Miracles and Other Unusual Medical Experiences

By Byron Oberst M.D.

This book describes the many diverse experiences of a very active pediatrician from 1943 to 1988. This story begins when he was in medical school in 1943 and ends with his retirement thirty-seven years later in 1988.

It includes post retirement stints as a Medical Director for a medical software company and being the Medical Director for a commercial plasma collecting center. He vividly describes many different and unusual medical cases including two true Miracles. One occurred in 1952 during the horrendous polio epidemic, Connie and the other one in the 1970s, Thumbelina. These Miracles are described vivid detail with all of their agonizing twists and turns. Neither patient should have survived with their many complications and circumstances, but with Gods grace they did. This book contains unusual and different exotic medical encounters when the author was in Japan while in the Army Medical Corps in 1949-1950. This book details why and how he had to become a pseudo-specialist in several fields in his early and middle practice years. There were few, if any, trained specialists during those early years. Dr. Oberst portrays a full and productive professional life in many ways which are described in this tome. This book is a pleasant and interesting read for everyone to enjoy. It contains humor, vivid descriptions, happiness, agonies, and pathos.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Oct 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781490714004

Byron Oberst M.D.

Dr. Oberst is a noted author of medical books, His latest one was “A Tale of a Mother, Her Three Sons, and their Dog”. This a Love Story of a Father for His Family. He was in the private practice of pediatrics for thirty-seven years. He was Certified by the American Board of Pediatrics and was a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He has received many awards and accolades. He was the President of the Omaha Children’s Clinic P.C. for over twenty years. In addition to his general pediatric practice, he had an outstanding large consultative practice. He was a pioneer in the use of the exchange transfusion for the rH positive infant versus the rH negative mother, in Adolescent Medicine,and in the Attention Deficit Disorder with and without Hyperactivity. He was an early proponent in the use of computers in pediatrics, and in private practice office management. He was active in the American Academy of Pediatrics for over fifteen years. He retired from medical practice in 1988. Now, he resides in the Retirement Facility, Immanuel Lakeside Village in Omaha, Nebraska.

Book preview

Contents

Prologue

Preface

Chapter 1   Those Internship Years

April 1946-June 1947

Chapter 2   That Busy, Busy Residency Year

July 1947-June 1948

Chapter 3   Time in the Army Medical Corps

July 1948-June 1950

Chapter 4   New Challenges and Worlds to Conquer At the Henry Ford Hospital—Detroit, Michigan

July 1950-June 1951

Chapter 5   Starting Pediatric Practice and My First Miracle

July 1951 to June 1959

Chapter 6   Make-shift Answers to Difficult Medical Problems

Chapter 7   My Entre into Pediatric Practice

Chapter 8   Some Other Cases and My Second Miracle Thumbelina

Chapter 9   Different Experiences but Not Medical Cases

Chapter 10   Some More Poorly Remembered Experiences

Chapter 11   Some Additional Poorly Remembered Experiences

Epilogue

My Complete Curriculum Vitae

Dedication

To the memory of my Beloved Mary, who joined the Angels

May 31, 2011 precisely on her eighth-eight birthday.

To my Sons and their Wives:

   Byron and his wife, Shirley

   Terrance

   Matthew and his wife, Nancy

To my Grandsons and their Wives:

   Matthew

   Justin and Mackenzie

   Conor and Corina

To my Great Grandchildren:

   John and Annabelle

   Sam and Penelope Rose

Acknowledgments

First Son—Byron and Shirley

Second Son—Terry

Third Son—Matthew and Nancy and Our Three Grandsons

1.   Matthew

2.   Justin and Mackenzie

3.   Conor and Corina

Our Great Grandchildren

1.   John

2.   Annabelle

3.   Sam

4.   Penelope Rose

Books by B.B. Oberst M.D., FAAP

1.   Practical Guidance for Pediatric and Adolescent Practice 1973

2.   Computer Applications to Private Practice—A Primer

   Co-Editor: R. Reed M.D. 1984

3.   Computers in Private Practice Management

   Co-Author: J. Long PhD 1988

4.   Reflections on Pediatric Medicine from 1943 to 2010

   A True Dual Love Story 2010

5.   A Mother, Her Three Sons, and Their Dog

   A Father’s Love for His Family 2012

   [Stories 4 and 5 are parts of a Trilogy on Medicine]

6.   Coming Soon:

   Miracles and Other Unusual Medical Experiences 2013

   [Story 6 is Part 3 of the Trilogy on Medicine]

Prologue

M any, many years ago when I was a freshman medical student in 1943, I would stand at the Anatomy Dissecting Table and would look upon the cadaver pondering how this magnificent creation could possibly be related to slime and to something that crawled out of the ocean. It was impossible for me to comprehend that this lowly prehistoric matter could subsequently evolve into modern man. Shifts, changes, and improvements in this original human creation could be envisioned and understood by me, but not coming from slime.

Please spare me! The evolutionary theory stretches my imagination too far to be acceptable. Obviously, this marvelous human creation had to have been planned and orchestrated by a Guiding Hand or First Cause. My medical experiences have convinced me of this fact beyond any equivocation.

This current tome is an outgrowth of and is the final book in this trilogy on my medical life. This book is a companion to my previous two literary attempts about my own medical history and, thus, completes this trilogy.

1.   Reflections on Pediatric Medicine from 1943 to 2010

   (A Dual Love Story) 2010

2.   A Mother, Her Three Boys, and Their Dog

   (The Love Story of a Father for His Family) 2012

During my medical practice life, I encountered several difficult to understand situations and/or unusual experiences. As I have gradually drifted into my golden senior years, I discovered over time that I had been gifted with the ability to handle many different types of activities and tasks simultaneously. At the same time, there existed within me the inherent knack to organize large amounts of material into useable units and to have them arrive to completion within the same time frame. These gifts were exploited throughout my entire lifetime in one way or another.

When my Beloved Mary was taken home by the angels, I floundered about trying to find my feet. I had to live with my broken and empty heart, to live without my soul mate and steadying hand, and to try and discover how to stabilize my life in a worthwhile manner.

The Elkhorn Metropolitan Community College was close at hand to my chosen retirement center and seemed to beckon me. A course on Ancient and Medieval History enticed to me to enroll. I always had loved learning about history from before the Civil War. Auditing this course was much more appealing to me than taking it for credit. There had been way too many examinations in my dim, dark educational past to desire to undertake them again. Additional tests did not appeal to me, but the obtaining of knowledge did.

The young folks in this class were very stimulating. The many discussions that resulted, would inevitably address age, time, facts, and experiences. This course was greatly enjoyed by me until there was a need for me to have both of my cataracts removed. These eye procedures forced me to retire from the classroom. However, this course did help to rejuvenate my spirits, encouraged my quest for knowledge, and gave me purpose and meaning once again to my existence.

Reading books has always been a passion for me since I was about ten years old. Give or take a little, at least one hundred books are read by me each year. Obviously, this passion is still with me and that passion, now, includes the writing of stories. Currently, I use a Sony E reader and was recently given an I PAD by my third and very diabolical son. This I Pad has caused me great painful learning experiences. He must have thought that I needed to do penance for past transgressions against his sweet nature. Oh Well! I am working hard at learning how to use this instrument of the devil.

I have always been a Fiddler and Diddler and enjoyed poking into new and different medical fields and/or unexplored medical corners. In order to keep my mind active and alert in my golden years, I have resorted to writing books so as to recall some of the many medical experiences and/or situations which had been encountered in my distant past. This need to remember medical data from these far away periods of time keeps my mind active and alert, and helps to stave off the grim reaper. As I do not have any concrete medical records at my finger tips any more, my memory must supply the data for the stories that I am about to tell.

As I am one of the few remaining physicians still on the greenside of the ground and not under it looking up at the brown side of the grass, I have lived through what constitutes, at least for me, the Golden Age of medicine.

My book on Reflections on Pediatric Medicine from 1943 to 2010 A Dual Love Story expounds on the many changes in medicine that have been witnessed by me in my relatively short lifetime. This first book contained much about medicine and some things about my family. My second book, A Mother, Her Three Boys, and Their Dog A Father’s Love for His Family, was a tale much about family, and some about medicine. There needed to be third book to complete this medical trilogy concerning the many different and unusual medical encounters in my life; thus this current book, which will document some of my more interesting and remembered medical events.

After floundering around searching for a new project for 2013, it dawned on me to endeavor to remember and to describe the many situations which were encountered by me during my lifetime. Two of these events would qualify as true miracles. They were mentioned briefly before in my book Reflections, but will be described in depth and in greater detail in this book. Many medical situations were merely interesting learning episodes for me. Some of my many different encounters will be described.

As I pass back through many decades of time, I remember being a Junior Medical Student and watching the first shot of penicillin given at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine. Penicillin was very expensive in those early days, namely, $25 for a million units. Now, the same amount of penicillin can be purchased for less than a dollar.

When I was a sophomore student and in the Biochemistry course, Dr. Morgules was the professor. He thought that the newly discovered vitamins were the answer to the maiden’s prayer and would correct most of life’s illnesses. In part, he was right from a nutritional standpoint. Examples:

1.   Vitamin C—prevented scurvy. In the days of sailing ships this disease was a scourge to the sailors and wrecked havoc with their health. Orange juice was promoted with outstanding results. The broad use of limes by the British Sailors resulted in the nickname of Limeys.

2.   Vitamin D—prevented rickets which was the scourge of young children. Without Vitamin D children’s’ bones would be soft, extreme bowed legs resulted, and an enlargement of the rib-sternal junctions would enlarge into what was called the Rickettic Rosary. Ultimately, Vitamin D was added to everything from milk to tooth paste or so it seemed. Rickets disappeared when Cod Liver Oil was fostered upon unsuspecting children. Ugh! How well I remembered that horrible taste.

3.   Vitamin A—prevented night blindness. Fresh butter vanquished this deficiency, and with the giving of Cod Liver Oil to most children this problem evaporated.

4.   Vitamin B Complex—was essential in many medical situations.

a.   Folic Acid was necessary in preventing neural defects in the developing fetus such as Spinal bifida.

b.   B12 was necessary to prevent or correct pernicious anemia and some other blood problems.

c.   Some components were essential for an intact nervous system.

So it goes, a text book could be written about the different vitamin deficiencies. These few entities were examples of the broad scope of nutrition, and its importance in the field of pediatrics.

A pediatrician had to have a good foundation in nutrition to combat the various medical entities which would be encountered, such as celiac disease. Correction needed to be based upon solid nutritional knowledge.

A major advance in health was promoted by the various Dental Societies advocating that Fluoride be added to the drinking and cooking water. This suggestion, initially, met with great resistance. Ultimately, common sense prevailed. Children, who in the past had many cavities and even cesspools in their mouths, developed nice white teeth with good hard enamel, and fewer cavities. What a marvelous advance this addition created in prophylactic health.

The Nebraska Medical College was the precursor of the current huge modern University of Nebraska Medical Center complex, which is now in existence. From a small acorn, indeed, did the massive oak tree grow.

Medical life was much different in those early days. Initially, there was very little a physician could do as to specifically treat a sick patient. He could manage temperatures, nutrition, and fluids, but the body had to fight the specific disease entity mostly single handed and was on its own, unless it required a surgical intervention. There were very few and far between female doctors in those days. It was a man’s world, but no more!

Now, a strep sore throat, pneumonia, meningitis, and similar bacterial disease states could be specifically addressed by using the appropriate antibiotics. If I use the masculine gender throughout this story, please excuse me. It is due to the fact that there were very few women doctors in medicine for most of my medical lifetime. Oh! How I abhor political correctness.

There was only one lady in my medical class of eighty-six graduates. She took a beating from her classmates, but we really loved her and protected her from any intruders outside our class. My! How this current landscape has changed. Now fifty percent or more of medical classes are of the female gender.

Later on in my junior clinical year, I watched a forty year old mother die from Tetanus [Lockjaw]. She had fallen in the barnyard and sustained a compound fracture of her ankle with the bone exposed. The men on the farm were out in the fields harvesting and could not hear her calls for help.

With great agony and with true grit, she dragged herself through the barnyard to the house to call for help. Subsequently, she developed Tetanus {Lockjaw} and died within ten days. This outcome left several children motherless.

The tetanus spores were able to live in the soil for years and could continue to cause trouble. This case study affected me so deeply that I wrote my senior thesis on Tetanus and the preventive effects of the new Tetanus Toxoid Vaccine, which agent was able to abort/prevent the disease, Tetanus.

In those days, medical schools required a graduating senior thesis, much like a PhD Doctorate Dissertation, to be written and published; thus; the reason for my writing about this case, and its related facts.

When I was on my Pediatric Clerkship as a Junior Medical Student, a case of low thyroid function in a child was assigned to me. This case study, as a student, began a lifelong major interest for me into the different body hormones and their actions on the growing child. This medical specialty later became known as Endocrinology.

When I was first back in Omaha, as there was a medical need for but no trained physicians were available in this specialty, I became a temporary one by default, interest, and study. It was intriguing to poke around in this new field. I so enjoyed the study of Growth and Development in infants, children, and adolescents.

This current book will be an endeavor to describe some of the many different medical situations which had been encountered by me during my medical lifetime. These situations will not contain a lot of specific detailed medical case data; but will describe some of the more succinct and defining features of these cases.

Preface

I shifted gears all too soon into the seductive throes of describing medicine; so let me regress and set the stage for being an insignificant actor on this stage of the great drama of life. A physician has the opportunity to do God’s work here on earth similar to and many times in tandem with a priest, rabbi, or minister. I learned to work hand in hand with many of the different Omaha clergy.

Now, let this story begin.

I first saw my Beloved Mary when she was an Usherette at the Orpheum Theatre. She was gorgeous. She worked there while going to South High School.

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Mary as an Usherette

I finally met my beautiful and Beloved Mary when I was a junior medical student. At long last, I was able through many nefarious subterfuges to finagle our first date on March 11, 1945. The gory details of this romance of the century were described in my other two books.

We went to the beautiful ballroom at Peony Park. Dancing with her was similar to dancing with a feather in your arms. She was wearing a powder blue dress with a square neck line with matching blue flower rosettes at the corners of the neckline square.

She was my dream come true—a beautiful Catholic girl. At the end of the first set of music, Mary took hold of my hand as we walked off the dance floor. At once, the shock and surprise of the "magic in her hand", washed over me like a wave and totally thrilled me. My heart was lost to her forever in that one moment. The magic touch in her hand continued for the next sixty-six years unabated.

For me, there was no one else. I fell totally and helplessly in love with her on that first date. After much convincing which included the receiving of a Dear John letter from her which broke my heart, we were married on December 27, 1945 at St. John’s Church on the Creighton campus. Over time, I learned that my Beloved Mary was as beautiful inside as she was on the outside.

The Church was gorgeous with the Christmas decorations and flowers. The candles provided a soft and flickering holy atmosphere. I swear that the angels sang for me on that special day. Aldine A. sang those gorgeous hymns. Ave Maria and Panis Angelicas. Father Wilwerding SJ married us. I felt that this ceremony was as near to being in heaven that I would ever get. My sister, Annabelle, came from Washington D.C. for my marriage. She said, "My face lighted up like a beacon light when I had my first glance of Mary coming down the aisle towards me.

I had had a very narrow and frightening experience in almost marrying a lovely Lutheran Lady. Our religious differences precluded this union; thereafter, I always prayed that I would meet a lovely Catholic girl and marry her. This prayer came to pass with my Beloved Mary. She was a wonderful physician’s wife. She had the understanding knack of knowing went things were not going well for me with a medical situation. She always managed to sooth my tumultuous feelings when confronted with a difficult medical problem. She would recharge my batteries and send me forth the next day to continue to Save lives and stamp out disease and to fight the fiery dragons of Disease, Destruction, and Pestilence.

As time went by and her body became very frail, I prayed that she would pass on before me, and that she would