For Love of Compassion: A Memoir

By King F. Yee, MD

Inspired by a news article about a missionary who spent his life serving on medical missions in Thailand, author Dr. King F. Yee changed his major from science to medicine.

This memoir follows Yee’s long and vigorous educational process of medical school, internship, and residency. It shares how, following training, Yee realized obtaining credentials and hanging a shingle do not make a medical practice an instant success. In For Love of Compassion, he depicts the realities of private practice and the struggles he faced. He also shares the details of realizing his long-held dream of working on medical missions to the Philippines, with each place differing in need and challenges.

Yee’s story exemplifies the lives of all who’ve pursued the art of medicine. Compassion is the heart of medicine—compassion to care, compassion to heal, and compassion to freely give one’s time and energy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: May 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483429076

Book preview

For Love of Compassion

A MEMOIR

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King F. Yee, MD

Copyright © 2015 King F. Yee, MD.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-2908-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-2907-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015906981

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 04/29/2015

I am forever indebted to my dearest wife, Grace, for her love and unending encouragement in my pursuit of medicine. Her sacrifice and support enabled me to fulfill my dream of serving my fellow men.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1: Medical School

Chapter 2: Internship

Chapter 3: The Vietnam War

Chapter 4: The Residency

Chapter 5: The Practice

Chapter 6: Medical Mission in the Philippines, 2009

Chapter 7: Medical Mission in the Philippines, 2010

Chapter 8: Medical Mission in the Philippines, 2011

Chapter 9: Medical Mission to the Philippines, 2012

Chapter 10: Medical Mission to the Philippines, 2013

Prologue

The ancient Greeks called medicine an art, and from the days of Hippocrates to today, it has remained an art. Medicine will always be an art. Regardless of circumstances, it freely and compassionately gives. In all instances of care, medicine demands all one’s past experiences. In every situation, it calls for immediate and appropriate judgment. In every case, it must heal the body and soothe the soul.

As an art, however, medicine must be supplanted with compassion; otherwise, it would be no more than a trade. While medicine is taught and learned, compassion is entirely innate. It is an inherent part of everyone’s personality, although in varying degrees. The compassionate healer feels for his patients and strives to alleviate their sufferings as if they were his own.

The days are short, and the art is long. The goal to learn the art well and the desire to heal the sick with sound judgment will always trump time. Time invested, however long, is a necessary part of the discipline. Just as learning began on the first day of apprenticeship in Hippocrates’s time, it begins today on the first day of medical school.

Chapter 1: Medical School

It was a warm, humid day in Madison, Wisconsin, in July 1963. One hundred strangers assembled in a large auditorium. It was orientation day for the class of 1967. Those entering the auditorium had a sense of accomplishment and a feeling of anticipation.

This elite group was selected from several thousand applicants. Those chosen knew their classmates were in the top 1 to 2 percent of undergraduate classes throughout the state and the country. But we could not let that go to our heads. Today we started anew. Today we were neophytes. Today we were the lowly freshmen in medical education hierarchy.

We had all followed the instructions mailed to us, advising us to be in the auditorium before nine o’clock that morning for orientation. There was such a hush in the auditorium that one could hear a pin drop. No one knew what to expect. A few tried to calm themselves by talking with somebody close by. But, in general, most of us kept to ourselves.

Promptly at nine, the doors opened, and five men in long white coats entered. Now the hush vibrated with tension. This was for real. Breaking the silence, the distinguished-looking, gray-haired professor stepped forward. Holding the microphone in one hand, he began, Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Dr. Mortensen, professor of anatomy. Let me introduce to you my four distinguished colleagues. He went on to introduce the other men in white, who were heads of other departments part of our first-year curriculum.

Today you will begin your formal medical education, he continued. It will not be easy. If it were, then everyone would be a doctor. You are the chosen ones, so we know you have the intelligence to make it. You will still need to earnestly do your part, study hard. And we are here to help you to succeed in becoming good doctors. Your goal is to become good doctors so you can help mankind everywhere, at home and abroad.

His last statement struck a chord in me. That was what I wanted to do. That was what I had thought of when I changed my major in college from physics to pre-medicine. Throughout elementary school, I had no clue as to what I wanted to be in life. I was helping my dad in his laundry business after school every day and didn’t give much thought to my future profession. During high school, however, I wanted to be a scientist. It was the time of Sputnik and the age of the famed German scientist Warner Von Braun. It was the time of the space race, a race to the last frontier between the Soviet Union and the United States.

One month before graduation, however, I came across an article in the newspaper that changed my life. It was about a medical missionary named Dr. Tom Dooley. In brief, he spent his entire life in medical missions in Thailand. He traveled to some of the most remote areas of Thailand to administer medical care. His mission took him to Chiang Mai, along the Chao Phraya River, four hundred miles north of Bangkok. It took him south to as far away as Songkla, five hundred miles south of the Gulf of Thailand. The lives he saved and the sick he cured were too numerous to count. His compassion was beyond human definition. His love for mankind was beyond mortal understanding. He died doing what he loved on a medical mission. He was befittingly immortalized in the land of Siam.

His story touched my heart and enlightened my soul. I decided then to pursue a profession that would benefit mankind, to learn a skill that may cure the sick and save a life. I decided then to pursue the art of medicine.

That’s how I ended up in that particular room. After the brief orientation, we were led down to the first floor and through a long hallway. Before us was a double door with a big sign above it: Anatomy. Both doors opened, and the group was ushered in.

I could tell that each one of us was filled with wide-eyed, jaw-dropping excitement. This was the real thing. This was the formal beginning of our medical education. Instead of dissecting frogs and cats like we all had in biology, we would now be dissecting the human body.

The anatomy laboratory consisted of two immense, connected rooms. The ceiling was high, with windows all around the exterior walls. Numerous large exhaust fans were humming high up in the ceiling. Ventilation was extremely good, but the smell of formaldehyde was still detectable.

There were twenty-five metallic tanks per room. Each tank was raised three feet from the floor on four metal legs and measured approximately two feet wide by six feet in length and a foot and a half tall. At the end of each tank was a crank for raising and lowering the metal rack on which the cadaver rested. The tanks opened at the top by two leaflet metal doors through which the cadaver could be raised up for dissection. We were randomly assigned to the numbered tanks, with two students per tank.

My tank partner introduced himself. Hi, I am Martin, Martin Keyes.

I am King, I replied as we shook hands. We are going to be partners, eh?

No question about it. Our names are here on tank number ten.

We are going to have gross anatomy dissection every morning for the entire year, looking at the schedule, I observed.

Have you brought dissecting instruments yet? Martin asked.

"Yes. I brought Gray’s Anatomy, too. Here, take a look."

Wow. It’s a big book. Martin took the seven-inch-thick text with both hands and started thumbing through it. The whole human body, right here in these sixteen hundred pages?

And we are expected to know all of it, too, when gross anatomy is over.

When did you buy it?

Yesterday afternoon. I met a junior in the hallway as I was trying to orient myself, I answered. He told me what I should get from the university bookstore.

It must be nice to have all the basic sciences done and be in the clinical clerkship.

And he looked like a real doctor in the short, white coat with a stethoscope in the pocket.

It’s funny that we are wearing a long, white coat and look like professors, eh? Martin said with a chuckle.

Oh, it is probably to keep our street clothes from soiling during the dissections, don’t you think?

Should we open the tank and meet our buddy?

You mean the cadaver? I asked. Sure. I have my key. You have yours?

Martin reached into his pocket for the key to the tank’s lock. Unlocking the container, he opened the doors at the top of the tank. I began to crank the shaft at the foot of the tank. The metal rack on which the cadaver rested began to rise until it sat just above the top of the tank. The male cadaver, our buddy, was well preserved. In awe, we were speechless. With respect, we were silent. Looking around the room, everyone was on the same page. Today was orientation. Tomorrow would be the beginning of our medical journey.

Gross anatomy occupied every morning. Histology, physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, genetics, and neuroanatomy filled the afternoons. The lectures and laboratory sessions in histology and physiology coordinated exactly with the schedule of gross anatomy dissection, system by system.

A voluminous outline for gross anatomy