Horror stories by the people who claim to know Trump best.

The stories remind me of a truth-telling by one of my mentors long ago, which says,

" In America, the most successful man or woman often turns out to be a mentally sick person."

He went on to elaborate by saying, "Americans are hero worshippers and like to believe 

what they see, hear and feel on the surface outside, not so much what's hiding behind

and under the surface. You have to be a crazy person to be the most successful man, Hahn."

Perhaps my mentor might have someone like Donald Trump in mind when he said it to me.

Not long after I came to this country, I noticed that people are taking the words 

of other people as it is even though it is not true to me. Yet they don't take the any 

legal matters without written documents. But many official transactions are done 

with people's words in Korea. I am still not comfortable when I receive a greeting 

from others by saying " how are you?" with a smile because I know this guy 

doesn't mean it. 

You are absolutely right, Hahn! By all means, I couldn’t agree more with “You have to be a crazy person to be the most successful man”. Yes, my mentor/hero, David Hume was a typical model as a crazy(?) person in a way to have become the most successful man but eventually became the victim of his own reputation; he succumbed to his epitome by the airplane crash he has flown by himself to have become legendary.    

Even Francis Moore, complemented his contribution to Medical College of Virginia (MCV), now Virginia Commonwealth Univ, to name/call ‘Surgical’ College of Virginia through his eulogy, who was also legendary as Godfather of Harvard/Peter Bent’s surgery to raise its reputation to almost to the level of Alfred Blaylock’s Johns Hopkins’.

Indeed, David Hume, Peter Bent man to have become the youngest faculty, outshined as the director of infamous Surgical Research Laboratory at Harvard even before he was scouted by MCV to come down to Richmond to start a new surgery program to dominate the whole transplantation field within a decade.

When I arrived at Richmond, MCV already gained the reputation of the mecca of transplant surgery by David Hume and so many young surgeons from all over the world came down to line up to get the opportunity to become his disciple. He was really legendary as heard, working like crazy around the clock and didn’t go down to have a meal at the cafeteria but remain at his office munching old stale sandwich while dictating. His office/room was completely filled with so many junky-looking books and papers all over not only on the desk but also on many chairs and also floors with numerous tags and there was one couch on the corner he takes a nap or sleeps while working.

I have never seen him going home but always stayed so late at the office to make rounds often after 10:00 or 11:00 PM alone and even 1:00 AM so that he could complete his work before he takes off by his plane early in the morning to visit/participate numerous meetings/lectures all over the country. We all simply worshiped him as a workaholic in a perpetual ‘manic’ state with no limit on his energy.

But we soon learned his personal private life wasn’t normal with quite a difficulty with not only his son but also with Mrs. Hume who had an alcohol addiction problem I later found out. He simply spent too much time working but not for his personal affairs/life and eventually such game he played for his ego pushed him to take such tragic decision to take off his plane from LA airport despite the warning by the control tower for such bad weather- he scheduled one pheochromocytoma case at the MCV Hospital next day- and never returned!!!!

So, such a brilliant surgeon who pushed himself beyond the boundary he could afford to have become such legendary, most successful surgeon in the world but the outcome was such tragedy we all mourned. Incidentally, a year after he died, I bumped/crossed with one lady on way down to the basement while visiting Prof. Arnold Salzberg at his home to join the party, but I failed to recognize her till I heard her voice calling me ‘BB’. She was Mrs. Hume but at least 10 years younger than before so that she looked entirely different from the previous conditions. I subsequently learned she got fully recovered from the alcohol addiction and started to have a date with one businessman in town.

BB Lee

Thank you, Professor, for sharing such a great story with us.