Redesign Reactions

I’ve always enjoyed the magazine and would not have changed it, but I have to admit the new version is a move in the right direction. As one who enjoys print over Web, it was nice to get a well-designed, well-written and informative publication about the latest in medicine at the U-M. I initially thought that, with the changes, both content and design would suffer. Such was not the case.

—Alan L. Bliss, Ann Arbor

I just finished reading cover-to-cover your spring issue of the revised Medicine at Michigan. Congratulations to the editorial staff and contributing authors for a superb job. It is eminently readable, interesting and informative. I especially enjoyed the article on Elizabeth Crosby — possibly the best teacher I ever encountered — and I was intrigued by the piece on Jimmy Crudup, an amazing individual. I look forward to future issues. Keep up the excellent work. —Thomas M. Brill , (M.D. 1944, Residency 1948), Gainesville, Florida

I just loved the new magazine! It’s as interesting as “Doctor Radio” on Sirius Satellite!

—Carmen Smedberg, Farmington Hills, Michigan

Beyond the Limits?

As physicians we aren’t new to nudity or pain, but the images accompanying “Imprisoned by Pain” (spring 2008) are beyond the limits of taste and common sense. These photo illustrations are the worst representatives of the kind of “art” one sees at bad Master of Fine Arts shows, where novelty and shock replace virtuosity. The symbolism and iconography are coarse and ham-handed, and the resulting images fall somewhere between soft porn and snuff film. This goes beyond “What were they thinking?” It’s depraved. Your artistic and editorial staff should be so proud. You’ve managed to transform what purports to be a serious publication into a rag with all the human sensibility of Hustler. You folks could work for George W. Bush at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

—James M. Rehmus (M.D. 1981) and Esther H. Rehmus (M.D. 1981), Peninsula, Ohio

The Curse of Chronic Pain

Wow, what a story (“Imprisoned by Pain”). I’m so glad for Carol Armitage. I hope that her life keeps returning to normal and pain can again be the body’s message of illness or discomfort, rather than the constant way of being that it had become for her. It’s so good to hear about the good stories in medicine and in problem-solving. Good doctors are good problem-solvers. Thank you for sharing this story. This is great work!

—Nessa McCasey

I suffer from fibromyalgia and can relate to Carol Armitage’s pain. I find I need a four-week break every three months from my painkillers because, like Armitage and others, the more I take, the more I need to take for them to work. I believe that one’s psychological makeup makes the pain worsen. If I have stress in my life, I find my pain heightens. What I’ve found really useful and which is not mentioned in the article is the need to find an outlet — not work, but a personal interest, like simple gardening, potting plants or some other therapeutic hobby that gives meaning to your life rather than the pain being your life. Anyway, great article, and I will be passing this information on to my mother who suffers with terrible pain due to a crumbling spine. She got herself a little job (she is 74 years old) sitting with old folks for company and making cups of tea. She is still in pain, but she feels a lot better for doing this job which she enjoys.

—Teresa Farrelly, Wirral, Merseyside, England

A Voice from the Past

I just listened to the interview with Dr. Crosby (“Exclusively on the Web,” spring 2008). It is quite amazing and takes me back to our lunchtime conversations when I was working in her lab. At the beginning, those high-pitched peeps are her hearing aids. That is endearing to hear. She also said that she never expected anything, which is very true of her. It’s clear to me that her studies in Chicago were to learn more science to prepare her for teaching high school. I think that is all she wanted. All of her close friends were teachers. The year 1936 was astonishing for her, marked with success, tragedy and controversy. It was the year the famous Comparative Neuroanatomy book was published, controversial in Crosby’s small community because of the evolutionary element.

—Scott Burns, M.D., Marathon, Florida

Profound Influence

I had the privilege of spending six years with Dr. Crosby (“Quiet Pioneer,” spring 2008), during which time I received my Ph.D. under her guidance. She was flying back and forth between the U-M and the University of Alabama in those days. During the summer of 1974, I worked in the Laboratory of Neurosurgery Research at Michigan. Dr. Richard C. Schneider was chair of neurosurgery at the time. My wife and I lived at the Michigan League that summer as Dr. Crosby’s guests, and my wife was pregnant with our daughter, Amie Elizabeth Augustine, who is named for Dr. Crosby. The League was Dr. Crosby’s home at the U-M at that time.

I recently completed a textbook, Human Neuroanatomy, and wrote in the preface: “[Dr. Crosby] was my teacher, fellow researcher and friend, whose ability I greatly admired and whose friendship I valued highly. … She had many years of experience correlating neuroanatomy with neurology and neurosurgery in clinical conferences and on rounds. Because of that experience, one could gradually see the clinicians become more anatomically minded and the anatomists more clinically conscious.”

I thought your article about her was excellent. Thank you for reminding everyone about someone who had such a profound influence on so many people. Keep up the good work!

—James R. Augustine, Ph.D., Columbia, South Carolina

Clarification

—Irv Smokler, Ph.D. and Carol Smokler, Ph.D., Boca Raton, Florida

An Idyllic Two Years

The letter to the editor in the fall 2007 issue mentioning Dean Albert Furstenberg prompts me to submit a contribution of my own. Dean Furstenberg’s daughter, Nan, attended medical school at the University of Wisconsin, not wanting to be a student at Michigan while her father was dean. She came to Madison, her father knowing she would be under the care of our famous dean, William Middleton. Nan graduated from Wisconsin in 1950, the year before I did.

I was a dermatology resident in Ann Arbor from 1956-58, after serving my first year of residency in Madison. The legendary Arthur Curtis was the department chairman. In addition to Dr. Curtis, our professors were Dick Harrell and Bill Taylor. The four residents in my residency class were J.B. Tisserand, Ken James, Walker Lea and me. The dermatology board exam was considered quite important, reflecting the prestige of the department and the residency program. The four of us scored second, third, fourth and seventh in the country.

The Michigan Department of Dermatology supplied many chairpersons of departments throughout the country, including Tom Fitzpatrick at Harvard and Aaron Lerner at Yale. I still look back with pleasure on my idyllic two years in Ann Arbor. —Don Schuster, M.D. (Residency 1958), Madison, Wisconsin

——Don Schuster, M.D. (Residency 1958), Madison, Wisconsin

More to the Story

After undergraduate and medical school in Ann Arbor, I did my postgraduate surgical training at Henry Ford Hospital. I too heard of the $25,000 fee Roy Bishop Canfield charged Henry Ford for the treatment of his son Edsel (“Triumph and Tragedy,” fall 2007). But, as the story unfolds, the fee also included Ford’s demand that Canfield stay in Edsel Ford’s hospital room day and night until discharge. Even with this extraordinary care, Ford was so incensed by the fee that he bought an old World War I Army hospital on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit. The Henry Ford Hospital was patterned after the Mayo Clinic where doctors were salaried and fees were standardized.

Ford’s antipathy apparently went further: He called upon Johns Hopkins University Medical School instead of the University of Michigan and hired the best senior residents as his new core staff. Many of these physicians were still alive and emeritus when I was there, providing a valuable link in medical history with Drs. Halsted and Osler [two of the four founding faculty members of Johns Hopkins Medical School and seminal shapers of medicine in America].

——Harvey A. Weiss (M.D. 1961), Mancos, Colorado