By all means, I do NOT claim Christianity is all peaceful. Indeed, European Christian colonists did not make a peaceful spread at least in the case of South America and Mesoamerica - I saw its outcome so vividly with my own eyes! - and further to much of Africa under the name of ‘Colonialism’. But I don’t go with the accusation of the atrocities (?) committed by "Christians" during the Crusades although ‘History is written by victors’ as Walter Benjamin wrote!

BB Lee

It is so inspiring to observe your energetic academic activities which

appear no different from your peak youthful years of your career.

As one of the alumni, you make me feel proud, I must say.

Indeed it is quite a story you are sharing with us, including the history

of "crusade" and others.

As a cardiologist who performed cardiac cath for over 30 years,

I was always impressed with variations of coronary artery anatomy,

and used to get excited whenever I encountered coronary artery anomalies.

Once I published a case report of a man who was found to have coronary A-V fistula connecting

PA to proximal LAD

and atherosclerotic stenosis of LAD and intractable angina, who underwent surgery.

I used to feel that an average physician has very poor knowledge in regard to

vascular anatomical variations, anomalies, and malformations.

It seems to me that there appear to be almost infinite variations, anomalies and

malformations.

Thank you very much for enlightening us.

“Vascular Malformations” is a truly challenging problem with complex clinical features which

requires multidisciplinary collaboration between vascular surgery, plastic surgery, interventional 

radiology, cardiology ,dermatology-- and yet sometimes incurable.

As far as I know, nobody from any specialty dedicated almost all of his or her career

to this problem other than Dr. BB Lee, 선배님.

My hats off to you, sir.

I hope your torch has been passed to somebody, somewhere in some corner of the medical field,

who has relentless determination to continue the work in the future?

At the International Health section, SNUBH, I do see a fair number of patients with  AV malformation 

mostly from Central Asia and Russia.  Prof. 이태승, your student seems to have a well-functioning

team,  tackling this issue.

The trail you have left at Samsung is clearly visible here at SNUBH,2019.

It is interesting Dr. Lee  HJ 선배님 wrote a case report on coronary AV fistula.

In the early '80s, I  published  two papers on  "Left coronary artery originating from PA", a similar but different  entity

You both make me feel humbled! Indeed, the vascular malformation taught me to become humble through these many years and still does.

When I should look back, I was simply lucky I was on right time and right moment and perhaps my stubbornness by the gene!?

Honestly, I never ever thought of committing to ever-condemned vascular malformation, no Sir! But when I came up to town to start the vascular surgery program together with the transplant surgery at Georgetown U in 1978 under Charlie Hufnagel you both should know too well, 'big brother'/Cardiothoracic Surgeons at George Washington U, then leading vascular group along the Eastern seaboard demanded Charlie Hufnagel/Georgetown U to stop this new boy on the block from Richmond to get into their turf! But Charlie honored his pledge to allow me and Charlie Currier to organize this new combined transplant-vascular program to make big brothers get furious.

You know what they did? They passed around the message among the cardiothoracic surgeons throughout the country to send the 'angiodysplasia' - in late '70, there was no such term of 'vascular malformation' so that we called it as 'angiodysplasia' like Europeans!- to a new boy/me, self-claimed general vascular surgeon at Georgetown U to kill/get rid off once and for all! Within a year, I received more than 30 cases of angiodysplasias from a dozen different institutes.

As you might remember as cardiac specialists, there was one giant vascular surgeon at Henry Ford Hospital at Detroit, Emerick Szylagyi, who gave such famous joke on every farewell dinner for the fellows to send off warning that "If you are lucky you coukd stay away from the angiodysplasias, no more than a half dozen through your career. But when someone walks in to your office, smells like angiodysplasia, looks like angiodysplasia, then, never ever touch this omen to ruin your career but be sure to put him in your car to drive up to your enemy competing surgeon's office and make sure to let him walk in and he sure will finish up your competitor's career!".

Well, that was what they did to me, bombarding with this infamous angiodysplasias, and that was the way I started my life time commitment to angiodysplasias, now vascular malformation against my wish and survived through, thanking to my two mentors to pull me through such agony and dispair!

I shared this stupid story with many collesgues throughout the world so that quite a few colleagues cite me as a stubborn Korean American! One boring rambling story but I never planned to devote my rest of career for this damn disease and still carry around the mission together with quite a few numbers of proteges I raised in many countries like India.

Warm regards,

BB Lee

P.S. Ironically, I received the recognition as distinguished services by my colleagues here in the U.S./ Society of Vascular Surgery, etc for my contribution through the vascular malformation instead of it's major benefactor, Korea which never appreciate it! Indeed, the late Prof Han YongChul arranged Samsung to provide me unlimited funds to carry five projects I brought from the Johns Hopkins as joint project and one of them were this vascular malformation together with lymphedema besides vasculitis like Takayasu's Arteritis.

I had my Cardiology fellowship at Henry Ford Hospital from 1969 to 1971

when Dr. Szylagyi was the chief of vascular surgery.

Once I had to take care of a patient with Hufnagel prosthetic valve(ball in a cage)

which was located in descending aorta to alleviate the severe AR.

These were the surgeons who indeed made history and advanced the frontiers 

of cardiovascular surgery and transplant surgery.

Dr. Szylagyi performed the first resection of AAA and replacement with Dacron graft

in Michigan in early 1950's.

Dr. Conrad Lam, chief of cardiac surgery, Henry Ford Hospital, performed first mitral commissurotomy

for mitral stenosis in Michigan in early 1950's. 

Wow, Dr. Lee, I didn't know you got the cardiology felowship/training through legendary Henry Ford program, impressive!  In those days, Emerick Szylagyi was THE genuine vascular surgeon of American origin/product we admired most, but I had a chance to see/talk to him personally only once when David Hume invited him to Richmond to give a 'grand round' and 'Meet the Chief'. Indeed, Dr. Hume always asked/arranged to one of the senior residents to go out to the airport to pick him up to establish a personal acquaintance for the future and I was lucky to have such special privilege to welcome him at the Airport. I believe it was a few years before he retired because he talked about his retirement plan to David Hume when I dropped him off to Dr. Hume's office. And I also learned he was a Hungarian for the first time, showing more intense interests/curiosity on me to survive(?) with foreign background like him in the center of Confederate country- Richmond was the capital city of the Confederate till through Civil War as you all know-.  

Anyhow, I forgot to respond and thank you to your comments on the vascular anomaly involved to the cardiac vessels. Indeed, we are closely involved to the SVC/IVC anomaly issue with some experiences on the case with the absence of SVC/IVC - I will attach a couple of publications you miight be interested! -.

I also wish to thank to Dr. Choh for kind remarks, especially on 이태승 I am so proud of- I sent him to Bauer Sumpio of Yale group with the recognition of his potential/talent on the research in particular and glad to know he is doing great at SNUBH. Due to the difficult personality of his immediate senior at SamSung vascular program, then, I painfully gave him up and let him go back to SNUH which I felt to be better than SMC for his future career to achieve more as an academic surgeon.

In regard to the origin of AV malformation, mostly from Central Asia and Russia, you handle at the International Health section, SNUBH, it reminds me of my early experience to visit Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan to see many CVM patients, while I was in Korea. Indeed, I spent one week at Surgical Hospital at Tashkent, the State Department arranged through the Johns Hopkins, and overwhelmed with such many CVM patients, reminding me of the joke, my old colleague Prof. Marcel Beaujean of Univ Liege, Belgium, claiming Ginghis Kan brought this CVM disease to Europe, based on such striking difference of its incidence/prevalence between Western and Eastern Europe along the line of Vienna, Austria where Chagatai stopped the advance to return to Mongolia. Anyway, AVM is indeed most serious threat among various CVMs and SMC team made a tremendous contribution through decades- will attach some of the publication on the CVMs you might be interested and if you need any more, write me through my private email addresses as shown below-.

All the best,

BB Lee

_______________________

B. B. (Byung-Boong) Lee, MD, PhD, FACS

Professor of Surgery and Director, Center for the Lymphedema and Vascular Malformations, George Washington University, Washington DC, USA

Adjunct Professor of Surgery, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD, USA    

Visiting Professor of Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, U.S.A.

Emeritus Professor of Surgery, Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA

Main Office:  Division of Vascular Surgery, Department of Surgery, George Washington University Medical Center, 22nd and I Street, NW, 6th Floor, Washington, DC 20037  USA

Satellite Office: 1860 Town Center Drive, Suite 420, Reston, VA  20190   Phone: +1  571-313-0349          Fax: +1  571-313-0593

E-mail: official comm - bblee@mfa.gwu.edu 

             private & personal comm - bblee38@comcast.net; bblee38@gmail.com 

N.B.  PLEASE use [bblee@mfa.gwu.edu] only for patients referral and consultation to GW  System;  for all other mails, please use BOTH, bblee38@comcast.net and/or bblee38@gmail.com

Home: 1387 Heritage Oak Way, Reston, Va. 20194   Tel: +1 (703) 742-9753  Cell Phone: +1 (703) 994-7638

Drs. Lee and Choh,

I attached a few articles as mentioned above!

Warm regards,

BB Lee

Thank you so much, 선배님.

You are just awesome! A pride of our Alma Mater!