MEMBERS
DR. Who
MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
VICTOR VAN BERKEL, MD, PhD
Aaron Burch
A
pproximately 20 magazines were stacked in three neat
groups on the desk of Victor van Berkel, MD, PhD.
Recent editions of the Annals of Thoracic Surgery,
the Journal of the American Medical Association and
the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation were
awaiting his review. Irish singer Hozier played from his computer
as he explained that this “light” reading is left for his slow days.
Dr. Guillory is a critical care anesthesiologist at UofL as well,
and they are the proud parents of an 8-year-old son named Dexter.
While his primary position is that of a cardiovascular and
thoracic surgeon, Dr. van Berkel has been a teacher of up and
coming medical students for years and loves the experience. The
magazines are there, in part, to keep him in the know. Dr. van Berkel grew up in Albuquerque, NM. He traveled often
to the north end of the state, which he described as “very much
like Southern Colorado,” for skiing and snowboarding. “I still enjoy
skiing,” Dr. van Berkel said thoughtfully. “But, I remember very
clearly being on spring break from medical school, visiting Colorado
with friends, hiking to the top of a tree run and looking down. I’d
done these a hundred times, but I finally thought, ‘I have too much
to live for!’ Any amount of fear while you’re skiing can slow you
down or cause you to make a mistake. My job also requires the use
of my hands...so it’s a different experience these days.”
“Teaching keeps you honest. When you’re around smart students,
which you always are in medicine, they question why you do what
you do. So, I can’t fall into a rut because, at some point, someone will
say ‘Why are you doing it this way? Didn’t you read this article?’ It’s
a good thing to have that push. It makes me eager to keep learning.” While attending MIT, he considered physics at first. Soon his
intention changed and Dr. van Berkel hoped to become a researcher
through a double major in biology and chemistry. A summer spent
volunteering at an emergency room would soon make him realize
that interacting with patients was stimulating and rewarding.
As a director of the lung transplant program and division chief
of the UofL Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery,
Dr. van Berkel has had plenty of opportunities to mentor young
physicians and students in his field. “I started to think that an MD/PhD program would be a good
mix, but I certainly wasn’t planning to be a surgeon,” he said. “I
completed my PhD in infectious diseases during the middle of my
MD years at Washington University in St. Louis. As I was coming out
of lab for the PhD, I had to do clinical rotations for medical school.”
“All these are how far behind I am,” he said with a laugh.
“Whenever I have a day where I don’t have much going on, I work
my way through these journals.”
More than once, Dr. van Berkel has been honored for his
teaching methods. He earned Harvard Medical School’s Excellence
in Teaching Award for 2006, and two years later, he received the
Tufts University School of Medicine Citation for Excellence in
Teaching. In 2014, he earned Resident Teacher of the Year honors
for his work with the UofL Cardiothoracic Fellowship Program. Last
but certainly not least, it was through teaching that Dr. van Berkel
met his wife, Dr. Robin Guillory.
“A friend and I became teachers’ assistants while we were in
our first graduate year of an MD/PhD program at Washington
University in St. Louis. I met Robin in that class when I was 24. We
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were together for six years before getting married in 2004, and now
we’re nearing our 15-year anniversary,” he said.
LOUISVILLE MEDICINE
As with many other physicians, Dr. van Berkel’s aspirations
changed during an interaction with a patient. In this case, it was
a 14-year-old girl with cystic fibrosis. “I was super excited that I
had this patient. I was a third-year medical student and I thought,
‘I’m going to really make a difference for her.’ I took care of her for
a month, and she never really got better. Eventually I rotated out,
tried surgery and loved it. Nine months later, I’m on call in thoracic
rotation when who should come in but that same girl. She gets a lung
transplant and actually gets better. She goes home, grows up, goes
to college, all those things kids are supposed to do,” Dr. van Berkel.