Be A Player

Ed Romond loved mathematics.  After high school, he got a BA in math, and started his career teaching high school math in Boston.  While his wife was matriculating through a Psychiatric Nursing program, she planted a seed of alternative interest, suggesting that Ed consider a more challenging career possibility in medicine.  He was intrigued: it was, indeed, a worthy challenge and it would offer expanded possibilities to be of service to humankind. 

But he needed some fundamental courses in biology and chemistry to give him any chance at all of entry into medical school.  For these, he enrolled at Harvard while continuing to teach math. 

PERSPECTIVE: Ed was a serious PLAYER.  He was engaged in learning, in teaching, in building, in becoming, in solving problems, in contributing, in overcoming barriers, in making life work … He was curious, a challenger of the status quo, a warrior against unfinished business …

While his GPA and MCAT scores following Harvard matriculation were not automatic door openers, they were respectable.  He applied to several medical schools, but wasn’t on anybody’s “short list”.  Meanwhile, his brother’s roommate at Yale just happened to be the son of a former Yale professor who had just taken a position as head of Internal Medicine at the University of Kentucky.  Ed was encouraged to apply, even though he was technically an out of state student with modest credentials.  He was offered a courtesy interview.  During a convoluted interview process, including an unscheduled special session, it became clear that Ed was, in fact, an unusually viable PLAYER … uniquely gifted and driven to become the best, even if his record wasn’t the strongest coming into this formidable field of endeavor.  Long story short, Ed was the first out-of-state student accepted for the next incoming class of medical students at UK! 

After graduation from UK College of Medicine, Dr. Ed did his Internal Medicine Residency at Michigan State University Clinical Center.  As he was completing his Residency, a new cancer center was just opening at his Alma Mater, UK, and they needed broadly based clinical leadership.  Dr. Ed had gained specialized strengths in both Hematology and Oncology – he was now a MAJOR PLAYER – and was one of the first three physicians hired for this new enterprise. 

Soon after establishing his professional roots at the Markey Cancer Center, Dr. Ed saw a particular need to provide more comprehensive services for breast cancer patients.  Together with a notable breast cancer surgeon, Dr. Pat McGrath, he helped develop a Comprehensive Breast Care Center – the first of its kind – which became a model for numerous other comprehensive breast care centers across the nation, as well as additional comprehensive cancer care practices at Markey – including gastrointestinal, lung, hematologic and urologic cancers. 

Dr. Romond sought and fought hard to bring nationally and internationally ground-breaking advances in breast cancer to his patients at Markey.  Toward this end, he participated actively in proceedings of the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast Cancer Project.  When a potential break-through treatment for particularly difficult breast cancer cases materialized from laboratory studies, Dr. Romond was asked to serve as the Principal Investigator for the study: He was the most active PLAYER in that area.  It turned out that this study – targeting the HER-2/neu receptor on breast cancer cells – yielded one of the most definitive advances in breast cancer research … ever!  

Dr. Ed Romond was a PLAYER.  He left an indelible legacy of accomplishment in his chosen field of endeavor. 

Summation:

A considerable number of serendipitous moments appeared along Dr. Romond’s career path, which, without question, helped power his advancement.  But there’s a curious element in serendipity:  It only happens to those who are PLAYERS … those who are prepared!   

“… chance favors only the prepared mind ...”

Louis Pasteur

In sports, there’s a consistent observation that only when a player is ready does a coach appear.  And, vice versa, only when a coach is ready does a STAR player appear. 

When these elements coincide, the result is phenomenal.  Wilma Rudolph was in high school running her heart out in track and basketball when Ed Temple, the track coach from East Tennessee State University, caught wind of her emerging talent.  Wilma was a PLAYER!  In 1960, in Rome, she was the first woman to win THREE Gold Medals in a single Olympic Games. 

 Be a PLAYER!  Get engaged in learning, in teaching, in building, in becoming, in solving problems, in contributing, in overcoming barriers, in making life work; be curious, a challenger of the status quo, a warrior against unfinished business … Quartermaster