Robert C. Moellering, Jr., MD

The emails and text messages all carried very sad news today. Dr. Moellering died last night after a protracted illness. To quote from one email, many are left "with a very heavy heart and a sense of irreplaceable loss." Dr. Moellering was the Chair of Medicine at BIDMC during my fellowship and a mentor to many who passed through the New England Deaconess and Beth Israel Deaconess ID Divisions. On a personal level, beyond the knowledge and wisdom he imparted on me as a fellow, I will never forget receiving a reprint request from him upon the publication of my first post-fellowship paper. Certainly he already had a copy of the journal and certainly he had more important things to do. Others recalled similarly kind gestures.

Robert C. Moellering, Jr. was born in Lafayette, Indiana. He graduated from Valparaiso University (zoology) and received his MD from Harvard in 1962. He completed his residency and fellowship training at the Massachusetts General Hospital. From 1981 through 2005 he was Physician-in-Chief and Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the New England Deaconess Hospital and after the merger in 1996 at BIDMC. He was then the Shields Warren-Mallinckrodt Professor of Medical Research at Harvard Medical School. He published over 400 original articles in a broad range of areas including antimicrobial resistance and antibiotic therapy and was directly involved in laboratory research for over 35 years. One thing many will remember him for is his role as editor for the Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy. He was honored numerous times including receiving the Maxwell Finland Award from IDSA, the Hoechst-Roussel Award from ASM, the 2006 the Maxwell Finland Award for Scientific Achievement from NFID and the 2008 Alexander Fleming Award for Lifetime Achievement from IDSA.

Beyond his biography, I wanted to share two quotes from Dr. Moellering and a final one from Dr. Jerome Groopman delivered on the occasion of Dr. Moellering stepping down as Chair of Medicine.

“I served for the better part of 24 years as chairman of the department and also ran the faculty practice plan here. But I view administration as nothing more than a means to an end--a means to create more effective clinical and teaching programs in the department, and a way to ensure that I could have an impact on the training of physicians and the internal medicine house staff.”

“Teaching is the most important thing we do. Imparting knowledge to the next generation of physicians is incredibly important. It’s a privilege we are given in the academic setting. Not only does it give you a tremendous sense of satisfaction in that you’ve done something worthwhile, but it gives you some immediate gratification because you can watch students who go on to successful careers.”

Dr. Jerome Groopman: "How many of us has he supported on his shoulders? How many of us has he helped to move forward when we felt we didn't have the energy or endurance to continue? Those shoulders have carried enormous burdens, carried with a quiet confidence, through all the difficult times, the growth of the department, the merger…. Bob is loved because beyond his intellect, beyond his knowledge, beyond his hard work, he is filled with a unique form of kindness. Bob has true generosity of spirit. He sees your success as his success. This is his legacy."

References:

1) BIDMC Historical Biosketches - Amy Slansky 2005
2) NFID, 2006 Maxwell Finland Award

Did "Getting to Zero" contribute to the death of Facts?

The Chicago Tribune just published an obituary for "Facts, 360 B.C.-A.D. 2012", stating that it finally succumbed after years of fighting against the 24-7 cable news cycle and the internet. Apparently, the final straw was when "Florida Republican Rep. Allen West steadfastly declared that as many as 81 of his fellow members of the U.S. House of Representatives are communists."  I can see how that could do it; even enterococcal bacteremia can kill you if you're already close to dead (i.e. APACHE II score ~70). After first checking to make sure I wasn't reading the Onion or QFever, I realized that Facts probably did die, as I think it died in infection prevention several years ago.

We've written often about the problems with the "Getting to Zero" campaign or mindset. In one of this blog's very first posts, Mike wrote about how the false premise of Zero leads to a culture of blame. Dan has written about how APIC's "I Believe in Zero CLABSIs" campaign shows that it's "unwilling or unable to speak honestly about HAIs" and that "they will eventually lose credibility with their members who fight daily to prevent them."  There are other examples of post-factual truthiness in HAI prevention, including the claim that the only way to prevent MRSA is through a nasal PCR swab.

In closing, it's a sad day when an idea dating back to Aristotle has officially died.  At least those of us working in HAI prevention can take comfort in the idea that we've done our part through paving the way to a post-Factual "Getting to Zero" world.

Addendum: Rex Huppke, the author of the Tribune obit, speaks about how and why he wrote "one of the best op-ed pieces ever."

the American Journalism Review's excellent take on the obit, can be found here.

Obit: Dr. Edwin D. Kilbourne

Dr. Kilbourne, source: NYT

Edwin Kilbourne MD, who was a graduate of Cornell Medical College and an accomplished influenza researcher, died earlier this week at the age of 90.  He was most widely known for his involvement in the swine flu epidemic of 1976. There is a nice obituary in today's NY Times.

Thomas Peebles (1921-2010)

Dr. Peebles, who was known for discovering and culturing the measles virus and also shifting the tetanus booster schedule from annual injections to every ten years, died July 8th but he death was just announced in a NY Times obituary. In the non-ID world, he was known for his work on flouride vitamins for children.

There were several interesting things about him that I didn't know, but the most amazing was the fact that when he discovered how to grow the measles virus, no one in the lab believed him including John Enders. Dr. Enders even took him off of the measles project and Dr. Peebles had to complete the work on the side on his own time. When he finally was able to infect monkeys using the cultured virus, they knew he had done it. This discovery led directly to the development of the measles vaccine and numerous lives saved.

In 1967, when discussing the measles discovery, Dr Peebles wrote “I am sure, as is often the case in scientific endeavor, that much of the successful recognition and isolation of this virus lay in perseverance, newness to the field, and failure to be bound by preconceived ideas that caused others in the laboratory to miss this new effect."

There is much truth in his words. Successful scientists are often immune to the dogma that surrounds them. If only the scientific community could find better ways to identify and support such free thinking individuals.

NY Times Obit

Robert Chanock (1924-2010)

There are few that have contributed as much to our understanding of infectious diseases as Dr. Chanock. His career was most tightly linked to his discovery of RSV and subsequent vaccines including the one in trials today. However, when he was chief of NIAID's Laboratory of Infectious Diseases from 1968-2001, his work involved other important viruses including norovirus, Hep A, rotavirus, West Nile, etc etc. Oh, and the first intranasal influenza vaccine. The picture is from a 1999 story in the NIH Record. There are several nice obituaries:

Washington Post obit

NPR audio obit

NY Times obit