One cannot avoid asking, “Why the bowtie?”

Two bowtie-aficionados, Edward Halle and Barton Childs, inspired me to wear a bowtie. Ed, who was an administrator, did not have a background in health care, but he was the smartest, most financially acute person I ever met. Barton was a pediatrician and a geneticist who was extraordinarily generous in his willingness to share knowledge. I admired him so much because he never really stopped working and contributing to the institution. Those he inspired, people like Dave Nichols and George Dover, followed his lead.

How so?

Barton’s mantra was medicine had become overly routinized and data-driven — residents and new physicians were losing their ability to use their eyes and ears, their instincts, to treat patients. You could hear in the tone of a mother’s voice whether this was serious or not, yet that skill was being lost. Dave Nichols (former vice dean for education) took that insight and transformed the whole medical school curriculum. He had learned medicine by learning about organ systems, but he didn’t interact with patients. He turned that around so that medical students saw patients as they were learning about systems — that way, you never lost the humanity of patient care.

Other influences?

Robert Heysell (former president of the hospital) was probably the most inspirational person I ever met. A truly transcendent thinker, he argued that the management of patient care needed to be as close to the bedside as possible. That also meant the administration needed to be as close to the bedside as possible. He joined the hospital and university functions into one entity, which became the Department of Pediatrics.

How would you distinguish the faculty here?

The faculty here, perhaps more than any other place in the country, are geared toward teaching. That openness to information and knowledge — for a number of the administrators like me — was what kept us here. The Children’s Center is a very stimulating environment.

But they also take excellent care of patients and do groundbreaking research.

Yes, and that’s deeply embedded in the culture. Look at the whole triple-threat promotion system here. Every other place in the country has multiple tracks, with this whole decision tree of where you could fit yourself. Hopkins said ‘no,’ and stuck to it for many, many years — you had to be good at everything, which shaped who would survive and become our faculty.

What memories or messages will you take with you?

Many, but I remember Arnold Patz in ophthalmology, who was a very shy, unassuming individual. It was kind of magical that he would go on to win the Lasker Award for recognizing that high doses of oxygen were causing blindness in premature infants. Then there’s George Dover, who, as a pediatric hematologist, came up with today’s gold standard treatment for the painful crises of sickle cell disease without ever having a lab to himself, which is unheard of in academic medicine. It has been such an honor to be around such incredible minds and truly committed and remarkable people.

That’s it?

Well, I always tell this story of Bob Heysell when I had an opportunity to be administrator of the Department of Neurosciences. I was on the fence and walked into his office with this dilemma: Should I stay, or take the job? He cut me off: “Ted, you’re taking yourself far too seriously. Nobody really cares about what your next step is from a career standpoint. Hopkins was great before we arrived, and Hopkins will be great when we leave. The only thing you have to worry about is being a steward of the time you have here.” So, that’s pretty much how I’ve lived my life for the last 40 years. Do the best that you can with what you’ve got, and try to be loyal to Hopkins because it’s bigger and better than any one person or group of people.