'How Much Can Be Accomplished'

Cleveland is traditionally divided between East Side and West Side. I’m a West-Sider, though I haven’t lived in the city since 1977. The designation suggests working-class neighborhoods, many of them Slavic. Ethnicity was important, and not usually in the sense of bigotry. I was second-generation Polish on my father’s side, which made me a Polack even though my mother was second-generation Irish. No one called me a Mick, despite my first name, and no one seemed to care that I was a Polack. The neighbors were Slovak, Czech, Ukrainian, Polish and Slovenian. The arrival of an Italian family in the neighborhood – including my classmate, Mario Lombardo -- was a notable event. 

My brother is a patient in the oncology unit of the Cleveland Clinic on the East Side. When I was a kid, the Clinic was a rumor, like the East Side itself. I remember passing it on the way to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Now it’s vast – 170 acres, and all the usual ratings rank it highly. I remember being encouraged to resent the East Side, thinking it was inhabited by snobs – a very human thing to do. Now I’m staying in one of its affiliated hotels. Every time I got lost on Monday, a doctor, nurse or volunteer (including a recent Boston University grad who is applying to medical schools) gave me directions. I don’t expect graciousness, patience and a smile in a hospital.

 

This spirit reminds me of a great hero of medicine, Dr. William Osler (1849-1919), a Canadian native. He was co-founder of Johns Hopkins Hospital and established the first residency program for medical students. He was also a bookman. A reader, yes, and sometimes a book collector, but without the taint of pedantry or snobbishness. Someone whose sensibility is suffused with books, language and learning. Years ago I found a third edition (1932) of Osler’s extravagantly titled Aequanimitas, with Other Addresses to Medical Students, Nurses and Practitioners of Medicine, first published in 1904. The title word means “equanimity” or “imperturbability.” At the end of the volume, Osler adds a “Bed-side Library for Medical Students.” His suggestions include the Old and New Testaments, Shakespeare, Montaigne and Plutarch, among others. He assures us a liberal education “may be had at a very slight cost of time and money,” urges medical students to “get the education, if not of a scholar, at least of a gentleman,” and suggests:

 

“Before going to sleep read for half an hour, and in the morning have a book open on your dressing table. You will be surprised to find how much can be accomplished in the course of a year.”

 

That BU grad who gave me directions was carrying a copy of Bleak House.