Dr. Mani Menon
speaker
122 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Sep 2024
last heard Sep 2024
Dr. Mani Menon’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And the first years and the third years in urology, the PGY-3s and PGY-5s, took tandem rotations or took parallel rotations. And the person who was the PGY-5 resident was Bill Catalona. And Bill and I became very, very good friends. And Bill took it upon himself that I wouldn't fail. He made it his point to cover for me, to support me, and make sure that I succeeded.
I don't know why he did that, because I don't think he particularly liked me, but I think it was just a challenge of taking this person and making sure he didn't flop. That appeal to Bill.
You know, I was the golden boy of the previous chairman of surgery. These two people didn't get along well. So they were always fighting and maneuvering. And so the previous chairman got transferred. And the new chairman said, well, you know, you were this person's favorite son. Let's see how you do with me. It wasn't something that I could do anything about.
Yes. I came to the U.S. because my wife wanted me to come to the U.S., and she was a resident in nuclear medicine at Hopkins and wanted to get a radiology residency. It was not accepted at Hopkins. She was accepted at the places that I looked at.
It was mainly in kidney stones, you know, very, very little in cancer. There was no PSA testing. So, you know, Pat Walsh had done 12 radical prostatectomies in the year that I was the chief resident. Most of them were spectacular, but some of them, there was a lot of blood loss with that. And it was kind of unpredictable, at least to me. I think 40% of all that we did at Hopkins was kidney stones.
And 25% of the major open surgery was kidney stones, much more than cancer. So it seemed like that's what I wanted to do.
Clayman and I were contemporaries. Clayman finished his residency at the University of Minnesota and went to UT Southwestern to do a fellowship, I think Charlie Park. I did not do a fellowship. I went straight to run the Stone Clinic at Wash U. So when I left Wash U and moved to UMass, I helped recruit Clayman to take my job.
If I had known that he was going to be so much better than me, I may not have been that anxious to recruit him. A sense of altruism, perhaps. So I introduced him to Bill Catalona, who had just become the chairman, and to Sam Wells, who was the chairman of the Department of Surgery, and helped smooth his transition. Lou was an intern, so I was part of the interviewing team for him.
There were 13 people who interviewed him, and 12 of them thought that he walked on water, and the 13th did not. And I was the 13th, so Lou has never let me forget that. But clearly, it had no impact whatsoever in his getting a residency, and we've been You know, good friends. I've admired him and Ralph Klayman for the tremendous work that they have done.
I was interested in kidney stones, and I had the privilege of working with Albert Leninger, the renowned biochemist who wrote the textbook of biochemistry. So I spent a year in his lab. Hopkins at that point had gotten a spore project on calcium transport, but they didn't have anybody in the department who was interested in stones, so they told me, you become the stone person.
I thought that since we were talking about stones, we should talk not just about calcium transport, we should talk about oxalate transport. On an equimolar concentration, oxalate is 10 times more potent than calcium in causing precipitation. And Dr. Langeau was happy to let me do that because it was a new area for him.
So as the result, within three months of moving to WashU, I had an NIH grant and a BA grant, which it turns out was pretty remarkable. I mean, WashU had lots of great researchers, but to get two grants, particularly as a surgeon, within three months of starting, it caused people to open their eyes. So once again, I think there were some political issues.
The department chair, Bill Fair, moved to Memorial Sloan Kettering, and the new department chair, the transition was a little awkward. Dr. Wells, Sam Wells, he promoted me to associate professor with tenure, and I became the youngest clinical tenured professor at Wash U. Again, I didn't lobby for it.
I didn't know what it meant, but it clearly meant a lot in the narrow world of academic medicine and how we are. So that and the two NIH grants propelled me to the University of Massachusetts, where I became a chair when I was 34, two years out of my residency. Three years, two to three years.
Same thing. A new Department of Surgery chairman. And actually, the department had wanted me to become the chair. We were a division, like UC San Diego was for many years. I did not want to become the chair because I thought it would take me away from clinical work and research. And But the new chair saw me as a threat.
And my lack of political skills, not having a filter between my brain and mouth, did not stand me in great stead. So I decided that I would move from there rather than, you know, fight these battles constantly.
At Henry Ford.
So Raj Vatikuti was a young man who had done very well for himself in the software industry. He had come from India, much like Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella had come. I mean, he had They were his contemporaries. The audience, Sundar Pichai is the CEO of Alphabet and Satya Nadella is the CEO of Microsoft. So we're not talking lightweights here by any means.
And Mr. Vatikuti felt that he wanted to give something to his community, which was Detroit. He had no idea of medicine, what medicine was, and so he hired a bunch of consultants saying, I want to make an impact. Where should I make the impact? And they said, well, what disease do you want to impact? He said, what disease should I do? Is there a disease called cancer? I said, yes, yes.
I think I want to make a difference in cancer. And then he said, well, you know, there are many kinds of cancer. Which kind of cancer do you want to make an impact? Then he said, what are the commonest cancers where I can make a difference? And they said breast and prostate. Then he called around to see who were the people who were doing breast and prostate cancer work.
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