05-DEC-B-2
TRAVEL TO NORFOLK, VIRGINIA
TO ATTEND THE PHYSICIANS FOR PEACE BOARD MEETING AND MEET WITH DIRECTOR GENERAL
SCONYERS AND PHILIPPINE SURGEON JUAN MONTERO AND SUSAN PALMER, STAYING IN
SPORTSMAN’S HOUSE OF DR. MONTERO’S,
AND GETTING
THE LIONIZED GRAND TOUR OF TIDEWATER, VA, FROM FREEMASON ABBEY TO THE NEW
MONTERO’S OF ELIZABETH
CITY, NC
December 19—20, 2005
What a superb two days in Norfolk! I had been asked to hang in by a telephone
for the Medical Operations Committee of the PFP (Physicians for Peace) to
describe briefly the plans for the Rwanda mission in March. I had already forwarded to them the plans and
the probable participants, and when Juan Montero had asked if we might be able
to meet in Manila to discuss their use of the SAR (“Search and Rescue”)
186-foot ship from the Philippine Coast Guard to be used in the PFP mission to
Palowan, I was eager to see the mission in the Philippines. I would already be down there on the MMI
mission in Mindanao and could meet with the group in the return via Manila. When Juan Montero invited me to come down to
be his guest and go over many of the other items in which we share interests, I
packed up the photo albums and drove down to Norfolk, 225 miles and four hours
from GWU.
I made it through the Hampton Roads
tunnel under the Chesapeake and around the large
Naval Base there and then got twisted around until I found the Llewellyn Street on
which the building called the Wainwright
Building in which the PFP
is housed. I got parked and went to the
earlier meeting with the Director before their MOC (Medical Operations
committee) was scheduled at 4:00 PM.
The new Director is Retired Brig
General Ron Sconyers, former Press Secretary of the Air Force Secretary. The
chief Administrative secretary Susan Palmer, is also from DC, and is joined by
a number of new folk such as grant writers and other administrators. This was run as a small “cottage industry” as
a charitable arm of the interests of Dr. Horton, a partner in plastic surgery
of Bill Magee and another with close connections to Paul Adkins and GWUMC. But, one of the construction magnates who was
on the PFP board died and left one seventh of his estate to the PFP, which
amounted to ten million dollars, which they could use for the interest alone to
run good administrative processes.
Dr. Juan Montero is my host, and
had talked with me by phone when he had heard I had been to Mindanao
where he was born. He is a thoracic
surgeon who had focused on the hiatus hernia treatment by Nissen fundoplication
as a long-term partner of Dr. Hotchkiss, who went on to become President of the
AMA. The life story of “Juanny” is easy
to recollect, since he wrote an autobiography in 1982 “Halfway Through” as the
success story of a Philippine immigrant.
HE became President of the Philippine American chapter of the ACS, and
along with Richard Fuhrman, was the first winner of the “Surgical Volunteerism
Award of the ACS.” He has established
the Chesapeake Clinic for the migrant workers here in Tidewater and goes to The
Philippines twice a year to volunteer in projects a lot like mine. In seventeen months he will retire and do
this full time, as well as the political activities he has in support of the
governor in Virginia. He may go to Iowa to help campaign for Mark
Warner the former governor of Virginia (and a GW grad who was the commencement
speaker for my MPhil; graduation two years ago) to speak on behalf of the
crisis in malpractice and the almost fifty million uninsured health care
population in America. He is a Republican
in the strongest part of the Tidewater which is getting to be a more Republican
state all along, but would support the Democratic governor for a presidential
bid.
WE adjourned from the MOC Board
meeting, and then left to dinner at a converted church (like the one in Atlanta) which is called
the Freemason Abbey (the Freemason name coming form the street it is on.) So, we were seated in a “pew” of this church
converted to a restaurant and ate well while talking of many issues we saw in front
of the PFP.
I went home with Juan Montero and
met his wife Mary (Meri) and we toured the house which is a sportsman’s
paradise for the four growing sons that they had, each of whom were the
consecutive presidents of the Great
Bridge High
School classes.
At home they could play racket ball and indoor volley ball, as well as
the tennis courts and golf greens. Juan
has a collection f caps form each of the golf courses he has played on display. And he has the distinction of a four-time
hole in one golfer. The prize for his first “Hole-in-One?” An Eddie Bauer Bronco II!
Their four sons are also in
interesting places—two doctors, one lawyer and a restauranteer. The son Paul is –of all places—at UCHSC in Denver among all my friends
and has the current GWUMC protégé of mine Eric Sarin as his chief
resident. He will be coming home next
Wednesday to be at home for his brother’s New Year’s Eve wedding—catered by the
other son, who has a brand new restaurant that opened only a month ago at Elizabeth City NC,
and a large catering business, with 107 employees. I got a chance to check out that part of the
family too since we went to the remodeled McPherson House in Elizabeth City, NC
the following day by driving through the tidewater through the Great Dismal
Swamp with roadside signs cautioning against the NC black bear population along
the roadside.
We were seated in a prime location
in the new remodeled restaurant and talked with each of the employees including
the CEO, executive chef, two sous chefs and the wait staff. It would be a good place to go for dinner in
the area, as many folk have discovered in the Tidewater area already. So, the
Montero family is in good condition and asking me to return as soon as I can,
and I will try to do so. WE will
rendezvous in the interval in Manila
and look over the PFP connections there, including the Rotary president woman
who is the head of the largest of the newspaper publications in the area who is
heading up the PFP Philippine chapter. I
may get a chance to see, again, the Philippine Coast Guard’s 186 foot SAR ship,
which I had inadvertently photographed when I went to Manila Bay and took
pictures of little nudnik kids diving into the Bay in front of the white Coast
Guard vessel behind them—now going to be used in Palowan as a mobile base of operations
for future PFP missions.
The enthusiasm of PFP for my
participation and the Surgery and healing in the Developing World on-line text
can be seen in the following 05-DEC-B-4, and 5, including another mutual friend
Muhammad Akhter, who was DC health Commissioner and then the CEO of the
American Public Health Association now heading up the InterAction Council a
group that has a clientele like mine. It
was to visit Muhammed Akhter that Paul Antony
left our meeting last week, so the circle is drawn tighter all the time!
Juan Montero said that I was an
obvious natural for the Surgical Volunteerism Award of the ACS, and as the
original awarded, he can nominate a successor—like my nominations of the successors
for the MMHOF in Rick Hodes and Jill Seamans.
He asked me to forward to him what I could to help support the nomination
and I sent him a “letter” which probably will get shipped through the Christmas
mail by “Parcel Post!”
I left Juan Montero’s office to
drive north the four hours to DC, and went through the Hampton Roads Tunnel, happy
to see that there is a signal relay such that cell phones still work while I
drive under the Chesapeake Bay mouth, as Air Craft Carriers leave from this
Norfolk Naval Base over the top of me, as I will be running 365 feet over the
Chesapeake Bay in May when I do the Governor’s Bay Bridge 10 K race on the
first Sunday in May. So, I have been ON,
Under, and high OVER the Bay all within the same year.
I got the last copies of the full
version and the abridged year-end 05 letter put together before arriving home
late to pack the last items into the Audi to continue my long road trips of
this holiday period. Tomorrow starts the
longest of these, a continuous eleven hour solo commute to the northern suburbs
of Chicago in
mid-winter at the Christmas Rush. So,
stay tuned as I drive through a week of three thousand ground level miles to
four destinations.
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