|
Today's Featured Biography
Craig Delaughter
After finishing at LCM I spent the summer working at MD Anderson in a program designed to get students interested in cancer research. I would drive back to Orange every Friday to see my family and girlfriend (another LCM '88 grad) and then drive back Sunday night. For me, it was one of those magical summers people make those "coming of age" movies about. Maybe it would have been a "made for TV" movie, but it was the best time of my life to that point.
I had good grades and SAT scores, but not a lot of money, so when the University of Houston offered me a full scholarship for being a National Merit Scholar, I was relieved. I was at UH at a great time - I lived in the dorm with people from all over the US. UH still had a live cougar mascot, Andre Ware won the Heisman, and I saw that crazy season of football when we ran 4 wide receivers and made outrageous scores, including obscenely running up the score on a post death penalty SMU 95-21 with 1,021 yards of offense. Today I would be embarassed, but then it was spectacular.
By the fall of my freshman year, my post high school romance was over, probably due to the fact that Lubbock and Houston were a long way apart. I spent most of time playing pranks on my roomates (and being the victim of theirs), visiting Mike Kate (at A&M), or seeing Duane Fields (LCM 89), Rafe Colburn (89) or Jim Izer (90) back in Orange. LCM had prepared me really well for the first 3 semesters of college (thanks Ms Sims!) and I had a 4.0 GPA until then. I had a crush on a girl in my Human Situation class named Ann Ong - she was Viet Namese and a Chem E major. We dated during the spring of my sophomore year but it was never serious. That summer I was in a another summer research program, this time at Baylor College of Medicine. I worked in a lab for 8-10 hours a day, growing cell cultures, doing DNA and RNA extractions, ELISA assays and learning lipid biology. Pretty advanced stuff for 1990. I enjoyed it so I figured, maybe this would be a fun career...
More importantly, that summer I had to live in the Texas Women's University dorm (across the street from BCM's campus in the Texas Medical Center). Ann and I were still dating, so I called her up one afternoon when I finished early in the lab. She took me and some of her Viet Namese friends to the Genghis Khan barbecue - one of those hibachi places where you pick out your food and cook it at your table. Ann spoke to her friends in Viet Namese 90% of the time and I understood nothing. I didn't really care but her friend Carol noticed that I wasn't having a great time. Carol felt sorry for me, insisted on paying for my dinner and apologized for Ann. I didn't really know what to say, but it wasn't right in my culture for a lady you just met to buy your dinner. So I insisted that I take her to dinner some other time. She agreed, primarily to get me to shut up so she could pay for THAT night's dinner and get everyone home. I really had no romantic interest in Carol, but I did have a sense of honor, and I called her to take her to dinner as I promised. We went to the Strawberry Patch (now Pappa's Steakhouse on Westheimer). The only thing we had in common was Ann, so we basically spent that first evening out bitching about how she had been insensitive to both of us at different times. Regardless, we both had a good time, and since I really had nothing else to do all summer (my UH friends were on vacation) I spent a lot of time going to the movies, or the zoo, or whatever with Carol. Of course, by the end of the summer we weren't just friends. But Carol was worried that her Viet Namese parents wouldn't be too excited about her dating a "white guy." I spent August to October convincing her to introduce me to her parents. They were cordial, but in retrospect I think they were waiting for this relationship, one of many for Carol, to simply run its natural course and go away.
Carol and I kept dating, and by fall of my junior year I was really in love. I began planning for how I would get everyone (Carol, her parents, my parents) on board with my agenda, ie our marriage. I also had decided to apply for the MD/PhD program at Baylor College of Medicine. Carol was more important, so I went to work on that first. Convincing my parents was easy, after all, they had gotten married at 18 and 16, had me 6 years later and were still together. Maybe they and I were naive, but if you're in love it all works out somehow. Carol and I talked about it several times, and we decided we'd ask her parents' permission, but even if they said no we would elope. It seems crazy now but we just couldn't imagine having to live apart - we were so in love then. One afternoon in October I put on my best coat and tie and headed to Carol's. Her Dad answered the door, saw me in my outfit and immediately knew what was up. He invited me in and asked what was going on. I told him how much I loved Carol and wanted his and his wife's permission to ask her to marry me. He looked at Carol who said "I want to marry him Daddy" and just stared back at him, although with a little bit of trembling. He looked at me, then back at her, then at his wife, then said to me in less than perfect English "You go home, we talk to Carol." I looked at Carol, she nodded - the parental interview was over and I was dismissed. I got back in my little Hyundai, not really sure what to think, not even really sure what had just happened. Today I would be texting Carol like mad to find out what was going on, but in 1991 you just had to wait it out sometimes...
I got all my letters of recommendation, took the MCAT, did my interviews and hoped for the best with BCM. I had good credentials but the competition did too. The average college GPA of the previous enrollees was 3.68 and there were over 4000 applicants for 160 slots. I was a little worried, but my research time paid off and I made the cut. Baylor offered me an MSTP grant, basically a scholarship for the MD degree provided I did enough lab work to earn a PhD. Given that I had no other way to afford med school, this seemed like a deal I couldn't refuse. I signed up and knew BCM was waiting for me after a final year of college.
Well, even though there was some crying and anxiety, Carol's Mom came through for us. She agreed that we could get engaged, but only next spring, and that marriage would have to wait another year after that. She said she had consulted her astrological calendar and those were the right times. I was too young then to get that part of what she was doing was forcing us to slow our pace a little and see if we were still serious then, but neither Carol nor I were prepared to fight it out. We kept dating and starting saving our meager resources for our future life together.
Carol finished her education degree and began teaching at Briargrove Elementary near the Galleria. I was making $13K a year doing molecular biology slave labor at Baylor. We bought a tiny, run down house in Houston on February 9, 1993 and starting renovating the next day. We had to do everything ourselves - painting, wallpapering, tiling, plumbing, electrical work but after 2 years it was our little home. Although our home life was great, I was becoming disappointed with the research part of my job. However, I was too stubborn to admit defeat and slogged through a very complicated PhD project in 6 years. Fortunatley I really enjoyed the clinical/MD aspect of my career and it was the part that offered the most financial promise anyway.
I matched to BCM's internal medicine residency amd started in 2001. Even though it was a tremendous amount of work I really enjoyed it. I worked 122 hours one week - that was a little much. I have a thousand unbelievable stories about the 2 months I ran 1/2 of the Ben Taub ER. The TV show cannot compare. While I was an intern, I met a young cardiologist named Mike Wilson - he was the best attending I ever had. After a month on his service I knew I had to do cardiology. I didn't know it at the time, but he was on track to become the new fellowship director of the Texas Heart Institute. So when it was time for me to apply to cardiology fellowships, I had a pretty solid contact. Like my friend Rafe says, "God protects fools and little children."
I started cardiology fellowship in 2004 and worked very hard, but something about it just wasn't right. Dr Wilson was an interventionalist, a cardiologist that fixes arterial blockages with angioplasty or stenting. While it was technically challenging, I found it mentally very boring. Deep down inside I knew it wasn't for me. I was very concerned for about a year, had I done all this training to enter a career that I didn't love? Fortunately it all was resolved when I was introduced to cardiac electrophysiology (EP). Fixing heart arrhythmias with radiofrequency ablation is the most fun I've ever had. There's something very rewarding about permanently curing a terrible problem someone has had for 20 years with a couple of hours of work.
Anyway, Carol and I have been married 15 years and are probably more in love now than ever. We have decided not to have children, but we do have a lot of fun. We travel as much as possible, having just got back from 3 weeks in Europe: Budapest, Vienna, Prague, Germany (saw our first Formula 1 race in Hockenheim) and London (just to see Kylie Minogue).
I spent all this time writing this crazy bio in the off chance I won't be able to come to the reunion, although I fully plan to. 20 years doesn't seem that long really...especially as much as I've enjoyed them! I hope to see you in a few weeks!
Craig
VIEW ALL BIOGRAPHIES
|
Indicates an included photo
