FEATURE
Photo from UofL
medical students, and hundreds of general and specialty surgery
residents well.
Frank’s long-term commitment to the trauma service at Univer-
sity Hospital was well known. For more years than anyone wishes to
count, he did that in exemplary fashion, always providing as much
help as one needed or as little interference as an able, younger faculty
member or resident would require.
Most readers are familiar with the ongoing changes in man-
agement at the UofL Hospital over the years. In the midst of this
coming and going of people and signage, one of the few still points
was Frank Miller. His capacity to lighten up every room, whether it
be a classroom, operating room, surgeon’s lounge, or his own office
at the Ambulatory Care Building, was remarkable. His constancy
has meant much to all education at the UofL School of Medicine
and particularly to surgery and all its specialties.
Some of you do not know that Frank maintained, to near the
end of his active life, a remarkable commitment to significant work
overseas in desolate and underprivileged sites. Frank took more than
10 sabbaticals for missionary work overseas, and I say missionary
work in terms of health care more than religious care. “Beyond the
beyond” in African and Vietnamese villages long after the war, were
sites of special emphasis. A number of people from his contempo-
raries, such as Sister Ellen Buchignani and Dr. Jane Weaver went on
to spend lifetimes in missionary medicine, Ellen in the Caribbean
and Jane in Guatemala.
Dr. Frank Miller
coincide with Mike Heines’ being able to put me asleep and most
importantly, wake me up! We never discussed mesh or no mesh
but somewhere in the holding area before the operation, he said,
“I know that you know that I will do this in simple suture fashion
(Bassini).” I was more reassured and have remained well since. Many
more people contributed much behind the scenes to the success of
our programs at UofL, and among those were Frank Miller, his close
and personal friend Bob Fulton, who died prematurely about five
years ago, and Calvin Jones, who went on to a remarkable career as
Professor at Johns Hopkins and Director of Surgery at what used
to be the Baltimore City Hospital.
The sun shines bright on my old Kentucky home and also on a
newly robust UofL Hospital and the financial linchpin remains that
operating suite, now named for one of the most distinguished, loved
and honored people who have ever walked through the doors.
Dr. Polk is the Ben A. Reid Sr. Professor of Surgery and Chairman, Emer-
itus, Department of Surgery (1971-2005), UofL School of Medicine.
Frank was the most generous person of his time and talent. I
developed an inguinal hernia five or six years ago, and a simple con-
versation made it perfectly obvious that Frank would be the person
I would ask to do it, as long as he could make his time schedule
SEPTEMBER 2018
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