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 21 - The Iceman Cometh to Park Avenue
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
In 1948, only two years after returning from military service, I took Dr. Walter Palmer's advice and leased a small office in a nice building at 944 Park Avenue at a rent I could afford. In those days, to avoid garage fees, it was still possible to turn the car keys over to the doorman who would see that the car was not ticketed by the cop on patrol. I asked my sister, Lucille Lepore Russo, R.N. to manage the office and perform R.N. duties as well. Lucille, a Bellevue Nursing School graduate, was the head nurse and ward instructor on Ward B6 of the A&B Building of Bellevue on the Third Medical Division (the NYU Division). She also was the night supervisor of the entire A&B building, for three months, an enormous responsibility for a young nurse. She was highly regarded by her superiors and a valued member of their nursing staff. When Dr. William Tillet, the NYU professor and chairman of the department of medicine, learned that she was planning to leave Bellevue to work with me, he called me and tried to persuade me to let her remain at Bellevue. We had a friendly chat and he pleasantly agreed that the move to my office was in my sister's best interest and wished her well. As I look back, this was one of the best decisions I have ever made. Her loyalty, intelligence, skill, and common sense were major assets to my practice of medicine. With her help, my private practice flourished. I continued to use a few hours each week in Harkness Pavilion, but I soon realized that the downtown office had many advantages. The patients who came to me did so because they sought my personal care and not primarily because I was a staff member of a vast medical center. Their telephone calls were handled by me or my nurse, not by strangers who knew them only as numbers on a list. This personal approach to the practice of medicine quickly paid off in major dividends. With the rapid growth of my practice, it soon became evident that we needed more space and we began looking around for it. One day, while I was driving down Park Avenue, my sister saw an empty doctors’ office.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Life of the ClinicianThe Autobiography of Michael Lepore, pp. 320 - 325Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2002