Epilogue

My dad was a practical man, a “man's man”, an accomplished but humble man, and in a real sense, he elevated the very fabric of life and the richness of existence. He earned a cadre of accomplishments, accolades, and titles. Although a “big fish”, he reminded us all he was in a small pond. This makes me think of a quote by Joseph Goldstein, a 1985 Nobel Prize winner along with Michael Brown for their work on the metabolism of cholesterol. The two continued to have a long and illustrious partnership replete with ongoing extraordinary accomplishments, which they attribute to their fondness and respect for each other; their friendship. When asked how he defined friendship, Goldstein's answer was, “Two bodies that share one soul”. It struck me that therein lies the very subjective and personal nature of the pride and love that is typically seen within families, as exemplified by mutual feelings between parents and children. These are lifeline blood relationships that view one another through magnified and very protective lenses. Their souls are in the same place, they care about the same things, they want to solve the same problems and anyone's success is a shared success. My dad was a lifelong Giants fan, when they lost, he got visibly aggravated, calling them all, “A bunch of morons”. But, when they won, it was a better story. In fact, when I was in college, I remembered to seize the opportunity with a well-timed call to say something to the effect of “Hey Dad, Big Blue was true, and by the way, my phone bill is due!” See, you had to catch him in a good mood. Leadership starts with humility, something of a trademark quality that describes my dad. “Let us not fool ourselves”, he would say, “Muhlenberg is not Columbia Presbyterian”. But what he implied is that we can grow and anything is possible if we work as a team with dedication and hard work to open the curtain to a league no longer too competitive for a small regional medical center like Muhlenberg. Well, it was a tragedy that Muhlenberg closed, the sacrificial lamb to political football. But the symbolic accomplishments of Muhlenberg epitomize a man who always fought for the little guy. Under my dad's direction, it opened the first coronary care unit in the state of New Jersey in the 1960s (simultaneously with Hackensack). The earliest coronary care unit nurses were trained in this unlikely hospital. My dad was one of only 500 cardiologists in the country in the 1950s. Fast forward to the present day and there are more than 50,000 cardiologists. In the 1960s and 1970s, my dad had a fellowship for training cardiologists in this obscure hospital in Plainfield, New Jersey. You see, Muhlenberg was a small pond that played a very seminal role in the soon-to-be exploding field of cardiology. This small hospital, built in 1878, was a historical rainbow in the evolution of modern-day medicine. Being credited with these achievements is never what made my dad feel important. Rather, feeling important was in the fabric of his personality and the reason why he enjoyed swimming so much in a small pond, because he could make a difference and make that pond larger. He enjoyed the worthwhile purpose of protecting the sanctity of life and the orchestration of a coordinated effort by every member of this small pond either directly or indirectly. The journey brought everyone closer. It was psychologically vitalizing for everyone at Muhlenberg who went to work feeling proud and with a sense of purpose for the accomplishments far bigger than the summation of individual contributing efforts. That explains the camaraderie, the family-like atmosphere, and the unselfish motivations that were so pervasive through that institution up until the day it closed. Leaders themselves are not the ones that get great things accomplished in the setting of a hospital or medical center. But they set the positive climate and catalyze a feeling of empowerment to take on the challenges with a collective symphony of individual efforts. We lost the battle in 2008 to keep Muhlenberg from closing. Not every battle can be won.