Another Idol

Initially appeared on doktorko.com on 4/24/2006.

One of my mentors in medical school always impressed me with her idealism.

As a teacher, she always worked hard to teach her students the essential knowledge for becoming a good physician.  She would dutifully track students' academic performances and prod them along whenever they started lagging behind.  She continously updated her own knowledge base and revised her lectures and examinations to suit the students' needs.

She was always pushing to incoporate Christian (and La Sallian) values into the curriculum.  Objective lessons to produce good doctors were enhanced with values to produce good HEALERS.  She would actively lobby for activities that would increase students' awareness of their great La Sallian legacy and their consequent social responsibilities.

She led by example.  On weekends she would be at Special Olympics or similar events, lending support to causes both charitable and noble.

Despite her busy schedule, her door was always open to students; she would always be a sympathetic ear to the distraught pupil who needed to improve his study habits - or had problems with relationships.

She had taught me so much.  So naturally, when i waded into deep waters and needed a hand with a program that i was trying to implement for our school - something that would work for the common good (by that i mean the school's and the students'), i asked for her help.  I shot off a long email with my intentions and specific things that i hoped she could assist me with.

Now i knew that she had had a falling out with some members of our school system recently when she resigned for personal reasons, that there were bitter feelings being harbored someplace.  But i also knew that a shining golden heart like hers could never be darkened by anyone - that someone who excelled so much at what she did, who cared so much about those who did it for, would come to my rescue when i (and by proxy - the school and students who i was working for) needed her help.

Her terse reply:


Dear JB,

I am officially happily separated from HSC.  Why don't you write [to the EVP]?  

I just arrived [in the US]. The jetlag is still sogging my brain. Good luck to you and I hope that you and [your wife] are fine. 

[Signed]

Oh well.