Recently, I had the honor as LMS president of addressing the freshman class of the University of Kentucky College of Medicine on their first day in the classroom. I reflected upon my own recollection of that day for me, and I mentioned the experience of Dr. Jabez Galt, the senior partner of the private internal medicine practice I Joined in Dallas, Texas in 1982. He had served as a military physician during WWII- surviving the siege in Anzio, Italy. He recalled that during his medical school training, it was an accepted reality that about two classmates each year would succumb to some form of infectious disease contracted during training.
I mentioned to the class about General Robert E. Lee’s reported interaction with a young mother who had lost her husband and oldest son in the Civil War. She had the occasion to meet General Lee as she held her infant son. General Lee took the baby in his arms and gave his mother this singular advice, “Teach him to deny himself”.
