Retrospective Part Six

The wonderful image you see at the left is not my memory of working at the Heart House at UAB 28 years ago.  When I arrived in Birmingham those many years ago I had hair.  I saw Iron Man the http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2011  on the hill with a green light from the plane. A green light in his hand means nobody has died in Birmingham of trauma.  Please correct me on that if I am wrong. I left the airport and took a cab to a non-descript motel that I hardly remember.  I do remember waking up and having no coffee in my room, and having to shower and don my scrubs and walk down a hill to the Heart House where Dr. Navin Nanda held court for ten hours a day.  I live for coffee.  I remember Sally Moose RDCS.  She always gave me a cup of joe for the sojourn into medical education.  We began abruptly.  Here is patient number one.  She has a systolic murmur.  We would watch as a sonographer would perform a echocardiogram on a patient using an Aloka or Toshiba color flow machine.  The doctor would walk in and perform a flawless PW and CW calculation using the continuity equation. This was new technology to me.  I was mesmerized. I was amazed at how he would work from one room to another, flowing like an amoeba to see patients.  So fluid, so patient-friendly.  At the end of the day Dr. Nanda would host a one hour lecture on what he had found in his tireless effort to take care of cardiac patients.  The ebb and flow of the gurneys was like a procession in a Catholic church during Easter.  The people in the background were in perfect synchrony with the work in the lab.  I remember getting antsy one night from so much learning.  I called a cab, and asked him to me take to a place where I could buy some beer.  He took to me to a club that had a band that did Beatles stuff..  It was wonderful.  In all I had a great experience in Birmingham.  I went out once with a student and we had a great steak dinner.  Folk's remember this was in the early 80's.  Steaks were great then.  The people of Birmingham were great, unlike the unrest of earlier years.  I met a lady that I almost married in birmingham.   I am happily married to my part American Indian wife.  Dr Navin Nanda has retired as of one year ago.  I know this because one of his students told me.  I hope you are well sir.  I hope you read my BLOG.  Thanks for imparting your knowledge to me sir.  Part Seven will "Soon Come" as the Jamaicans say.  Peace.