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Re: Old StuffFrom: DuBose, Terry (DuboseTerryJ@uams.edu)Fri Aug 19 09:28:34 2005
Ray, I for one, will welcome such stories about early sonography. I do not believe in censorship, and even stories that may seem irrelevant will be of great interest to some historian in the future. Please submit anything that explains the difficulties of the early days. You obviously have a very rich archive of our professional development, and it needs to be told. We should not judge what is "interesting" to us, the historians will sort that out after we are gone. This should be a "a Polybiography" of Sonography. See: http://mcel.pacificu.edu/JAHC/JAHCIV1/ARTICLES/DuBose/dubose.htm Your story below is very interesting... please continue. Terry J. DuBose, M.S., RDMS, FSDMS, FAIUM Associate Professor & Director Diagnostic Medical Sonography Program University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, CHRP 4301 West Markham St. Mail Slot #563 Little Rock, Arkansas, 72205 USA 501-686-6510 DuBoseTerryJ@UAMS.edu http://www.io.com/~dubose/ http://www.uams.edu/chrp/dms/default.asp http://www.obgyn.net/us/panel/panel.htm --------------------------------------------------------------- ________________________________ --------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ray Elliott [mailto:ray@rap.midco.net] Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2005 8:51 PM To: DuBose, Terry Subject: Old Stuff Hi Terry, Having more time than I should, I have been thinking about our communications, and need a little guidance. There is a wide range of history that can be told. Some of it probably should not be told. Some of it is interesting, but not particularly important. I have a few stories like the one that I have attached, and it may be of interest to some people (or maybe not). It represents some of the difficulties experienced by early sonographers. Let me know what you think, and whether we should include stories like this. Ray Elliott RAY ELLIOTT 2655 SOUTH VALLEY DRIVE RAPID CITY, SOUTH DAKOTA 57703 Tel 605 343-3392 Fax 605 348 9472 E-mail ray@rap.midco.net Che Guevera and Ultrasound in 1968 I briefly worked for Stelios Regas, one of the original people in the field of ultrasound. Stel manufactured a simple A mode system and he sold it mostly to neurologists. He was located in Denver, and I had recently resigned my position in Chicago with Nuclear Chicago Corporation because I had wanted to return to Denver, where I had previously lived. Stel asked me to go to Lima, Peru to attend a medical meeting and he had an acquaintance, Dr. Batista in Peru who was supposed to assist me in getting around. I took along an A mode system to demonstrate at the meeting. A little history may be necessary now. Fidel Castro's best friend, Che Guevera, was killed in Bolivia in 1967. I haven't looked at my old passports but it was a few months after Che's death that I went to Lima, Peru and stayed in the Hotel Crillon. Lima was an interesting city of contrasts. The wealth of Peru was held closely by descendants of Italian families that had lived there for hundreds of years. Most of the people lived in extreme poverty. The original Inca Indians were called "cholos", and were considered to be no more than work animals. The city consisted of enclaves of homes for the wealthy and vast areas of slums for the ordinary people. There were only three public structures that drew praise from visitors, a beautiful airport, the Hipodromo Monterrico racetrack, and the Hotel Crillon. Visiting the racetrack, I found that the wealthy had a private section that was enclosed on the top tier of the track. This club was an elaborate dining, drinking and gambling club that had white, cloth covered tables, waiters in tuxedos, and elegant furnishings. The waiters would not only take drink orders, but also would take your bets for each of the upcoming races. After losing bets on the first three races, I decided on what I thought was a sure method to win in the fourth race. I told the waiter that I wanted to bet on all eight horses to win. He did not understand, however; a lady at a nearby table overheard the conversation, and offered assistance because she could speak English, and the waiter could not. She helped me place the bets. Needless to say, I lost money in the race when a favorite came in first. Later the lady introduced herself as Rosa Maria Benvenudo, niece of the President of Peru. She and her mother attended the races regularly and her father was the former military attaché to Washington. Her father had been killed two years prior and Rosa Maria indicated that there was a great deal of political unrest going on in Peru. That evening, a large crowd gathered on the street below my hotel window and they were carrying signs that showed political dissent with the ruling politicians. I was told by the hotel management to avoid going outside because the police were sure to intervene. A few minutes later, a mauguerazo water cannon came down the street shooting high pressure water on the crowd. The crowd scattered even though it seemed to me that getting wet would not be a bad thing because it was very warm outside. The concierge explained that the reason the crowd ran was because the water sprayed on them contained an indelible blue dye that could not be washed off, and that the police would be arresting people in the next few days that they found with the dye on their skin. The following evening, I was invited to the Palace for a reception for el Presidente Fernando Belaunde Terry. There was a line of people waiting in line to meet the President and when I finally reached the head of the line, I was surprised to find that he spoke good English. He explained to me that he had attended the University of Texas, and valued a good relationship with the United States. I explained that I had witnessed the water cannon incident earlier and asked him if Che Guevara had caused an increase in the number of communists in Peru. He replied that they had no communists in Peru. I then asked "are they in prison?" He responded, "No, we rounded them up and shot them". He smiled as he said this and I quickly changed the subject. Several photographers were present and after leaving the reception line, one walked up to me and offered to sell me a photograph of me talking to the President. I still have it. When I got back to the Crillon Hotel it was late and I went to bed. About two A.M. my bedside telephone rang and when I answered, it was Dr. Batista. He told me that there had been a shooting and that a young woman was in the Lima General Hospital with a gunshot wound to the head. He asked me if I would come and bring my A mode system with me. He said that he would bring a car to the hotel. I protested that I was not qualified to do a procedure and he said not to worry. When we got to the hospital, it was a little unnerving. Patients were lying in the hallways, blood was on the floor everywhere and people were in obvious distress without anyone caring much. When we got to the female patient, she was lying unconscious, with an obvious hole in the left side of her head. It was not bleeding and Dr. Batista asked me to determine if she had a subdural hematoma. She did. He was pleased with the answer and we then left. The next day he told me that the patient had died. I had lost my first patient within hours of diagnosis. The next day was a religious festival of some sort and thousands of people were in the streets, walking on their knees. They were singing Ave Maria continuously, and the street was bloody from all of the people walking on their knees. There was a large platform that was carried by people with long poles, and at the top of the platform was a large painting of the Mary, mother of Christ. I was told that hundreds of years ago, an earthquake had occurred and when a large church had collapsed, a single column of wall remained, with this picture at the top. Every year they had this Procession was performed. Going back to the States, I stopped in Columbia, Guatemala, Panama and Mexico. While in Guatemala an American diplomat was assassinated two blocks from my hotel. Later when I took a taxi to a restaurant, the driver left the interior cab lights on. When I asked him to turn it off, he responded that if he did, the police would shoot both him and me. This rule was a way that the police who were in automobiles in cars at night. In Mexico city, I got very ill and could barely get to the airport. When I arrived back in Denver, I immediately went to the hospital emergency room and was finally told that I had acquired an intestinal parasite. Had I not done something quickly, they said it would have killed me. Apparently I picked it up by eating the charcoal broiled beef tongues that I had bought from the street vendors in Lima during the Procession. I felt like Marco Polo.
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