Article February 17, 2003 Issue

For the love of healing

By Warren Bolon, Senior Writer

"IT SHOOK MY UNIVERSE. " "It" was the outcome from one doctor-patient encounter. The "universe" was the medical mindset of then physician-in-training, today renowned cardiologist and Nobel Peace Laureate, Bernard Lown, M.D.

The incident that shook, and helped reshape, Dr. Lown's universe occurred during a round in the outpatient cardiology clinic at Boston's Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in the early 1950s. Describing a stop at a patient's bedside that day with his mentor and role model, Dr. Samuel Levine, Lown says Levine "walked in blithely. He was very pressured because there were a lot of visitors (other doctors accompanying him).

"Levine said, 'This patient has TS,' by which he meant tricuspid stenosis. Doctors always use linguistic shortcuts."

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