Last week, I traveled to New York City to give a talk at Mount Sinai, where I had spent 16 wonderful years. But I did not see the one man I really wanted to greet -- the man who taught me how to write.
Writing does not come naturally to physicians. I have mentored hundreds of physicians, some of whom were the worst writers that ever lived. They were bright, worked hard, and had great ideas. But if you asked them to put their thoughts in writing, all they could produce was a bundle of mush.
In 1976, Simon Dack (who was editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Cardiology) asked me to write a paper. I was so excited, but I had no idea what to do. No one had ever taught me how to write. Not surprisingly, my first draft was a disaster.
So I did what anyone at Mount Sinai did (in 1976) when they needed help. I went to see Jose Meller.
Jose was the head of echocardiography, but it wasn't really a full-time activity. Echocardiography had just been invented. There was only M-mode, and the pictures were awful. So Jose spent most of his time being a mentor to the cardiology fellows. In that capacity, he was incredible.
Jose had a remarkable personal history. He graduated first in his class in the top medical school in Chile, but because he was trained outside the US, he struggled to acquire a competitive internship in the US. His brilliance was recognized when Solomon Berson (the Nobel Prize awardee) made rounds at Elmhurst Hospital (in Queens) one day. Berson immediately placed Jose at the flagship hospital.
Jose was beyond brilliant. He really understood people and had the most incredible sense of humor.
I showed Jose my draft manuscript, and his response was filled with disappointment in his characteristic South American accent. "You can do better, you know. This paper doesn't say what you have in your head."
Jose was stating the obvious, but what was I to do? He told me to come back the next day.
When I did, he handed me a totally revised manuscript. It had all of my thoughts and words in perfect prose, which was clear and persuasive, without a single wasted phrase.
My jaw dropped. "Jose, how did you write this?"
He smiled again: "It was easy. I took you words and translated them into Spanish. I made sure that the paper delivered its message in Spanish, and then, I translated it back into English."
My jaw gaped wider: "Why didn't you just revise it in English?"
His smile returned. "That would have been much harder. We have strict rules about how to write in Spanish. It would have been very hard to follow those rules in English."
I knew he was half-joking, but I still wanted to understand the rules Jose had followed.
They turned out to be simple. Jose had improved the paper not because of what he had left in, but because of what he had taken out. He took out the clutter. He made sure that every word made a difference. Most importantly, he told a story. And then, I remembered that the first (and possibly greatest) modern novel ever written (Don Quixote) was authored by Cervantes in 1605 -- in Spanish. Cervantes thought that he was a terrible writer, but his writing changed history.
Jose changed my life. Last week, I wanted to tell him so. So Jose, if you are reading this, now you know what I have been thinking all these years.
Gracias por mostrarme cómo contar una historia
Disclosures
Packer has recently consulted for Amgen, Boehringer Ingelhim, Cardiorentis and Sanofi. He was one of the two co-principal investigators for the PARADIGM-HF trial (sacubitril/valsartan) and currently chairs the Executive Committee for the EMPEROR trial program (empagliflozin).