— My residency in anesthesiology — 1982 to 1984 —
I particularly enjoyed my two years at Kansas University School of Medicine as an Anesthesiology resident. Matt and Nancy Rudd very graciously offered to drive to Kansas City with their long-bed truck to help us move our meager belongings to our new town. David, Susan’s youngest brother, also traveled with us, and those three toured church history sites on their way back to Salt Lake. Our first apartment was in Old English Village, and our first night was a harbinger of times to come. The air conditioning was nonfunctional and both the temperature and the humidity were in the 90’s. That night we were awakened out of our rather fitful sleep at 1:00 am by four inebriated medical students that lived across the hall from us. Having no phone, we could not call for help, and we were uneasy about confronting these strangers in their raucous state. Things didn’t improve much during the next several months, as we endured marijuana parties, weekend all-night parking lot revelries, industrial-strength cockroaches, and a relentless wind chime immediately above our bedroom window which its owner refused to move. Our greatest source of anguish, however, was that everyone who lived in Old English Village seemed to own a dilapidated vehicle without a muffler. Our nerves were constantly jangled by the grinding, belching, and coughing of these relics as their owners coaxed the engines to life. A comical experience occurred one evening about which Susan and I still have a hearty laugh. One particularly dilapidated, out-of-tune, muffler-less wreck was owned by a fellow who lived straight across the parking lot from us. I doubt if this car was even fit to participate in a demolition derby. One evening as the jalopy was brought to a roaring, exploding stop by its owner, a fellow in the apartment above us opened his window and yelled to the driver, “Why don’t you take that worthless pile of junk to the wrecking yard where it belongs?” After yelling some expletives back, the driver got back in his car, started it up, and gunned the engine for about five minutes, with black smoke and obnoxious sounds spewing forth unrelentingly. The comical nature of this encounter got the best of us, and we laughed heartily.
Concerning my residency, the staff doctors were pleasant, engaging, and knowledgeable. Kasumi Arakawa, M.D., our department chairman, was an absolute delight. His Oriental courtesy and deference were legendary. He treated his residents very well and was very concerned about our personal happiness as well as our progress in the residency. My fellow residents were great as well. I was glad to have Gary Silver and Neil Dobson, both from Utah, in the residency program while we were in Kansas City. The work was very challenging; we were on call every third or fourth night, depending on the rotation we were on, and our days were long and grueling. I rotated through obstetric anesthesia, neuroanesthesia, pediatric anesthesia, orthopedic anesthesia, cardiovascular anesthesia, and pain clinic. I studied continuously and felt good about the progress I made. I was chosen to be Chief Resident during my last year and that was fortuitous as I had the opportunity to make out the call schedule. I also enjoyed a wonderful four-week obstetric anesthesia rotation in Wichita, Kansas with Dr. Jerry Bassell during my senior year. The greatest events of our two years in Kansas City were, of course, the arrival of our first two children, Anne and John. Details of these momentous events are found elsewhere in my journal.
We loved our two years as members of the Kansas City 2nd Ward. It was a small but very close-knit ward. The members were very accepting of Susan and me, and were so helpful while Susan was confined to bed during her pregnancy with Anne. We got very close to our Bishop and his wife, Larry and Jolene Reynolds. I enjoyed teaching the Gospel Doctrine class during these two years also. Our ward had 120 elders and prospective elders, of which 8 were active. The bishop had a list of all these inactive members on a board in his office which he affectionately called “THE SWAMP”. Home teaching and reactivations were obviously major challenges in the ward.
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