[The letters from ‘45 are sparse. One may say that this was due to the workload. But this is not the case, as a recently examined cache of letters between Lee and Tissie (Maxwell) show. Thus the letters to Mother become fewer. Also remember that this collection was edited by Mother.]
June 17, 1945
I now have a room to myself at the same address, cooler and more conducive to study. The sun heats these row-houses like bake ovens and forgets to shut off at night.
Chief among my furnishings are, a fan, a large desk and a fast filling case of medical books. One shelf of another case is devoted to religious literature. Elsewhere about the room are three of Gibran's books, the Book of Prayers for Use in an Indian College and Moffatt's New Testament. On one of the soft green walls hangs the elephant head plaque Gene brought me flanked by a sheaf of peacock feathers. (Did we not live on the edge of the Peacock Country?) For pictures, there is a large tinted photograph (by Ferger) of the Taj Mahal, a nice one of Tissie, and yours, placed so they can keep an eye on me.
At last after long preparation we have been flung into our practical work in the clinics and dispensaries. I elected to do Surgery first. We attend lectures then scatter for the cases. As little as we know we still have to act like astute physicians of long experience and do it all alone. The interns check on us and come to our rescue only if needed.
One day I had a child with sores on the back of its head. I cleaned it up and applied the medicine in approved fashion. What about a bandage on such a hot day? Seeing me hesitate, the intern handed me a wicked looking razor. I was merely to shave the head around the sores and apply a collodion membrane, something like nail polish. Simple!
It would have been simple for our old Sand Ridge barber, but I had never wielded such a razor in my life. What if I should accidentally slice off a sizeable piece of my patient's head! The mother looked on with confidence while a guardian angel guided my hand. But I sweat blood -- almost.
So it went, everyday doing something alone for the first time. I won't ever forget my first experience in gynecology. I prayed my first case might be some moron, white or black, who wouldn't know what was going on. Fate was cruel and I drew a young and highly intelligent white woman from whom I had to extract a very personal history.
Ah me! I learned long ago from one Dale Carnegie that it's a good thing to let the other fellow do some of the talking. I did, and am sure my patient felt all the better for the chance to pour her woes into a listening ear. After the interview came the examination. I was so frightened I felt as if I were being thrown to the lions. I had yet to learn what was normal about a woman let alone the abnormal.
I donned my best professional manner along with my white coat and sauntered as calmly as possible toward the table where my patient was waiting. That amazing woman was perfectly at ease if I wasn't, and never for a moment did she let up chattering about her children, their school problems, the laundry, the grocery bills, her husband’s job, her struggle to make both ends meet, and not feeling as well as she might. Between us we finished off brilliantly. One of the house staff checked and found her perfectly normal except for a small common complaint. That is how I got acquainted with the normal and I felt ten years older for the experience.
I'm still working nights at the Sinai library. The very latest medical books come in there, so it is an ideal job for a student. When I go home, about 9, I get a snack and study until I'm through which was 3 and 4 a.m. just before the last exams. The work is terrific and the exams formidable and there is no alternative. My only evidence of success is that I'm still here.
Uncle Lee wrote that the Bengal Orissa missionaries want me to establish a medical work out there. There is no doubt of the need, and to be able to do so would exceed my fondest dreams. However, Uncle, who knows where the money comes from, doubts the wisdom of opening a new work when established hospitals in other fields are lacking doctors.
November 18, 1945
Your letters mean so much to me. It is now four and a half years since I left home in June 1941. It seems more like ages and it has been a period of great testing.
We are told we can hold out "if our faith holds out", meaning, I suppose, our faith in God. But I find we also have to have faith in ourselves, in our work, that we are on the right track, faith in our friends and fellow man in general.
Sometimes I have felt faith in myself and others so feeble, about all I had left was my faith in God. The way I have often failed to do my part makes it unfair to demand too much of others, but one does need a few steady understanding friends.
You will be glad to hear that Baylor recently granted me a B.Sc. degree. My work here counted toward it but I scarcely expected to get the degree. Don't quite know how it came about. Perhaps just a favorable remembrance? I nearly dropped my teeth though when Miss Esther (registrar) wrote that I only missed cum laude by one point! That didn't disappoint me too much for I know for sure I wasn't that good, and a fellow should sweat it out four years for that honor. I shall hang the diploma above my desk as something to show for my horn-rimmed spectacles and growing baldness.
Half the third year is over and we are now on Medicine. We see people in the clinics and sometimes try our hand at diagnosing rare ward cases. About a month ago I substituted a couple of weeks for one of the two orthopedic interns here. I know very little about orthopedics and less about hospital routine but it was exciting and a foretaste of the real thing to be paged through the corridors as "Doctor Lee Howard".
Three mornings a week I was required to scrub up and assist at operations. It was a rare experience to even be standing among some of the greatest orthopedic surgeons in America, I had watched operations many times but it gave me a grand feeling to be in on the big stuff so soon.
I had 23 patients to look after-- men, women and children, ward and private cases. I loved the children's ward and got on famously there. One little girl about seven, had a huge cast around her body and down the broken left leg. Whenever I went to see her I knocked thrice on the cast above her stomach. Gravely she would say, "Come in." Once "in" we both laughed and had a gay time playing some game or drawing funny pictures in her book.
At the end of our third year we must apply somewhere for our year of internship. I couldn't do better than Hopkins but it offers only a "straight", straight Surgery or Medicine all the way through. I might profit more from a "rotating" internship where we get experience in various fields. I haven't decided yet what is best to do.
Hopkins is trying to get back to a peace time schedule as soon as possible. For this reason we cannot count on particular dates yet, or even make our private plans. Married or single, it looks like I'll be around here until 1950 by which time I'll have attained the ripe old age of 27, and better prepared, I hope, to serve the lord wherever He may call. I can't see very far ahead and must be content with one step at a time.
In September Gene was sent from Boot camp to Independent Duty School near John, so I went down one weekend to see them. What a reunion we had! It was alive from the toenails. Now Gene has gone to St. Albans on Long Island so we shall hope to get together at Uncle Lee's some time.
It is good news that you plan to retire next year. It will be nothing short of wonderful to see you again.