Kevin A. Roberts
Dr. Ron Leidenfrost & Dr. Jeremy Leidenfrost
It’s not often that you find father-and-son heart surgeons. It’s even rarer to find a pair working together. Jeremy Leidenfrost grew up watching his father, Ron Leidenfrost, who’s practiced cardiothoracic surgery at St. Luke’s for 35 years. “I would come in and make rounds with him, and I would see the impact he was having on people’s lives,” says Jeremy. “I sort of always thought I might want to be a doctor someday.” After finishing his fellowship, Jeremy decided to work with his father. “Cardiac surgery is life-and-death, and the outcomes are the most tracked medical outcomes. It’s not easy; a lot of cardiac surgeons come out of training and they don’t make it. I felt that my best chance of having a successful career was to come out with a senior partner who would have my best interest at heart.” Ron adds, “It’s really his wife who convinced him to come to work with me. They have three children, and she figured that he’d have more time at home if he was [working] with his father. She’s really the smart one of the family.” The very nature of cardiac surgery makes it a high-stress job. Working with a family member in such close proximity adds to that stress. “It’s like a double-edged sword,” admits Ron. “It’s wonderful, and it’s terrible.” Jeremy adds, “It’s a high-stress environment, and it can be hard to be in an environment like that with your father. It’s something that we’ve learned to deal with.” Over time, while working together, they’ve learned from each other. “Millennials like to be able to separate their work time from their playtime,” says Ron. “They’re not as apt to spend 24 hours at the hospital. When I first became a medical student, it was like home to me. Jeremy does a good job of taking care of things here so he can safely get away to enjoy his family and his life.” Ron has also learned that change can be good. “I’m a hard person to get to change, because I think I’ve had a great track record,” he admits, “but change has been good as long as it’s measured and is a team effort where everybody gets together and gives their input.” Jeremy says he’s learned to always tell the truth, no matter what. “If you have a complication or if something doesn’t go right,” he says, “you stay by your patient and see them through it.” How might a patient decide between the two doctors? “If they want an old man, they can get me,” quips Ron. “If they want a young man, they can get him.”
Kevin A. Roberts
Dr. Abed Hadi & Dr. Bassam Hadi
Keeping Perspective
When retired anesthesiologist Abed Hadi was 8 years old, he and his family were forced to flee their hometown in Palestine, Lydda, which was reduced to ruins during the Arab–Israeli War. For 10 years, the family of eight lived in a tent in a Jordanian refugee camp. Abed knew that education could provide a way out of the dire conditions in which he lived, so he dedicated himself to his studies, even when there was no electricity. “I studied very hard,” says Abed. “I had a very hard life, but I was always optimistic.” Because he finished first in his class, he was awarded a scholarship to attend American University in Beirut. This was the beginning of his journey to becoming a doctor and eventually to Memorial Hospital in Belleville, where he’d work as an anesthesiologist for 34 years. Abed’s story has been a motivator for his son, Bassam Hadi. “I’ve always been amazed at the obstacles that he overcame,” he says. Late into Bassam’s junior year of medical school, he did a rotation with his father in anesthesia. Bassam recalls that his dad was excited to hear his thoughts when he returned home. “He asked, ‘So what did you think?’” “Not bad,” Bassam replied. “Maybe I’ll be an anesthesiologist.” Bassam recalls his dad cautioning him against it, telling him that he wouldn’t like it because you have to work with surgeons who think they know everything. “Then he looked at me and said, ‘You should be a surgeon.’” Consider it gentle nudging, but Bassam went on to become a neurosurgeon and is now department chair of surgery at Mercy Clinic South. The most important lesson he learned from his father: “If you can’t see the world through other people’s eyes, then your perspective is uniquely just your own, and you’ll have great difficulty understanding other people.”
Kevin A. Roberts
Dr. Paul A. Young & Dr. Paul H. Young
Forever Young
Last year, at age 93, Paul A. Young retired from teaching at Saint Louis University—after many failed attempts. “He’s probably retired from teaching six or seven times,” says his son, Paul H. Young, a neurosurgeon at Mercy Hospital, with a laugh. “It almost became a family joke: ‘You know he’s retiring again.’” “I kept going back because I enjoyed it so much, but I finally got old enough to retire,” says Paul A., who spent more than 50 years teaching med students at SLU. In 2017, the SLU School of Medicine’s alumni magazine noted that Young had taught 80 to 90 percent of all the school’s living medical school alumni. He admits to feeling a little lost now that he’s not teaching: “I miss it a lot.” Many have asked the junior Young, who’s a few months from turning 70, why he hasn’t retired. He often replies, “How in the world could I possibly retire when my dad was 92 and still working?” Over the course of their careers, they’ve seen a noticeable shift in medicine and medical instruction. “My teaching was always a chalk talk with a blackboard and chalk, drawing the brain, which the students enjoyed,” says the senior Young. “Now it’s all PowerPoint and students get the information before the lecture, so they don’t even bother to come.” Paul H. remembers going on house calls with his grandfather, a family practitioner, when he was younger. “Medicine is totally different now,” he says. “There is very little when it comes to hands-on. We’ve become much more generic in a lot of ways. I’ve been very resistant to it.” He’s known to still make an occasional house call. “When we are patients, we want to be treated personally,” says Paul H. “That’s how we should all treat each other.” It’s a lesson he’s learned from his dad: Always do what’s right. “It’s always been the simplest way,” he says.
