Utopia Lost
by
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I finally got to Dallas, Texas. A taxi took me from Union Station located at the edge of Downtown to the Methodist Hospital on the opposite side of the Trinity River in Oak Cliff, a bedroom community of Dallas, a ten minute drive. The taxi dropped me off in front of the hospital. It was an old building, six floors high with many steps leading from the ground to the entrance of the building. I stood there facing the building, and I was a little disappointed. I guess I was used to the looks of new and modern hospitals like PUMC (Peking Union Medical College) and the University Hospital of Aurora, back in China. That feeling didn't last long, I picked up my luggage, walked up the steps and entered the lobby of the building. It was a huge lobby and there was an information desk at the far end, with an elderly lady sitting behind it. I walked up to her and introduced myself, "I am Dr. Long, a new intern. I have come to report to duty. Can you tell me where to go from here?" "Yes, Dr. Long. You should report to the administrator's office which is down the hall on your right. You can leave your luggage by my desk, I’ll keep an eye on it." I thanked her and walked down the hall to my right. There was a middle-aged lady sitting behind a small desk in a tiny office outside the large office of the administrator. The name plate said Virginia Patton. As I approached her, she asked, "Can I help you?" "I am Dr. Long, the new intern. I just got to Dallas today." "We’ve been expecting you, Dr. Long. Thank goodness, you speak such good English. We have two other interns here who speak very little English and the nurses are having a hard time understanding them. They are going to love you." "Can you tell me where to go from here? "Where is your luggage?" "I left my bags by the information desk in the lobby. The lady at the desk was kind enough to watch them for me." "Good! I will get an orderly to pick up your luggage and take you to the house staffs’ quarters. You can pick out any one of the empty rooms there, and I will get a chief resident to pick you up in the morning to show you around." "Thank you, Mrs. Patton." As I turned around to leave, she stopped me and said, "Dr. Long, you need to buy some uniforms." "Are you serious, you mean I have to buy my own uniforms? I don't have much money left." "I’ll give you the name of the store where you can buy the uniforms, and charge them to the hospital. You can pay the hospital back later, when you get paid at the end of the month." "Thank you," I said. I left her office and went back to the lobby, to wait for the orderly. A few minutes later, an old black man showed up. He took my luggage and guided me to the house staffs’ quarters. The house staffs’ quarters were pretty small, simply furnished, and provided for the house staffs spending nights there, when they were on call. For me, it was going to be my living place all the time, whether on call or not. I picked out a room at random, because all the rooms looked alike. In truth I was happy to be in one of them. The next morning Dr. Jonathan Jones, the chief resident in surgery, came by and introduced himself. He was older than I had expected. He said, "Let’s get some breakfast first before we talk shop." The cafeteria was huge and he introduced me around. He told me that a rotating intern spends four months in internal medicine, four months in Ob-Gyn and four months in surgery. I would be on call every third day, taking first calls in the emergency room. However, I could call a resident for assistance, if I should need help at any time. Of course, I was required to do the histories and physicals on all the patients assigned to me, including answering calls from floor nurses needing help with the patients in starting IVs, checking different things ....etc. Dr. Jones then took me on a tour of the hospital, the laboratory, the department of radiology, the emergency room and the floors. Finally we got to the entrance of the operating rooms, but I couldn’t go in, because I had on street clothes. We parted there, as he had to scrub in for surgery. Before he left, he handed to me a piece of paper and said, "Here is the name of the store where you can get your uniforms. You can ride the street car downtown. It stops in front of the hospital. Show this piece of paper to the street car conductor, and he will see that you get off at the right place." I thanked him and went back to my living quarters. Later that day I went to get my uniforms and had a first look at downtown Dallas. Compared to downtown Shanghai, where I went to medical school, Dallas was a little cleaner, with lower buildings, but much less crowded. I started working on the following day. There was a small box in the house staffs’ library with my name on it where clerks put admitting slips of the patients assigned to me.
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About the Book
The author is trilingual, with three different cultural backgrounds. He was born in Peiping (Peking in the old days, now Beijing), China, with the heritage in political affairs from both paternal and maternal sides of his family tree. His education began with home schooling from a private tutor and his father, for four years. In those four years, he was given detailed lessons in political science, and expected to be able to carry on his family tradition in the political arena, in the future. He finished his high school education in the American Methodist missionary school, after spending eight years there. During those eight years, he was so impressed with the American political process and the democratic doctrine that were taught by the American missionary lady teachers, he decided at an early age that he wanted to go to America for post-graduate studies, in order to see and learn. He then spent three years in an American university in Peiping, majoring in pre-med, much to the displeasure of his father. He received his doctorate degree in medicine from a French university in Shanghai, China. He then went to study radiology under Professor Chang Yao-mei. Professor Chang was an assistant of the late Madam Marie Curie who received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1911 for the discovery and isolation of radium. He came to the United States of America in 1951 to study general surgery, and went into private practice in Dallas, Texas, after he finished his training in general surgery. This is the story of that long journey in America for half of a century, amidst the advancement of medicine and science in general, as well as changes in political systems around the world.
About the Author
J.L. Lu, M.D., was born in China in 1921 and was educated at the American Methodist missionary school, the Yuying Academy in Beijing (then Peiping). He spent 8 years in the Chinese Nationalist Intelligence service fighting the Japanese after they invaded China, and then embarked on an amazing journey to the United States as a medical doctor after becoming duly impressed with American notions of democracy. Dr. Lu's story is well-written and fascinating, filled with insights about how America works.