sent out to these deliveries.”

Big Plans, No Budget

During her residency, Dr. Crystal videotaped approximately seven hours of interviews with Dr. Johnson about his experiences at CMC. She planned to write a book about the 80-something-year-old doctor, who still owns a ranch, ropes cattle, and, at one time, headed the California Beef Council; however, her job, growing family, and well, life, simply got in the way.

Then, in 2009, roughly a decade later, one of her patients mentioned that she knew a film crew who produced documentaries for PBS. Dr. Crystal asked for an introduction.

Members of the film crew were excited about the project. Their first task was to create a trailer for the documentary. They spent an entire day filming Dr. Johnson at his ranch telling stories about kitchen table deliveries in the slums and doing activities around the ranch, like roping cattle with a fellow cowboy—someone he actually delivered as a baby years ago. More film was later shot at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center of Dr. Johnson performing a C-section and vaginal delivery with a resident and medical student.

The four-minute and 20-second trailer cost $37,000, she says, explaining that the money was mostly raised through donations from Dr. Johnson’s “cowboy friends” who also owned ranches in the area. It is still posted on the original website Dr. Crystal created: www.CatchTheBaby.com.

 

Now came the hard part—fundraising.

“I found out that I would have to raise between $650,000 and $700,000 to make a one-hour film,” Dr. Crystal says. “I tried, but I’m a doctor and don’t like asking people for money. I realized that probably wasn’t going to happen.”

But she wasn’t willing to abandon the project. So she turned her attention to YouTube, which, by then, had been online for four years. At the time, shorter videos were popular. Dr. Crystal had to develop a new plan.

Her current goal is to build a website that would highlight the CMC stories, which would be part of a medical humanities course at medical schools across the country. Medical students, residents, and other doctors could learn about the history of medicine and obstetrics. She says there are many lessons to be learned that don’t involve medical procedures, such as the impact of social and cultural issues on a physician’s ability to deliver healthcare.

“We need to look back on the important lessons the medical students learned at the CMC,” she says. “Not about how to do specific procedures, but how to interact with patients who may be very different from themselves.”

There seems to be plenty of interest in the topic; Dr. Crystal has since built a Twitter following of 5,700 people who read articles she tweets about medicine’s past, present, and future (@CatchTheBaby).

Still, she needs to build the website, edit the hours of film into short films, and then post them on the website with a study guide. The cost, she says, could run anywhere between $35,000 and $65,000.

“I don’t necessarily have to work with people who are PBS documentarians,” she says, adding that over recent years she has contacted several university film professors and students who turned down the project because it was too much to tackle. “I’d like to use a crowd-funding [platform like] Kickstarter or Indiegogo to raise the money, so I could edit the film.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Johnson is getting older and would enjoy seeing this project completed. So would his friends who helped pay for the trailer and original filming, says Dr. Crystal. Besides, she believes these stories can help new doctors better balance their focus between technology and face time with patients.

“Medical school education is changing quite a bit,” she says. “Despite advances in technology, we can’t forget we’re treating a human being first.”

---

Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.

When Ruth Ann Crystal, MD, performed her residency at Stanford University Medical Center more than 15 years ago, she often worked side by side in the operating room with one of her favorite professors, Bert Johnson, MD, a skilled surgeon and obstetrician. While performing vaginal hysterectomies, Dr. Johnson would often share stories of when he was a resident back in the 1950s at the Chicago Maternity Center (CMC) and delivered babies for poor families on Chicago’s south side.

One of the stories Dr. Johnson told was about a time when he and another medical student were called to a home to “turn a baby that was stuck,” recalls Dr. Crystal, now a hospitalist at El Camino Hospital, which supports two campuses in Mountain View, Calif., and Los Gatos, Calif. They were going to administer ether, which is highly flammable, to the young mother to relax the uterus and help turn the baby, but then realized that a wood fire was burning. As the woman writhed in pain, they doused the flames with water.

“He said it was like Dante’s Inferno as smoke filled the room,” Dr. Crystal says. “It was quite the scene.”

Stories told by Dr. Johnson and other physicians who worked at the CMC during medical school or residency in the 1950s are legendary. They reflect a time in medicine when doctors not only made house calls, but also stayed in the family’s home until the baby was delivered, getting glimpses into the life of the poor. In an effort to preserve these stories, Dr. Crystal wanted to produce a one-hour PBS documentary called Catch the Baby. But financial realities set in, and she now plans to convert the stories into short vignettes that will be posted on a website by the same name for medical humanities classes.

“I thought, ‘Wow, this is an amazing part of history that shouldn’t be lost,’” says Dr. Crystal, who also supports a private practice. “The Chicago Maternity Center was an incredible place that, for almost 80 years, taught medical students how to be self-sufficient.

They learned “to count on their own skills and [find] ways of solving problems in very real situations when being sent out to these deliveries.”

Big Plans, No Budget

During her residency, Dr. Crystal videotaped approximately seven hours of interviews with Dr. Johnson about his experiences at CMC. She planned to write a book about the 80-something-year-old doctor, who still owns a ranch, ropes cattle, and, at one time, headed the California Beef Council; however, her job, growing family, and well, life, simply got in the way.

Then, in 2009, roughly a decade later, one of her patients mentioned that she knew a film crew who produced documentaries for PBS. Dr. Crystal asked for an introduction.

Members of the film crew were excited about the project. Their first task was to create a trailer for the documentary. They spent an entire day filming Dr. Johnson at his ranch telling stories about kitchen table deliveries in the slums and doing activities around the ranch, like roping cattle with a fellow cowboy—someone he actually delivered as a baby years ago. More film was later shot at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center of Dr. Johnson performing a C-section and vaginal delivery with a resident and medical student.

The four-minute and 20-second trailer cost $37,000, she says, explaining that the money was mostly raised through donations from Dr. Johnson’s “cowboy friends” who also owned ranches in the area. It is still posted on the original website Dr. Crystal created: www.CatchTheBaby.com.

 

Now came the hard part—fundraising.

“I found out that I would have to raise between $650,000 and $700,000 to make a one-hour film,” Dr. Crystal says. “I tried, but I’m a doctor and don’t like asking people for money. I realized that probably wasn’t going to happen.”

But she wasn’t willing to abandon the project. So she turned her attention to YouTube, which, by then, had been online for four years. At the time, shorter videos were popular. Dr. Crystal had to develop a new plan.

Her current goal is to build a website that would highlight the CMC stories, which would be part of a medical humanities course at medical schools across the country. Medical students, residents, and other doctors could learn about the history of medicine and obstetrics. She says there are many lessons to be learned that don’t involve medical procedures, such as the impact of social and cultural issues on a physician’s ability to deliver healthcare.

“We need to look back on the important lessons the medical students learned at the CMC,” she says. “Not about how to do specific procedures, but how to interact with patients who may be very different from themselves.”

There seems to be plenty of interest in the topic; Dr. Crystal has since built a Twitter following of 5,700 people who read articles she tweets about medicine’s past, present, and future (@CatchTheBaby).

Still, she needs to build the website, edit the hours of film into short films, and then post them on the website with a study guide. The cost, she says, could run anywhere between $35,000 and $65,000.

“I don’t necessarily have to work with people who are PBS documentarians,” she says, adding that over recent years she has contacted several university film professors and students who turned down the project because it was too much to tackle. “I’d like to use a crowd-funding [platform like] Kickstarter or Indiegogo to raise the money, so I could edit the film.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Johnson is getting older and would enjoy seeing this project completed. So would his friends who helped pay for the trailer and original filming, says Dr. Crystal. Besides, she believes these stories can help new doctors better balance their focus between technology and face time with patients.

“Medical school education is changing quite a bit,” she says. “Despite advances in technology, we can’t forget we’re treating a human being first.”

---

Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.

Most young boys dream about scoring touchdowns or being a superhero, combatting villains or evil aliens. When Brian Chen, MD, was young, he wanted superpowers, too, but of a different sort. He wanted to become a concert violinist.

Now a hospitalist at St. Joseph Mercy Ann Arbor Hospital in Michigan, Dr. Chen recalls watching Itzhak Perlman, the superstar virtuoso of the violin, perform on the PBS show “Great Performances” when he was just five years old. Entranced by Perlman’s genius, he vowed to master the violin. After years of study, practice, and commitment, Dr. Chen has not quite reached Perlman’s status but has achieved more in his musical career than some musicians ever dream of.

Musical Gifts

After watching “Great Performances,” Dr. Chen begged his parents for a violin. At the time, he was learning to play piano.

“My parents were smart about having me start with piano first,” he says, explaining that the piano helped him learn the basics of reading music and distinguishing tones. “With piano, you press a key that produces a sound you intended. With the violin, there’s no such luck. It requires precise placement of fingers. It was sort of something my parents saw that I could eventually [play] once I got past learning the basics.”

Dr. Chen received his first violin when he was six years old. By then, he had already been playing the piano for a year. His excitement quickly turned into frustration, however. Why couldn’t he play like Perlman?

Instead of admitting defeat, he became that much more determined. Throughout middle school and high school, he took piano and violin lessons and practiced both instruments for several hours each day after school. He joined the high school orchestra and the Dayton (Ohio) Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. Both gave free public concerts, which exposed Dr. Chen to the art of performing at a tender age.

He says the violin appeals to him partly because it is a difficult instrument to learn. Not everyone can play it. But, once mastered, he believes “its voice is the most beautiful and expressive, even more than piano.”

Likewise, he says violinists can play stronger and richer tones with a little vibrato, which adds yet another dimension to the instrument.

Like most teenagers, Dr. Chen was active, trying out for sports like his school’s swim team, but sports did not offer anywhere near the same satisfaction that he received from playing music. His musical ability was critiqued at state performances, where he scored high marks in the areas of technique, creativity, performance, and interpretation.

It wasn’t until he attended Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., that the piano took a back seat to the violin. He joined the university’s orchestra, chamber ensembles, and quartets.

“With the violin, I had more opportunity to meet new people, as opposed to playing the piano,” he says. “I had no misconception [about choosing] music as a career, because I felt I wasn’t good enough to be a professional musician.”

But opinions are a lot like music—subjective. Thanks to its unique talent, the university’s orchestra was invited to perform a public concert at Carnegie Hall.

“[It] was a once-in-a-lifetime [experience],” Dr. Chen says, adding that some student musicians at Cornell who share similar interests—music and medicine—recently contacted him to serve as their mentor. “Whether I could get back to that that level of perfection, in terms of playing, is certainly worth attempting, [and it would be] a lot of fun trying.”

 

Perfect Match

According to Dr. Chen, medicine and music are complementary.

“Medicine and music can be inexorably connected in more ways than one,” he says. “Learning music early on certainly set a tone and established a certain discipline that I rely on every day as a physician.

“Even the process of how you learn music—the repetition, the constant trying to obtain perfection—you can also find in medicine.”

He adds that music and medicine possess similar qualities in terms of their duality. They both offer structure and opportunities for creative expression. Doctors keep track of all the minutia to form a big picture. So do musicians, whose musical notes are combined into a song or symphony. To be a really good doctor or musician, he says, people need to excel at both the creative and technical aspects.

Dr. Chen still practices the violin, roughly an hour each day. Among his favorite pieces are those composed during the romantic period of classical music—generally between the 18th and early 19th centuries.

“You can play musical notes [that are] technically precise, but unless you add a certain creativity to make the music beautiful, then the music doesn’t carry any meaning,” he says.

His music is appreciated by many of his peers when he performs at staff meetings or concerts as part of the hospital’s orchestra. But performing has stirred up a new passion—to pursue other performance venues. He says a handful of exceptional musicians in the hospital’s orchestra are members of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Chen hopes to audition for the orchestra within the next two years, after polishing a new classical piece he is working on—Mendelssohn’s Concerto in E minor.

Until then, he’s considering playing his violin in the hospital’s lobby. Since music is medicine, performing mini concerts throughout the year may help minimize patients’ pain or ease the anxiety experienced by family members.

Not to mention that it also helps Dr. Chen maintain balance in his own life. At this point, he has no plans to sacrifice one career for the other.

“Music has been able to help me get in touch with my human side, nourish and nurture it,” Dr. Chen says. “Music, by all means, helps give equilibrium, so I can stay a complete individual. That’s how I function best, whether as a musician or physician.”

---

Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.

Most young boys dream about scoring touchdowns or being a superhero, combatting villains or evil aliens. When Brian Chen, MD, was young, he wanted superpowers, too, but of a different sort. He wanted to become a concert violinist.

Now a hospitalist at St. Joseph Mercy Ann Arbor Hospital in Michigan, Dr. Chen recalls watching Itzhak Perlman, the superstar virtuoso of the violin, perform on the PBS show “Great Performances” when he was just five years old. Entranced by Perlman’s genius, he vowed to master the violin. After years of study, practice, and commitment, Dr. Chen has not quite reached Perlman’s status but has achieved more in his musical career than some musicians ever dream of.

Musical Gifts

After watching “Great Performances,” Dr. Chen begged his parents for a violin. At the time, he was learning to play piano.

“My parents were smart about having me start with piano first,” he says, explaining that the piano helped him learn the basics of reading music and distinguishing tones. “With piano, you press a key that produces a sound you intended. With the violin, there’s no such luck. It requires precise placement of fingers. It was sort of something my parents saw that I could eventually [play] once I got past learning the basics.”

Dr. Chen received his first violin when he was six years old. By then, he had already been playing the piano for a year. His excitement quickly turned into frustration, however. Why couldn’t he play like Perlman?

Instead of admitting defeat, he became that much more determined. Throughout middle school and high school, he took piano and violin lessons and practiced both instruments for several hours each day after school. He joined the high school orchestra and the Dayton (Ohio) Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. Both gave free public concerts, which exposed Dr. Chen to the art of performing at a tender age.

He says the violin appeals to him partly because it is a difficult instrument to learn. Not everyone can play it. But, once mastered, he believes “its voice is the most beautiful and expressive, even more than piano.”

Likewise, he says violinists can play stronger and richer tones with a little vibrato, which adds yet another dimension to the instrument.

Like most teenagers, Dr. Chen was active, trying out for sports like his school’s swim team, but sports did not offer anywhere near the same satisfaction that he received from playing music. His musical ability was critiqued at state performances, where he scored high marks in the areas of technique, creativity, performance, and interpretation.

It wasn’t until he attended Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., that the piano took a back seat to the violin. He joined the university’s orchestra, chamber ensembles, and quartets.

“With the violin, I had more opportunity to meet new people, as opposed to playing the piano,” he says. “I had no misconception [about choosing] music as a career, because I felt I wasn’t good enough to be a professional musician.”

But opinions are a lot like music—subjective. Thanks to its unique talent, the university’s orchestra was invited to perform a public concert at Carnegie Hall.

“[It] was a once-in-a-lifetime [experience],” Dr. Chen says, adding that some student musicians at Cornell who share similar interests—music and medicine—recently contacted him to serve as their mentor. “Whether I could get back to that that level of perfection, in terms of playing, is certainly worth attempting, [and it would be] a lot of fun trying.”

 

Perfect Match

According to Dr. Chen, medicine and music are complementary.

“Medicine and music can be inexorably connected in more ways than one,” he says. “Learning music early on certainly set a tone and established a certain discipline that I rely on every day as a physician.

“Even the process of how you learn music—the repetition, the constant trying to obtain perfection—you can also find in medicine.”

He adds that music and medicine possess similar qualities in terms of their duality. They both offer structure and opportunities for creative expression. Doctors keep track of all the minutia to form a big picture. So do musicians, whose musical notes are combined into a song or symphony. To be a really good doctor or musician, he says, people need to excel at both the creative and technical aspects.

Dr. Chen still practices the violin, roughly an hour each day. Among his favorite pieces are those composed during the romantic period of classical music—generally between the 18th and early 19th centuries.

“You can play musical notes [that are] technically precise, but unless you add a certain creativity to make the music beautiful, then the music doesn’t carry any meaning,” he says.

His music is appreciated by many of his peers when he performs at staff meetings or concerts as part of the hospital’s orchestra. But performing has stirred up a new passion—to pursue other performance venues. He says a handful of exceptional musicians in the hospital’s orchestra are members of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Chen hopes to audition for the orchestra within the next two years, after polishing a new classical piece he is working on—Mendelssohn’s Concerto in E minor.

Until then, he’s considering playing his violin in the hospital’s lobby. Since music is medicine, performing mini concerts throughout the year may help minimize patients’ pain or ease the anxiety experienced by family members.

Not to mention that it also helps Dr. Chen maintain balance in his own life. At this point, he has no plans to sacrifice one career for the other.

“Music has been able to help me get in touch with my human side, nourish and nurture it,” Dr. Chen says. “Music, by all means, helps give equilibrium, so I can stay a complete individual. That’s how I function best, whether as a musician or physician.”

---

Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.

Most young boys dream about scoring touchdowns or being a superhero, combatting villains or evil aliens. When Brian Chen, MD, was young, he wanted superpowers, too, but of a different sort. He wanted to become a concert violinist.

Now a hospitalist at St. Joseph Mercy Ann Arbor Hospital in Michigan, Dr. Chen recalls watching Itzhak Perlman, the superstar virtuoso of the violin, perform on the PBS show “Great Performances” when he was just five years old. Entranced by Perlman’s genius, he vowed to master the violin. After years of study, practice, and commitment, Dr. Chen has not quite reached Perlman’s status but has achieved more in his musical career than some musicians ever dream of.

Musical Gifts

After watching “Great Performances,” Dr. Chen begged his parents for a violin. At the time, he was learning to play piano.

“My parents were smart about having me start with piano first,” he says, explaining that the piano helped him learn the basics of reading music and distinguishing tones. “With piano, you press a key that produces a sound you intended. With the violin, there’s no such luck. It requires precise placement of fingers. It was sort of something my parents saw that I could eventually [play] once I got past learning the basics.”

Dr. Chen received his first violin when he was six years old. By then, he had already been playing the piano for a year. His excitement quickly turned into frustration, however. Why couldn’t he play like Perlman?

Instead of admitting defeat, he became that much more determined. Throughout middle school and high school, he took piano and violin lessons and practiced both instruments for several hours each day after school. He joined the high school orchestra and the Dayton (Ohio) Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. Both gave free public concerts, which exposed Dr. Chen to the art of performing at a tender age.

He says the violin appeals to him partly because it is a difficult instrument to learn. Not everyone can play it. But, once mastered, he believes “its voice is the most beautiful and expressive, even more than piano.”

Likewise, he says violinists can play stronger and richer tones with a little vibrato, which adds yet another dimension to the instrument.

Like most teenagers, Dr. Chen was active, trying out for sports like his school’s swim team, but sports did not offer anywhere near the same satisfaction that he received from playing music. His musical ability was critiqued at state performances, where he scored high marks in the areas of technique, creativity, performance, and interpretation.

It wasn’t until he attended Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., that the piano took a back seat to the violin. He joined the university’s orchestra, chamber ensembles, and quartets.

“With the violin, I had more opportunity to meet new people, as opposed to playing the piano,” he says. “I had no misconception [about choosing] music as a career, because I felt I wasn’t good enough to be a professional musician.”

But opinions are a lot like music—subjective. Thanks to its unique talent, the university’s orchestra was invited to perform a public concert at Carnegie Hall.

“[It] was a once-in-a-lifetime [experience],” Dr. Chen says, adding that some student musicians at Cornell who share similar interests—music and medicine—recently contacted him to serve as their mentor. “Whether I could get back to that that level of perfection, in terms of playing, is certainly worth attempting, [and it would be] a lot of fun trying.”

 

Perfect Match

According to Dr. Chen, medicine and music are complementary.

“Medicine and music can be inexorably connected in more ways than one,” he says. “Learning music early on certainly set a tone and established a certain discipline that I rely on every day as a physician.

“Even the process of how you learn music—the repetition, the constant trying to obtain perfection—you can also find in medicine.”

He adds that music and medicine possess similar qualities in terms of their duality. They both offer structure and opportunities for creative expression. Doctors keep track of all the minutia to form a big picture. So do musicians, whose musical notes are combined into a song or symphony. To be a really good doctor or musician, he says, people need to excel at both the creative and technical aspects.

Dr. Chen still practices the violin, roughly an hour each day. Among his favorite pieces are those composed during the romantic period of classical music—generally between the 18th and early 19th centuries.

“You can play musical notes [that are] technically precise, but unless you add a certain creativity to make the music beautiful, then the music doesn’t carry any meaning,” he says.

His music is appreciated by many of his peers when he performs at staff meetings or concerts as part of the hospital’s orchestra. But performing has stirred up a new passion—to pursue other performance venues. He says a handful of exceptional musicians in the hospital’s orchestra are members of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Chen hopes to audition for the orchestra within the next two years, after polishing a new classical piece he is working on—Mendelssohn’s Concerto in E minor.

Until then, he’s considering playing his violin in the hospital’s lobby. Since music is medicine, performing mini concerts throughout the year may help minimize patients’ pain or ease the anxiety experienced by family members.

Not to mention that it also helps Dr. Chen maintain balance in his own life. At this point, he has no plans to sacrifice one career for the other.

“Music has been able to help me get in touch with my human side, nourish and nurture it,” Dr. Chen says. “Music, by all means, helps give equilibrium, so I can stay a complete individual. That’s how I function best, whether as a musician or physician.”

---

Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.

“The box is locked, the lights are on. It’s robot fighting time. Sewer Snake charges first. He’s lifting Ragin Scotsman high in the air. Ragin Scotsman manages to escape his death grip and slams Sewer Snake against the wall. Oh no! His front wheel just fell off!”

Jim Yeh, DO, has better things to do with his spare time than watch TV or play golf. For the past dozen years, he has been designing and building robots that fight other robots at events that attract techies nationwide.

It all started harmlessly, when he and his six-year-old son, Forrest, were watching a comedy sketch on TV featuring battling robots. When Forrest suggested they build robots together, Dr. Yeh reluctantly agreed.

Since then, he has enjoyed crushing his opponents. Destroying them, actually. He’s entered his robots in more than 20 events and has placed 10 times, winning ribbons, medals, and international recognition.

“We’d always heard of these secret robot fights that go on in local warehouses,” says Dr. Yeh, president at Alameda Inpatient Medical, a 10-hospitalist group in Alameda, Calif. “I’ve always been interested in building things you can destroy.”

Sounds a bit ironic for a physician who has dedicated his life to healing people. But when it comes to nuts, bolts, and titanium, let the fights begin.

Big, Bad, and Bold

Over the past decade, Dr. Yeh has designed and built five robots in his garage, learning his newfound trade from books, other builders, and more recently, the Internet. His first robot took six months to build, he says. Named Robo Master by his son, it had a titanium shell, four-wheel drive, and was strong enough to lift 300 pounds.

Unfortunately, Robo Master made the ultimate sacrifice. During its very first fight, it was slammed against a wall. Its death was premature but quick. It did not suffer. Its body parts were later donated to science—actually, to other robots built by Dr. Yeh.

Several of Dr. Yeh’s robots are still very much alive, however.

At 30 pounds, “The Bully” is considered a featherweight and ranked second in its weight class in the world by BotRank.com. With help from his dad, Forrest drives the robot during events, controlling it remotely.

To encourage his wife, Buffy, to join in the family fun, Dr. Yeh built a 60-pound robot for her in 2004; named “Come To Mama,” the robot is now ranked 22nd in the world in its weight class. It features a drum that spins about 2,000 RPMs and has placed first, second, and third in various competitions.

“She tried driving it but didn’t like it,” says Dr. Yeh, explaining that a robot’s performance in the ring is based 10% on robot, 90% on driver. “But how else was I going to convince my wife to let me build a big toy?”

Building such toys isn’t exactly cheap. While Dr. Yeh says the price of each of his robots was in the four-figure range, he knows other builders who equate their cost to a college education.

Dr. Yeh’s latest prodigy is called “Ragin Scotsman.” At 220 pounds, this heavyweight stands about 10 inches tall and is roughly 2.5 square feet. When his son was a member of his high school’s robotics club, he grew tired of the featherweight division and wanted to fight a bigger robot.

 

Ragin Scotsman is, indeed, bigger and badder. Built in 2011, its superpowers would intimidate Ironman. According to Dr. Yeh, it has the “acceleration of a race car and the aggressiveness of a bulldog.” It can get under its opponents and forcibly throw them against the wall. Not to mention its flame thrower, which can melt their electronics.

At one 2012 event, the Science Channel was filming fights for a new show called “Killer Robots.” Initially, Ragin Scotsman wasn’t one of the stars; however, after the producer watched its aggressiveness and, of course, its flame-throwing ability, Ragin Scotsman was filmed fighting other robots.

Despite its toughness, Dr. Yeh says this robot rarely beats top-ranked rivals, “Sewer Snake” and “Original Sin.”

“These robots are very talented,” he says, adding that they have fought over 100 times. “Ragin Scotsman probably has 40 fights under its belt. Every time we fight, we will win one out of four fights against them.”

He says drivers must learn to anticipate the other drivers’ moves, which takes practice. Some of his friends analyze each fight, studying driver habits so they can predict maneuvers. For example, after every hit, one driver may always signal his robot to turn left.

For the most part, he believes good drivers are able to “negotiate that sweet [vulnerable] spot” before destroying the other robot. He refers to some robots as one-hit wonders. After performing the single task they were designed to do, they have nothing new to offer and end up losing.

Break ‘Em, Build ‘Em

Win or lose, what attracts Dr. Yeh to the hobby is the engineering, building, and camaraderie. He says the robotics community is one big, happy family. Even if his robot gets destroyed, friends will help him rebuild it so it can later fight other robots, including their own.

There may be one more robot in Dr. Yeh’s future. Although he hasn’t made any commitments, he envisions that it would involve pneumatics, using pressurized gas to lift or flip challenging robots on their heads or vault them against walls.

Until then, Dr. Yeh keeps asking himself one question—how can he use his mechanical, engineering, and electrical talent in medicine?

“I’m still trying to figure out if there’s a connection between the two,” he says. “Where’s the bridge?”

Regardless of the outcome, he’ll continue enjoying this hobby. Unlike his day job, he says this is one activity where no one demands anything from him.

---

Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.

“The box is locked, the lights are on. It’s robot fighting time. Sewer Snake charges first. He’s lifting Ragin Scotsman high in the air. Ragin Scotsman manages to escape his death grip and slams Sewer Snake against the wall. Oh no! His front wheel just fell off!”

Jim Yeh, DO, has better things to do with his spare time than watch TV or play golf. For the past dozen years, he has been designing and building robots that fight other robots at events that attract techies nationwide.

It all started harmlessly, when he and his six-year-old son, Forrest, were watching a comedy sketch on TV featuring battling robots. When Forrest suggested they build robots together, Dr. Yeh reluctantly agreed.

Since then, he has enjoyed crushing his opponents. Destroying them, actually. He’s entered his robots in more than 20 events and has placed 10 times, winning ribbons, medals, and international recognition.

“We’d always heard of these secret robot fights that go on in local warehouses,” says Dr. Yeh, president at Alameda Inpatient Medical, a 10-hospitalist group in Alameda, Calif. “I’ve always been interested in building things you can destroy.”

Sounds a bit ironic for a physician who has dedicated his life to healing people. But when it comes to nuts, bolts, and titanium, let the fights begin.

Big, Bad, and Bold

Over the past decade, Dr. Yeh has designed and built five robots in his garage, learning his newfound trade from books, other builders, and more recently, the Internet. His first robot took six months to build, he says. Named Robo Master by his son, it had a titanium shell, four-wheel drive, and was strong enough to lift 300 pounds.

Unfortunately, Robo Master made the ultimate sacrifice. During its very first fight, it was slammed against a wall. Its death was premature but quick. It did not suffer. Its body parts were later donated to science—actually, to other robots built by Dr. Yeh.

Several of Dr. Yeh’s robots are still very much alive, however.

At 30 pounds, “The Bully” is considered a featherweight and ranked second in its weight class in the world by BotRank.com. With help from his dad, Forrest drives the robot during events, controlling it remotely.

To encourage his wife, Buffy, to join in the family fun, Dr. Yeh built a 60-pound robot for her in 2004; named “Come To Mama,” the robot is now ranked 22nd in the world in its weight class. It features a drum that spins about 2,000 RPMs and has placed first, second, and third in various competitions.

“She tried driving it but didn’t like it,” says Dr. Yeh, explaining that a robot’s performance in the ring is based 10% on robot, 90% on driver. “But how else was I going to convince my wife to let me build a big toy?”

Building such toys isn’t exactly cheap. While Dr. Yeh says the price of each of his robots was in the four-figure range, he knows other builders who equate their cost to a college education.

Dr. Yeh’s latest prodigy is called “Ragin Scotsman.” At 220 pounds, this heavyweight stands about 10 inches tall and is roughly 2.5 square feet. When his son was a member of his high school’s robotics club, he grew tired of the featherweight division and wanted to fight a bigger robot.

 

Ragin Scotsman is, indeed, bigger and badder. Built in 2011, its superpowers would intimidate Ironman. According to Dr. Yeh, it has the “acceleration of a race car and the aggressiveness of a bulldog.” It can get under its opponents and forcibly throw them against the wall. Not to mention its flame thrower, which can melt their electronics.

At one 2012 event, the Science Channel was filming fights for a new show called “Killer Robots.” Initially, Ragin Scotsman wasn’t one of the stars; however, after the producer watched its aggressiveness and, of course, its flame-throwing ability, Ragin Scotsman was filmed fighting other robots.

Despite its toughness, Dr. Yeh says this robot rarely beats top-ranked rivals, “Sewer Snake” and “Original Sin.”

“These robots are very talented,” he says, adding that they have fought over 100 times. “Ragin Scotsman probably has 40 fights under its belt. Every time we fight, we will win one out of four fights against them.”

He says drivers must learn to anticipate the other drivers’ moves, which takes practice. Some of his friends analyze each fight, studying driver habits so they can predict maneuvers. For example, after every hit, one driver may always signal his robot to turn left.

For the most part, he believes good drivers are able to “negotiate that sweet [vulnerable] spot” before destroying the other robot. He refers to some robots as one-hit wonders. After performing the single task they were designed to do, they have nothing new to offer and end up losing.

Break ‘Em, Build ‘Em

Win or lose, what attracts Dr. Yeh to the hobby is the engineering, building, and camaraderie. He says the robotics community is one big, happy family. Even if his robot gets destroyed, friends will help him rebuild it so it can later fight other robots, including their own.

There may be one more robot in Dr. Yeh’s future. Although he hasn’t made any commitments, he envisions that it would involve pneumatics, using pressurized gas to lift or flip challenging robots on their heads or vault them against walls.

Until then, Dr. Yeh keeps asking himself one question—how can he use his mechanical, engineering, and electrical talent in medicine?

“I’m still trying to figure out if there’s a connection between the two,” he says. “Where’s the bridge?”

Regardless of the outcome, he’ll continue enjoying this hobby. Unlike his day job, he says this is one activity where no one demands anything from him.

---

Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.

“The box is locked, the lights are on. It’s robot fighting time. Sewer Snake charges first. He’s lifting Ragin Scotsman high in the air. Ragin Scotsman manages to escape his death grip and slams Sewer Snake against the wall. Oh no! His front wheel just fell off!”

Jim Yeh, DO, has better things to do with his spare time than watch TV or play golf. For the past dozen years, he has been designing and building robots that fight other robots at events that attract techies nationwide.

It all started harmlessly, when he and his six-year-old son, Forrest, were watching a comedy sketch on TV featuring battling robots. When Forrest suggested they build robots together, Dr. Yeh reluctantly agreed.

Since then, he has enjoyed crushing his opponents. Destroying them, actually. He’s entered his robots in more than 20 events and has placed 10 times, winning ribbons, medals, and international recognition.

“We’d always heard of these secret robot fights that go on in local warehouses,” says Dr. Yeh, president at Alameda Inpatient Medical, a 10-hospitalist group in Alameda, Calif. “I’ve always been interested in building things you can destroy.”

Sounds a bit ironic for a physician who has dedicated his life to healing people. But when it comes to nuts, bolts, and titanium, let the fights begin.

Big, Bad, and Bold

Over the past decade, Dr. Yeh has designed and built five robots in his garage, learning his newfound trade from books, other builders, and more recently, the Internet. His first robot took six months to build, he says. Named Robo Master by his son, it had a titanium shell, four-wheel drive, and was strong enough to lift 300 pounds.

Unfortunately, Robo Master made the ultimate sacrifice. During its very first fight, it was slammed against a wall. Its death was premature but quick. It did not suffer. Its body parts were later donated to science—actually, to other robots built by Dr. Yeh.

Several of Dr. Yeh’s robots are still very much alive, however.

At 30 pounds, “The Bully” is considered a featherweight and ranked second in its weight class in the world by BotRank.com. With help from his dad, Forrest drives the robot during events, controlling it remotely.

To encourage his wife, Buffy, to join in the family fun, Dr. Yeh built a 60-pound robot for her in 2004; named “Come To Mama,” the robot is now ranked 22nd in the world in its weight class. It features a drum that spins about 2,000 RPMs and has placed first, second, and third in various competitions.

“She tried driving it but didn’t like it,” says Dr. Yeh, explaining that a robot’s performance in the ring is based 10% on robot, 90% on driver. “But how else was I going to convince my wife to let me build a big toy?”

Building such toys isn’t exactly cheap. While Dr. Yeh says the price of each of his robots was in the four-figure range, he knows other builders who equate their cost to a college education.

Dr. Yeh’s latest prodigy is called “Ragin Scotsman.” At 220 pounds, this heavyweight stands about 10 inches tall and is roughly 2.5 square feet. When his son was a member of his high school’s robotics club, he grew tired of the featherweight division and wanted to fight a bigger robot.

 

Ragin Scotsman is, indeed, bigger and badder. Built in 2011, its superpowers would intimidate Ironman. According to Dr. Yeh, it has the “acceleration of a race car and the aggressiveness of a bulldog.” It can get under its opponents and forcibly throw them against the wall. Not to mention its flame thrower, which can melt their electronics.

At one 2012 event, the Science Channel was filming fights for a new show called “Killer Robots.” Initially, Ragin Scotsman wasn’t one of the stars; however, after the producer watched its aggressiveness and, of course, its flame-throwing ability, Ragin Scotsman was filmed fighting other robots.

Despite its toughness, Dr. Yeh says this robot rarely beats top-ranked rivals, “Sewer Snake” and “Original Sin.”

“These robots are very talented,” he says, adding that they have fought over 100 times. “Ragin Scotsman probably has 40 fights under its belt. Every time we fight, we will win one out of four fights against them.”

He says drivers must learn to anticipate the other drivers’ moves, which takes practice. Some of his friends analyze each fight, studying driver habits so they can predict maneuvers. For example, after every hit, one driver may always signal his robot to turn left.

For the most part, he believes good drivers are able to “negotiate that sweet [vulnerable] spot” before destroying the other robot. He refers to some robots as one-hit wonders. After performing the single task they were designed to do, they have nothing new to offer and end up losing.

Break ‘Em, Build ‘Em

Win or lose, what attracts Dr. Yeh to the hobby is the engineering, building, and camaraderie. He says the robotics community is one big, happy family. Even if his robot gets destroyed, friends will help him rebuild it so it can later fight other robots, including their own.

There may be one more robot in Dr. Yeh’s future. Although he hasn’t made any commitments, he envisions that it would involve pneumatics, using pressurized gas to lift or flip challenging robots on their heads or vault them against walls.

Until then, Dr. Yeh keeps asking himself one question—how can he use his mechanical, engineering, and electrical talent in medicine?

“I’m still trying to figure out if there’s a connection between the two,” he says. “Where’s the bridge?”

Regardless of the outcome, he’ll continue enjoying this hobby. Unlike his day job, he says this is one activity where no one demands anything from him.

---

Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.