Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Chapter 1 Early Days
- Chapter 2 Washington Heights
- Chapter 3 Speyer School for Gifted Children
- Chapter 4 New York University at University Heights
- Chapter 5 To Each His Farthest Star–A Medical Student at Rochester: 1929–1934
- Chapter 6 Duke University Hospital and Its Medical School, 1934–1935
- Chapter 7 Yale Medical School, 1935–1936
- Chapter 8 Return to Duke, 1936-1937
- Chapter 9 You Can Go Home Again
- Chapter 10 My One and Only Wife
- Chapter 11 The Bronx Is the Graveyard for Specialists, 1937
- Chapter 12 The Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, 1937 — The First of Its Kind
- Chapter 13 Pearl Harbor and World War II
- Chapter 14 Valley Forge General Hospital, 1942–1945
- Chapter 15 Tinian, 1945
- Chapter 16 Saipan, 1945–1946
- Chapter 17 Return to Columbia-Presbyterian, 1946
- Chapter 18 The Changing of the Guard at the Medical Center
- Chapter 19 An Internist-Diagnostician Rebuilds His Practice
- Chapter 20 The Upjohn Grand Rounds
- Chapter 21 The Iceman Cometh to Park Avenue
- Chapter 22 Songs My Patients Taught Me
- Chapter 23 Mr. J. Peter Grace, Chairman of W. R. Grace and Company
- Chapter 24 Birth of the Upjohn Gastrointestinal Service
- Chapter 25 Roosevelt Hospital, 1962–1965
- Chapter 26 Consultant and Physician to President Herbert C. Hoover
- Chapter 27 Problems at Roosevelt Hospital: The Bête Noir of Full Time
- Chapter 28 Internal Medicine as a Vocation (1897)
- Chapter 29 The Upjohn Service Moves to St. Vincent’s Hospital
- Chapter 30 Helicobacter Pylori and Peptic Ulcer: A Revolution in Gastroenterology
- Chapter 31 Plasmapheresis for Hepatic Coma at St. Vincent’s Hospital
- Epilogue
- Endmatter
Chapter 24 - Birth of the Upjohn Gastrointestinal Service
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Chapter 1 Early Days
- Chapter 2 Washington Heights
- Chapter 3 Speyer School for Gifted Children
- Chapter 4 New York University at University Heights
- Chapter 5 To Each His Farthest Star–A Medical Student at Rochester: 1929–1934
- Chapter 6 Duke University Hospital and Its Medical School, 1934–1935
- Chapter 7 Yale Medical School, 1935–1936
- Chapter 8 Return to Duke, 1936-1937
- Chapter 9 You Can Go Home Again
- Chapter 10 My One and Only Wife
- Chapter 11 The Bronx Is the Graveyard for Specialists, 1937
- Chapter 12 The Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, 1937 — The First of Its Kind
- Chapter 13 Pearl Harbor and World War II
- Chapter 14 Valley Forge General Hospital, 1942–1945
- Chapter 15 Tinian, 1945
- Chapter 16 Saipan, 1945–1946
- Chapter 17 Return to Columbia-Presbyterian, 1946
- Chapter 18 The Changing of the Guard at the Medical Center
- Chapter 19 An Internist-Diagnostician Rebuilds His Practice
- Chapter 20 The Upjohn Grand Rounds
- Chapter 21 The Iceman Cometh to Park Avenue
- Chapter 22 Songs My Patients Taught Me
- Chapter 23 Mr. J. Peter Grace, Chairman of W. R. Grace and Company
- Chapter 24 Birth of the Upjohn Gastrointestinal Service
- Chapter 25 Roosevelt Hospital, 1962–1965
- Chapter 26 Consultant and Physician to President Herbert C. Hoover
- Chapter 27 Problems at Roosevelt Hospital: The Bête Noir of Full Time
- Chapter 28 Internal Medicine as a Vocation (1897)
- Chapter 29 The Upjohn Service Moves to St. Vincent’s Hospital
- Chapter 30 Helicobacter Pylori and Peptic Ulcer: A Revolution in Gastroenterology
- Chapter 31 Plasmapheresis for Hepatic Coma at St. Vincent’s Hospital
- Epilogue
- Endmatter
Summary
One afternoon in October 1961, I received a very pleasant surprise. Out of the blue, without any previous discussion, one of my patients, Mrs. Janet Upjohn Stearns, made an appointment to come to my office at 550 Park Avenue to discuss an important matter. She was a member of the Upjohn family, her grandfather, Dr. W. O. Upjohn, had founded the pharmaceutical house in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her husband was Dr. William Stearns, a highly regarded chest specialist on our staff. Mrs. Stearns was referred to me in 1958 because of a mysterious ailment that had begun in her childhood and had eluded diagnosis despite much effort by many consultants. Her symptoms were chiefly abdominal, consisting of recurrent severe abdominal distention, flatulence, recurrent foul diarrhea, cramps, fatty-food intolerance, weight loss, weakness, and episodes suggestive of hypoglycemia. She was known to be allergic to a wide variety of foods and medications. I examined her carefully and did a workup for malabsorption that led me to diagnose her ailment as non-tropical sprue. Assisting me to make this diagnosis was the fact that one of her children had severe celiac disease. I prescribed a strict low-gluten diet, vitamin therapy, and elimination of offending foods. She cooperated to the letter and soon was feeling better than she had in years. She had just returned from a visit to her mother in Kalamazoo, where she learned that she was being given a large gift of Upjohn corporate stock to use as she saw fit. Her mother was aware that her daughter had suffered a rather turbulent life, complicated in part by her previously undiagnosed ailments. Now that she was physically much improved due to her new therapeutic program, her mother advised her daughter to use her inheritance to help others and to do this during her lifetime so that she might witness in person and enjoy the happiness that comes from helping others. Mrs. Stearns said she had hurried home with her mind made up to do something major to help me to develop gastroenterology at Columbia-Presbyterian. As a patient of mine, she had been admitted to Harkness Pavilion and was pleased with her treatment. She also observed how difficult it was to perform an adequate malabsorption workup in a setting lacking a formal commitment to the specialty of gastroenterology.
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- The Life of the ClinicianThe Autobiography of Michael Lepore, pp. 349 - 354Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2002