David Dichek's pioneering work in gene therapy for cardiovascular disease at the University of Washington Division of Cardiology left an indelible mark. In the warm glow of his memory, special guests Drs. Anne-Marie Schmidt, Daniel Yang, and Farid Moussavi-Harami join me to share the profound influence he had not only on their careers but on their scientific philosophy. We weave a tapestry of personal stories highlighting David's meticulous nature and his unwavering commitment to excellence, which continue to guide us in our quest for truth in research.
David Dichek's pioneering work in gene therapy for cardiovascular disease at the University of Washington Division of Cardiology left an indelible mark. In the warm glow of his memory, special guests Drs. Anne-Marie Schmidt, Daniel Yang, and Farid Moussavi-Harami join me to share the profound influence he had not only on their careers but on their scientific philosophy. We weave a tapestry of personal stories highlighting David's meticulous nature and his unwavering commitment to excellence, which continue to guide us in our quest for truth in research.
This is Coffee and Cardiology.
Speaker 2:In this podcast, we sit down with a faculty from the University of Washington Division of Cardiology to discuss the very latest in diagnostics therapeutics and, as a special bonus, we ask what makes our cardiologists tick?
Speaker 3:My sick heart shows that I must yield my body to the earth and by my fall, the conquest to my foe Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge, whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle, under whose shade the ramping lion slept, whose top branch overpeered to a spreading, spreading tree and kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind. Henry VI, part 3. John Michael, I open with that quote today because this episode of our podcast is celebrating the life and legacy of David Ditschek, who we unfortunately never had the chance to interview on this podcast, longtime member of the University of Washington Cardiology Division, really central to our research efforts and mission our research efforts and mission who very, very tragically passed away a few weeks ago after complications from ironically coronary artery bypass surgery. And today we have some very special guests to help us remember him and learn more about his life.
Speaker 3:Anne-marie Schmidt has known David for quite a long time. She is the editor-in-chief of Arteriosclerosis, thrombosis and Vascular Biology, which is an American Heart Association journal and is extremely prominent in the field. And then we also have Daniel Yang and Fared Musavi, who have been absolutely touched and benefited greatly, as were we all, but I think particularly they were very close to David and benefited so much from his mentorship here at the University of Washington. So thank you all so much for joining. I really, really appreciate that you are here and the information that you're going to be able to share with us today. So let's start out with the big picture and the national and international reputation of this amazing individual, and maybe I'll turn to Anne-Marie Schmidt first. And what is it that struck you most about David and his international national reputation in the research field in vascular biology?
Speaker 1:Well, david was a leader, an international leader, in gene therapy and, as you know, there have been many hurdles to really identifying the most effective ways of therapy for cardiovascular disease. And David dedicated his research, his work in the laboratory, to trying to identify the most optimal means and strategic possibilities for utilizing gene therapy approaches. And what is most important for how we remember David there is no question and many people will say this, have said this to me, to others in the recent past is that David is one of the most rigorous, careful and thoughtful scientists that you will meet. David did not know the meaning of a shortcut and absolutely everything he did he did to perfection. I will say at this moment, in parallel with that tremendous scientific gift, he had absolutely one of the best abilities as a mentor to be sure that the laboratory trainees, that the cardiology fellows, that the doctors, understood what he was doing and why it could be so important in the long run for people suffering with cardiovascular disease.
Speaker 3:That characterized it so well. I know our listeners can't see it. We're on the Zoom call here, and when you started saying that about his meticulousness, all of our heads just automatically started nodding in unison because that was so, so true of him. Well, let me ask also, daniel and Fareed, what sort of when you began to be involved with David, what attracted you to him as someone who could serve as your mentor?
Speaker 5:Go ahead, daniel.
Speaker 5:I first met David when I interviewed for cardiology fellowship and this is 15-16 years ago and he was very excited to hear that somebody was interested in lab-based research and at the time he was in, he was the director of our T32 and he was really instrumental in me choosing from the University of Washington.
Speaker 5:He said that he was going to be supportive of whatever area I study and he was true to his word. He would continue to mentor me throughout my fellowship as junior faculty and as junior faculty, and David really cared deeply about science, truth, rigor and making sure that we pass on good habits to next generation of scientists. When I would present data, david was the one who asked about the statistics, about you know what kind of and I was naive. I didn't know much about the physics when I first started in fellowship and David was really the one that you know would teach me about different ways to analyze things and really making sure that if something comes out of our laboratories, that it should be able to be reproduced if we provide the information and detail in our manuscripts, and I think that was really best summarizes what I had learned from him during the time that I knew him as a faculty member and a mentor.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I agree, I was a very similar footstep, actually just literally three years behind Farid, and so I was recruited here, also to the research pathway at University of Washington, and so David Dichek was our T32 director at the time. So I've had interactions with them throughout the T32. They weren't limited because it was probably once or twice a year, but really as it became junior faculty, as I started my own lab applying for early career at Bellmore, that's when I actually started to seek out David more, because I could tell he really had a vested interest in us, the junior faculty.
Speaker 4:He really wanted us to succeed. His research is very different from mine, but I could tell he would read about my research, the field, and provide insight into my grant applications, my papers and my presentations and I felt that really just went the extra mile. It was clear that he truly cared and that he, even though it's outside his field, he would take the time, the effort to learn about to be able to provide me useful insight and helpful insight and I appreciate that a lot.
Speaker 4:And then I kept gravitating towards David and so pretty much before I present to anywhere outside UW I would run my presentation by David, my grants, I would always have him read my specific aims and even my papers. I would discuss with him the figures and he was just tremendously helpful and it's going to be a large void to Bill. He had a very large. Really can't overstate the amount of impact for the early career distance scientists at UW.
Speaker 4:And even beyond. I have colleagues at Stanford also that have said the same thing, that David has been collaborating with them too, and I report very similar. He really took mentorship seriously. It was something that he truly loved doing and was really really good at.
Speaker 3:Dr Schmidt as the editor of the ATVB Journal. What role did David play for that journal and in your interactions with him?
Speaker 1:role did David play for that journal and in your interactions with him? Well, I'll tell you the whole story because I think it tells so much about David. We all were asked anyone who wished to apply it was 2022, to being considered for editor-in-chief of ATVV, and I did not have any idea who the others were that were applying. But at the end of it, it turned out that I was fortunate to be the one that they had chosen, but it was very important to me to find out who the other people were. One of them was David, and I reached out to him and to the other person immediately. I wanted to talk with them about the journal, invite them to be part of the senior editorship of ATVB, and I remember when I reached out to David, it was amazing. He said well, we have to Zoom Now. David is an extremely senior person and I was embarrassed. What can I tell David Dichk about being an editor? Right, but we had a wonderful Zoom and as example of his brilliance and his incomparable ability to blend that brilliance with kindness and humility, he said can you take me through how to do the selection of the reviewers, etc. And I almost felt that I paled in comparison. You know, to all of his accomplishments. We had two calls. We actually ran through on his request, an example of how to outline the reviewers, line them up, etc. Line the reviewers, line them up, et cetera. And within no time so we were instated.
Speaker 1:In July of 2022, david just became one of the most outstanding leaders on the editor team Absolutely unselfish, brilliant, happy to not just say, yeah, that looks fine, I'm happy with that. No, what David would do is, if necessary, would literally help the authors to rephrase that abstract to be exactly what he knew they were trying to say. And, in terms of the initiatives, he always had his hand up, you know, in the background with all those beautiful flowers, and for all practical purposes, his input was always the go-to. Like what does David think? And I would also say that very important for ATVB is the Early Career Editorial Board, and so the Early Career Editorial Board are very young investigators, postdocs, junior faculty. When David took on his mentee, without a doubt, the level and the depth of how he worked with her was simply extraordinary. Not only did they communicate by email, they would set up Zooms, and I just want to tell you that this young person was in Europe. So do the math right. Nine hours Didn't stop David from finding the time to be able to make sure that he could communicate with the mentee in order to be able to have a real discussion by Zoom about the work, and I cannot.
Speaker 1:You know, the mentee has actually graduated onto the editorial board because of all of the incredible depth of understanding manuscript review that David really had imparted to her. There were other initiatives that you'll see coming out in the future that just last night I had to edit an Excel file because three of the five of the new areas, david was one of the leaders, and you know to have to do that. I'm not surprised at all why I waited so long. His indelible mark on the journal in even two years is going to be extremely hard, if not impossible, to replace is not the right word, but to match, and in fact I do see it as a way for the rest of us to learn from his legacy and step up and try to emulate that type of excellence.
Speaker 3:That's just wonderful. To me that really rings true as a characterization, Fried, would you say. That is consistent with what we've seen too.
Speaker 5:Yes, it's actually interesting. Dr Schmidt, you wouldn't be surprised to know that Daniel can speak to this. One of the last emails that David had to our junior faculty was to encourage us to join AHA Aerial Career Committees, and you know we will cherish that email to encourage us to join AHA Aerial Career Committees, and we will cherish that email. He gave instructions of why it's important. He made a point that it's important for our careers, but he also mentioned that it's how you pay things forward. If nobody joins these committees, then we can't have science. So that was David at a nutshell. Yeah, that's the last group email that we had from him and Daniel can comment on that too.
Speaker 4:Exactly yeah, and I actually emailed him back and asked him you know, farid and I are both kind're starting our own lab or early career for this scientist.
Speaker 4:Does he feel like this is a good use of our time? And he said he said it is because if we don't contribute back to the community, the scientific community, it wouldn't be able to grow, we wouldn't be able to develop these meetings and have people come together and foster ideas, and so it was good to hear from him from a very senior perspective to see, because otherwise we're kind of in our lab, we're just trying to get things up and running, and he was stressing this importance of this, like giving back to the rest of the community. And that embodies David very much, because the time that he spends on our grants completely outside this field time he spends mentoring us and we're not even he's not even our primary mentor per se. We have primary mentors. He's doing this completely selfishly, he's just out of the goodness of his heart and he just wants to see people succeed and see the scientific community succeed, and I think that truly embodies David quite well.
Speaker 4:That was who he was. He loved science and he wanted us to succeed and do well.
Speaker 3:It strikes me that that is such an example of the way that things should work.
Speaker 3:You know, I think we especially if one is involved in scientific societies there's a lot of talk about investing in the next generation and making sure that young people get their opportunities and their chances, and yet so many of us are still doing things very much for ourselves and we are very mindful of our careers and we don't think probably enough about how we can help other people do it.
Speaker 3:And even if we do, it's often just our own people and we're trying to promote people from our institution. But it strikes me that David spent that time and that effort because he just loved science so much and he wasn't parochial at all. His vision and his way of looking at the world was so broad and so generous and so centered on the advancement of the field that he does serve as an amazing example for how we all should think. Well, let me ask you also of some other examples perhaps that you've seen with other people in the ways that he has really contributed to their upbringing, as it were, in the field, and it doesn't necessarily have to just be in areas of basic and translational research.
Speaker 1:So I just in terms of all the things that we would chat about on the emails, you know I came to know David very well because we have a lot of similar characteristics in some ways and it was very easy to be able to work with him and to literally understand each other. I really didn't know David very well in terms of depth simply because my area of research is in diabetes and diabetic complications, so our research was sort of by definition different. But when I observed how beautifully so we're a large editor team we're a group of senior editors, associate editors, technical statistical editors, the management team what struck me was, whether it was by email or on our Zoom meetings twice a month, david had an ability to understand. You know what each person was indicating, contributing, and was one of the first people to always help to support a viewpoint. And that, I think, is very important because you know you have a lot of different people with a lot of expertise, some very opinionated he could navigate his way across the super, you know, opinionated and the ones that were struggling to be able to get a chance to say something.
Speaker 1:And I think you know the single, what I came to understand. You know more and more, and especially sadly, as you said you know somewhat after his death, is how you can have in one person tremendous brilliance and, you know, absolute dedication to the field, to the science, to the patients, to the legacy of the early career people. But in every interaction that David had, the single most important thing that anyone observing would note was his humility and his kindness. And truthfully, if you think about it, and all of us, especially those of us a little bit more on the quiet side and certainly wouldn't go out and do outlandish or say outlandish things sometimes, it's very hard to navigate our field because of the fact that there are just so much diversity of people.
Speaker 1:No matter what the situation on those meetings, with just a lot of different opinions, david always was able to maintain humility and tremendous kindness and that is really an extraordinary legacy, all of that to be embodied in one person. So I think in the end, even though we weren't direct mentees, for example, all of us shall have learned and should have learned just so much more about the way to do things. He was such an extraordinary person. We will miss him. He is not replaceable. There will have to be someone to come in to cover his areas of expertise. But think about it in your own life. How often can you truly say that someone is really not replaceable? And that was David D Check.
Speaker 5:That's a really great point that you bring up, because people have people knew that Daniel and I were close to him and since his passing, other faculty from other departments at University of Washington have come to me and said, well, look, when I gave a job talk here or I came after I started my faculty job and I gave a talk at University of Washington, at South Lake Union or on main campus, then David reached out to me get some feedback and people have told this to me since his passing and because these are things that he did that I didn't know about.
Speaker 5:I just knew what he meant to me, knew what he meant to Daniel, because we're close and we talk amongst each other. But since his passing there's people that have come out. Folks at the University of Washington bioengineering come out in, folks in at university of washington bioengineering, folks in pathology that have shared this with me and it really shows you that he, he, he was really interested in helping people and mentoring and not really he um not to just benefit himself. He was really interesting, but I think the scientific community and it wasn't just the scientific community that benefited from David.
Speaker 4:I've also heard other people come by and tell me more clinical vignettes, so people who have known him clinically because David was a physician scientist and I've never worked with David personally clinically but I've heard that he really took incredible care.
Speaker 4:He was very meticulous, detail-oriented with his patients. Not surprised to any of us, obviously, who know him from a scientific realm. But I've had other specialists come and share, you know, anecdotes that they've had with David and so a lot of times when, like generalists like refer patients to specialists, sometimes they feel like, oh, they're done with this problem and the specialist can deal with it. But no, that was not David. He would frequently read about the problem first, he would try to understand it and then pose very legitimate, thoughtful questions to the specialist and then after that he would continue to manage the patient in collaboration with a specialist so that it wasn't just that he didn't just push things off his plate, he was truly involved. He took meticulous care of his patients and it's not just his patients that realized that, but also other of his clinical colleagues also had taken note of that and shared that with us after his passing.
Speaker 5:That's a great point. Daniel at UCampus shared with me that David was one of the few physicians that when they were they were asked to go get a tracing of the patient. The patient was already in gown and ready to go and obviously it's no surprise to all of us that know him. He also had clinic on the same day as one of my other friends and they shared with me that David really had the team approach on the clinical side too, so he would want to discuss cases. You know run things by other physicians, kind of like the outpatient version of doing rounds. You know kind of he really liked discussing cases. That's what was shared with me because I I I have not seen david, um, uh, on the clinical side before. You know my interactions were on there on the research side but, uh, since his passing people have reached out and shared these interesting facts, which are not surprising. But it's just good to know that that meticulousness was seen in every aspect of his life.
Speaker 5:The ultimate physician scientist. I think all of us here at UW who have presented at research faculty conference which David led, know that he had the last slide. He wanted to know how would my finding change the practice of cardiology and he was very specific about that and obviously we have different fields. You know I'm more lab-based. Daniel's lab-based Dr Kirkpatrick is, you know, doing more patient-oriented type research. But all of us are hoping that our findings would help patients in the long term. But he really wanted to make sure that we don't forget about that site when we're presenting our scientific findings, because it's easy to get lost in bar graphs, key values and whatnot. But he really wanted to make sure that we remember that at the end of the day, what we're working on should be helping the patient, either now or in the future.
Speaker 1:No, it's funny you say that because when we obviously the editorialsials, we don't send the editorials out for peer review, so the editors took care of the editorials ourselves. We knew the papers super well and David was always one of the editors that would chime in even when, frankly, quote unquote he didn't have to right but he did. He would the paper. And I can remember a few circumstances in the editorials where he would come back in our group chat or at the meetings and he would say you know, they missed a point about another clinical, translational inference of their work. So he knew their work so well that he could point out to them how to make the editorial better by including something.
Speaker 1:And that was like extraordinary. The rest of us were like, what's that? We've never even heard of some of these things. So you are absolutely right that that was so important to him, even so much as to help authors that really were in different areas, you know, bring out some of the other important aspects. And of course, quite frankly, there were times that he corrected their interpretations, which is okay. You need that too, right, but always in the spirit of we want this to be the best possible editorial really jives with my knowledge of David as well.
Speaker 3:He was so dedicated to things being as they should be and really was so interested in that and in multiple different areas. I also was very struck by this concept of what are we going to do to change cardiovascular medicine with this research, because sometimes, and even, I'll tell you, even in patient-oriented or population research, you lose sight of that because you get so excited about what we're working on. These are interesting findings and that sort of thing in the science of discovery, but it's all and not that discovery is a problem. Problem, but it's just that if you don't at least ask that question, you may miss something. Just like sounds like people may have missed, in some of the of their editorials that they're writing, the opportunity to sort of extend this beyond and open this up and be practical about it. And and he was a very practical person, I have to say- Absolutely yes.
Speaker 3:Well, one other thing that I was always struck with about him and maybe you all could comment on this too. So a lot of times for the research conference. Well, first of all, he started actually laying out what the ground rules were for the conference. It wasn't just people are going to present their research, it was the. You needed to think about things in a certain way. And here's the type of feedback actually that's going to be helpful for these people. So, no, good job. Or, you know, liked your presentation. No, no, you had to actually give some constructive, practical feedback that's going to help make this person better and, to be honest, I have never seen that anywhere in my academic career that people have emphasized that as much as he did.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and he brought that to the manuscript peer review process also because, even when he would receive so, the way it would work is that he would identify three reviewers and then the reviews would come back, and he was absolutely not shy. This is not really correct and I would like to add the following. And he really took the time, energy and effort, which, of course, everyone has. Time is a very precious commodity, right? Never stop David from making sure that he edited those comments If he disagreed, if he felt that they were wrong, and, most importantly, to add his own suggestion about how to really make this paper better.
Speaker 1:And he was so fair. He, even with all of his, you know, factual knowledge and ability to, you know, integrate what he knew into their research expertise area. He always was so fair and understood that, okay, this is one manuscript and really, what should be encompassed within this one manuscript? Really, in the spirit of feasibility, just is this possible to do five more years of research for this one paper? And so that element of judgment and ability to really gauge how much more they needed was a very unique and critical aspect of David, and it's no surprise that. You know David had served in associate editor roles in journals such as atherosclerosis, as one example, and it's absolutely clear to me now why he was so sought after because I think people respected that real interaction with the author in terms of getting the best you can out of what you're gonna do in this manuscript, and also that element of fairness.
Speaker 5:Right, yeah.
Speaker 5:All of us that have given research conference here know that David would give feedback and he would ask for the audience to give feedback and then after your talk, maybe a week or two, then you get a summative summary of what the feedback was, which there's some questions that are numerical and there was comments and usually there are one or two comments and I think usually David was at least 50 percent or more of the comments, was at least 50% or more of the comments, and then he would also, in the email that he would send out, say well, if you'd like to talk about your presentation, I'm happy to meet with you, and he was serious. He did meet with me a few times because I wanted to hear how I can improve things and again, he was all about giving constructive feedback and that was really important to him, I think, to make presentations improved, and I really used some of the techniques that he taught me to improve how I give talk or how I communicate.
Speaker 3:What were?
Speaker 5:some of those. Oh, go ahead, Daniel, and then Farid, I'm going to ask you what were some of those?
Speaker 3:Oh, go ahead, daniel. And then, fred, I'm going to ask you what were some of those things, those practical things that you gained? But go ahead, Daniel.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, I was always struck by those, although those summative feedback are always anonymous. He always knew which one was David because he would write like paragraphs and it would be so involved. It always struck me me like he's not even in my field. How is he so like insightful and knows my side so well that he can give me, you know, some useful pointers about which way I could pursue my science or which angles it might make more sense? And, and it was just incredible, it was like I was getting like like I had another mentor, um, on my team and it was just truly. I was always so struck how like a, how well of a Renaissance man he was in science Like it's not in the basket botany field, but he was well versed in this to be able to provide me some very sound advice, and I thought that was very unique and that's why I graduated towards him, as I kind of started my lab the last few years.
Speaker 3:In particular, that you learned.
Speaker 5:So some practical things are make sure your slides are not very crowded. Make sure that the title says something about the data, not just describing. And then, if you have data presented in a chart, you should walk through what the axes are. And those are some of the things that David taught me when I was a fellow that I continue to model and try to teach to folks in my lab.
Speaker 4:He always told us the title of the slide is the most important part of the slide. And then, even more nuanced, he then told me that if your slide is two lines, you should break it up in a way that makes sense, like by phrase or something, so that the phrasing of the slide titles. So he was so meticulous and detail oriented and he paid attention to things like this and it made sense. So I take that into account now. So when I make my titles, I will try to break them to phrases so that it reads and makes sense to people.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I was fortunate enough to get my first R01 a couple years ago and right before the submission of the grant, maybe about two weeks, I sent the newest version of the grant to David. I mean, he had made comments a few weeks earlier but the last edits he made were really helpful in the significance and innovation part. You know, that's the part that when you're not experienced it's kind of very difficult to communicate and David had kind of broke down the significance into areas and suggested I make things bold and it was very helpful.
Speaker 3:You know it's interesting. You made that comment about how he was a Renaissance person in science. I probably shouldn't admit this, but it took me three years to figure out what his scientific specialty was, because I knew he did something in basic and translational, but I didn't really know what that was, because every time in conferences he did seem to know everything about everything and it didn't really matter. He could comment universally thing and it didn't. It didn't really matter, he could comment universally. Well, uh, I want to turn us now to to some of his pastimes. Um, I understand that he was quite the bicyclist, as as many people in seattle are. Um, was that a consuming passion, and I imagine he did it very meticulously.
Speaker 5:Yes, he would go every summer and take his bike to Europe and he would go with his family at times and they would bike. And then I've been told that people have seen him biking on two campus often, and I believe that one of the bikes had a name, a French name, francois.
Speaker 4:I know you guys can't see it, but Brie and I just attended his funeral the other day and the family gave everyone one of these to commemorate. David Biking was definitely a very big part of his life and he apparently I think the bike was from the 1970s or so he's taken to take care of this bike. He apparently does all the repairs himself. He apparently goes to the repair shop where you pay the repair shop to be able to use the tools so that you can repair yourself that's how he did this and how how careful he was with this bike, and and so I thought it was quite fitting that that that's what the
Speaker 1:family, all of us, yeah, I think last summer actually, I remember he was gone for two weeks in the late summer and he had gone to France. So now I'm actually wondering if he took his bicycle. I know he was going bicycle riding, but I wouldn't think you'd win your own bicycle.
Speaker 4:That's really incredible yeah, yeah, and classic David form. This is another anecdote that I heard someone else has shared with me. They had Randy David actually on the bike trails in France and you know this person had gone to more as a vacation.
Speaker 4:And so had kind of broad outlines of what their plan and bike trails were, but not not planned out quite as meticulously. But david, classic david had everything planned out, all the routes planned out, exactly everything pre-planned, and and so he, he took everything to the fullest. He really didn't leave things with a chance to make the most of it right.
Speaker 3:Exactly that's david, I want to throw out another word that that struck me about him and that is courageous. The reason that I bring that up is that my experience at least, is that david would always be someone to comment. Whether it was a clinical case presentation or whether it was a research presentation, he would always be the one to raise his hand and sometimes even interrupt and say something and comment, and he didn't really care what people thought about that. And in Seattle I don't know, dr Schmidt, in Seattle we tend to be a little reserved and people don't do that as much and we always try to be very polite. But he had the courage to stand up at all times to say what he thought and to correct anything that he thought was wrong. Do you agree with that?
Speaker 1:I certainly do Because, as I said it was, we had a large editor group right and you're not always going to have, you know, everyone, but David would always have his hand up. Many of the people rarely had their hand up, you know, because they just didn't or they would put it in the chat box. David never put anything in the chat box. His hand was up and he would give his opinion and you know, the honest truth is thinking back on it after he would speak. Even some of the people that may not have agreed, at least they would have acknowledged. That's a very good point and I thank you for proposing this interpretation.
Speaker 1:So, without a doubt, he was not afraid to let how he felt. I think he also thought of some of those experiences as learning experiences too, that you would be able to elicit more from the person that perhaps you didn't see things exactly the same way you know, through that dialogue. So it's amazing how someone could pretty much 24-7, you know really embody that desire to impart knowledge and also be flexible and to receive knowledge and then, of course, integrate it into a new entity. So I think courageous is a very beautiful way to put it.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's a great summary and you know our institution, similar to others, have struggled to get people to come back for conferences. You know there's a Zoom option in most things, but not David. David was in person for every Grand Rounds and every conference that was offered as an in-person. So he would again similar to your experience here. He would ask questions, he would ask comments, he would ask for clarification, really wanted to make sure that what was presented was accurate and make sure that he understood what the speaker was trying to say.
Speaker 4:One more thing maybe I could kind of share with everyone is also humanism side. So, like Jim's aware, so my wife works in the UW ECHO lab and usually when, when, when she's reading other you know attendings, other providers, clinical providers, would come up to her and usually they're wanting something right there, want to review an ECHO case. They're wanting to review hey, what are the imaging modality? I can do to answer those questions, generally something that they need, and so that's why they're coming up to ask when you're in the echo lab. Well, apparently one day David came in and now my wife has actually never really interacted with David much. I never communicate with him because she's not in the science field and their paths generally don't cross. But David came up once and she asked him how can I help you? How can I help you? And he was like oh, nothing.
Speaker 4:I just wanted to say congratulations. I heard that you and Daniel got married recently and I just wanted to pass on my congratulations and that's it.
Speaker 4:And then he walked away and she was so like strapped like that, because usually people are coming for a particular thing or two to ask, but he's just coming to congratulate us really. And apparently he found out that she was in the echo lab because he was in clinic In a busy clinic morning. He had saw that she had just read an echo by her and so knew that she was in the echo lab. So he took a few moments out of his busy clinic to go to the echo lab just to say congratulations, because he had heard from you that we got married recently. And then he went back to his business. So that's the type of person David is. That's a great point.
Speaker 5:My wife and I had spent many Christmas holiday parties talking to David and his wife and you know, since I've been around for at least 15 years, so multiple times I've got to really know both of them and both very lovely people, and really David was interested to ask about my kids and how they're doing and he really wanted, he really cared and wanted to know about us beyond just colleagues or even scientists.
Speaker 3:He also did for our division and Freed has now taken over this role and will be absolutely fabulous in it. But at every faculty meeting David was in charge of collecting all of the accomplishments from the division and then going through them and sharing the ones that he found most interesting and asking us if we had gotten a grant or if we had published a research paper, something like that, actually saying a few words to describe it and really broadcast those other people's successes to the group. I was always so impressed with what he chose because obviously there were more than we could get through, but he always chose very interesting, maybe even humanly interesting things and gave us a real chance to see that and to begin to understand and know each other within the division. I think that was such a great service and I'm really glad that that legacy will live on through Freed taking that on for our division. But I always found that to probably be the most no offense to everyone else who was on the schedule normally, but that was my most favorite part of the faculty meetings that took place. Well, thank you all so much for being here loved and admired and appreciated David and his contributions in so many different ways internationally, nationally, locally to science and clinical care, education, mentorship, teaching and humanism, and we're all going to miss him terribly. He is, as you said, dr Schmidt, completely unreplaceable, but I think that he worked very hard to raise people up, not to necessarily to replace him, but to accomplish the same things that he did and to contribute to all of these different fields that he loved so much.
Speaker 3:And I just want to leave us with one more Shakespeare quote, and it's obvious why I'm doing this. He also, I believe, received a degree in Shakespeare and loved Shakespeare. He did not go around quoting Shakespeare all the time, at least not to me than I ever was, but I think his life is such that it is wrapped up. I think and I referenced this earlier about courageousness, and in Julius Caesar, in Act II, howards die many times before their deaths, but the valiant never taste of death but once. And David was valiant. David was courageous and I hope that all of us can live out his legacy in proportion to the ways that he's contributed to us and influenced our lives.
Speaker 3:So again, thank you so much for being here. Thanks, john Michael, for putting this all together, for being here. Thanks, john Michael, for putting this all together and if anyone has further interest, please do contact the division. There will be a celebration of his life later on and I'm sure that there will be opportunities to be able to contribute and learn from that. But again, dr Schmidt and Dr Musavi and Dr Yang, thank you so much for being on today. Take care.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much, bye-bye, bye, thank you.