January 2007
Dear Family and Friends of
Janet,
I am sad that I am not here
to give these remarks in person. As
Jeanette and Amelia know, I am not the type of person to delegate important matters
to others. Unfortunately I am obligated to accompany the Dean to
First of all, I am so sorry
for your loss. Having just lost my own mother a year ago I know that for you, her
children, this is a painful moment.
And
I did also want to tell you
that Janet’s death is a loss to me as well.
But this is a celebration of a remarkable life.
I’ll do my own private mourning and today share with you the joyous parts
of my relationship with your wife, your mother and grandmother.
Although it has been years since Janet sat next to me in the front row of
the Orthopedics Conference Room on the fifth floor of NC Memorial Wednesday mornings
or the conference room on Tuesday afternoons on the fifth floor of Burnett Womack,
the cliché is true: it seems like yesterday and I am filled with wonderful memories.
At that conference various
infectious diseases cases are presented as unknowns.
First the ID Fellow discusses the case and tries to guess the answer and
then an ID Attending is put on the spot.
Janet, given her expertise in tuberculosis from her time spent in the Gravely TB
Sanitarium, would invariably have seen some unusual manifestation of TB, similar
to the case being discussed and usually was right on the money.
As someone who trained under Janet’s wise eyes, I learned many important
clinical skills from her that still help me.
Never trust a TB skin test or PPD that is negative.
Only a positive test helps with the diagnosis. Rather than waiting for some
person to perform a simple procedure or a resident to implement a recommendation
to obtain a specimen, Janet like the Nike advertisement taught me to just jump in
and do it, quickly making the diagnosis.
For instance, rather than wait for the regular floor team, we as consultants would
stick needles into patients to obtain some pus or pound on their chests to get a
sputum sample, the ID “procedures”. She also taught me, never trust oral history, instead get the details for yourself,
by talking with the patient or by meeting with the radiologist to look at the film
together or the microbiologist to confirm what was “reported”. There is not a day that I spend on the consult or ward service that I don’t
use those important lessons learned from Janet. As a professor myself now, I know that the most important part of my job
is to train the next generation. Yes,
a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine is nice, but a paper in the Journal
by one of my former students or fellows is even better. So true of Janet; literally hundreds of students, residents and fellows have
learned how to be better doctors, better diagnosticians from Janet.
One of the low points of
my fellowship occurred after Laura and I, having tried to become pregnant for two
years had a miscarriage. We were devastated. Janet took me aside and told me about
her early miscarriages. How she then
broke her ankle which forced her to make infectious diseases consult rounds in the
wheel chair. She promptly became pregnant
with twins I think with the enforced “wheel chair” rest.
It was just the right comment to make to me, helping me immeasurably. As a husband of a professor of medicine
myself, I know the joys of being married to someone with whom you can share ideas,
both professionally and personally.
I could go on and on with
great stories but the indelible image of Janet sailing like a ship through the hospital,
gray hair and white coat flying, teaching, making difficult diagnoses and helping
people will forever be with me. I am
lucky to have known her and been trained by her.
Remarks written by Dr. Charles van der Horst (UNC Infectious
Diseases)