John P. McGovern, MD: A Lifetime of Stories

Introduction

Introduction In 1980 John Philip McGovern, MD, was honored for his thirty-five years as a physician with the publication of a 680-page festschrift called Appreciations, Reminiscences, and Tributes Honoring John P. McGovern.1 The “big blue book,” as it became known, was a collection of tributes written by 229 then-current and former faculty colleagues, students, and friends throughout the United States and the world. Read the book cover to cover, distill the sentiments, and you come to realize this was a much admired man with more than a few friends. Their collective words define him: they termed him “brilliant clinician,” “revered professor,” “insightful researcher,” “prolific author,” “skilled administrator,” “dedicated medical historian,” “dynamic leader of diverse medical organizations,” “enlightened scholar,” “concerned humanitarian,” “gifted speaker,” “lifetime student,” “loyal friend,” and “devoted husband.” John P. McGovern, at age fifty-five, was at the top of his game when his lifelong friend, former Duke pediatrics professor Grant Taylor, first conceived the big blue book. Since graduating from Duke University’s School of Medicine in 1945, McGovern had launched a medical career in allergy and immunology and built the nation’s largest privately owned allergy clinic. He had trained many of the leaders in his field and set an example of how a patient-centered physician/scientist and man of energy can make a difference. In his spare time he had relentlessly saved and invested his money to build a foundation worth nearly $200 million in his lifetime. It would allow him to continue making a difference for others well into his retirement and beyond. 2 | introduction With the publication of Appreciations, McGovern had another thirty-two highly productive years left. He wasted no time. In addition to establishing and nurturing the allergy clinic, during his life in medicine McGovern held 17 professorships, received 29 honorary doctorates (appendix A), authored 252 professional publications, including 26 books in the medical sciences and humanities, and did all of this while serving as president or chief elected officer of 15 professional societies in medicine. He also served as editor or member of the editorial board of more than 20 scientific journals (appendix B) and endowed 29 annual medical award lectureships in universities nationwide as well as at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC (appendix C). The list of national and international awards he received during his lifetime requires a separate appendix for this book (appendix A). In Houston alone you can visit McGovern Lake and McGovern Children ’s Zoo, the McGovern Museum of Health & Medical Science, and the McGovern Campus of the Texas Medical Center, or you can dine in the McGovern Commons—and that’s just in one part of town. In Houston’s Texas Medical Center, a medical city in and of itself, John P. McGovern’s reputation and reach touched all institutions. While such men as Michael DeBakey (Baylor College of Medicine), Denton Cooley (Texas Heart Institute), and R. Lee Clark (the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center) built great academic institutions and renowned reputations , McGovern transcended the traditional boundaries of institutional identities and medical specialties. He brought together big institutions, different health professions (medicine, dentistry, nursing, public health, informatics , biomedical research) and provided bold interdisciplinary ideas and a team approach to health care that today is recognized not as just a good idea, but as essential. His outlook was holistic; he always saw the big picture , but without losing track of the parts and how they fit together. He was an inspired and tireless integrator. I first met John McGovern in 1995 when I was a faculty member and associate dean at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. A news journalist by original training who first joined the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in the early 1970s, I had come to the Texas Medical Center as a science writer working in M. D. Anderson Cancer Center’s Public Information Office, where it was possible to run into important physicians, scientists, and political figures of the day as they came to meet the institution’s founding president, R. Lee Clark. Here introduction | 3 also were governors, Nobel laureates, presidents of major universities, the members of city and state government, presidents of nations worldwide, even presidents of this nation. As a writer and storyteller I wanted to connect the dots, collect the stories, and know the history of this Disneyland of medicine. While I knew...