Never Hurry
Of course, mentors are not confined to the field of rheumatology. Hanna W. Mawad, MD, FACP, FASN, CCD (deceased 2018), was internationally recognized as an expert in bone and mineral metabolism at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, where I completed my residency. He was also renowned for his wit and humor. I met him during my second month of residency. At that time, I was debating between rheumatology and nephrology as career choices. I confess that allergy/immunology was a very distant third. Dr. Mawad’s influence was so great he very well could have convinced me to become a nephrologist.
On my first day in the clinic, he disclosed the secret to clinical medicine: “Never hurry. The patient must know that their time is your time.” I squirreled that away as I spent valuable time working closely with him. In my second year, he was disappointed that I didn’t apply for nephrology, but was satisfied I had found my path. That act of maturity and acceptance was greatly appreciated.
One of the biggest reasons he was an exceptional mentor is that he brought great joy. One day, he saw me walking outside the hospital. He pulled over to the side of the road in his blue Corvette. “Get. In. The. Car,” he said, pseudo-menacingly. The other folks around understood the joke and we had a delightful high-speed ride past the horse farms of Lexington, as he gave a mini-lecture on the protein Klotho and the intricacies of continuous renal replacement therapy. It showed how much care and affection he had for his mentees.
Dr. Mawad is no longer with us, except that he is. His advice that “their time is our time” is an endless truth. Whenever we interact with somebody, whether it is a patient, a learner, a friend, or a family member, we are sharing time together. Respecting one another’s sense of time is one of the hallmarks of empathy. His words instruct me that this shared time must be of high quality and that we should strive to make every moment matter. This becomes even more salient when I realize I cannot consult with him anymore.
Unexpected Answers
Kentucky had another beloved giant who mentored an entire generation of internists. Robert Wilkins Lightfoot, MD (deceased 2022), was a venerable rheumatologist who had an expansive fund of knowledge yet exuded a homespun style. He seemed to know everything under the sun and could carry on a conversation about lupus nephritis as easily as a conversation about medieval Japanese armor. He had been the internal medicine program director years before I started at the university and was living a comfortable, enjoyable existence as a clinician educator within the rheumatology division.
