Rodanthi complemented Frank. She was intense, clinically superb, smart, demanding, commanding, and obsessively thorough. Her knowledge of clinical rheumatology was vast and her clinical skills consummate. She was deeply devoted to her patients, with an almost maternal dedication. She would not tolerate her students, residents, or fellows not caring as assiduously as she, and woe unto him or her who stinted. She demanded a higher standard. Often was the time when she would seemingly spend hours with a patient, during a busy clinic day, sympathizing, empathizing, and displaying an amazing ability to figure out some novel way to help her suffering patients.
Closure of the rheumatology inpatient unit in 1994, a casualty of changing trends in medicine, deeply disturbed and disappointed Rodanthi. She, and her patients, perceived The County as patients’ home away from home and, in many instances, the only home they had. She too cared for generations of patients. She attended patients’ funerals. And weddings. For her, “medicine was a privilege, rheumatology a passion,” she says. Her influence was immeasurable. Three decades of fellows are exemplary clinical rheumatologists in large part because of Rodanthi.
Frank and Rodanthi are giants not only at LAC and USC but also within the ACR. Their masterships reflect their masterly devotion to patients and their masterly pedagogy. They have set the standard for care of patients in our clinics and, indeed, throughout our medical center and profession. Those students, residents, fellows, and faculty who come to rheumatology clinics know of their rich tradition and try, as Frank and Rodanthi did, to help patients as best they can to make patients’ lives a bit better. Frank and Rodanthi would be proud of their legacy.
And so, yesterday’s clinic ended, with patients departing, clutching their medications and return appointments, perhaps walking a bit more briskly, perhaps limping a bit less, perhaps standing a bit straighter. And God smiled.
Dr. Panush is professor of medicine, Division of Rheumatology, at the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, in Los Angeles. He regularly writes “Rheum with a View.”
