by Ming Wang
Few of us will ever personally know someone who has had sight restored after thirteen years of blindness. But even fewer will ever be present the very moment someone we know comes out of darkness and into sight. Everyone in the room with Brad felt privileged to be part of this powerful, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. To me, such a moment is worth all these years of hard work, training and research, and all the sleepless nights that I have endured. Experiencing the joy that follows God’s miracles over and over again is what continually refuels my commitment to this work.
And it is a gift that keeps on giving, as Brad’s appreciation of his newfound sight wasn’t restricted to that one day in my office. For several weeks, I received reports from Jackie and other friends of theirs of his fascination with the things he was seeing now, big and small.
“Brad is having so much fun looking at everything!” Jackie wrote in an email. “TV is fun for him; and he seems to see two-dimensional images better than in person. Cars are so cool because he says he feels like he’s been propelled thirteen years into the future. Computers are cool too because they’re no longer just black screens with amber writing on them.”
I was taken aback by her words. Not only had Brad regained his sight, but he had essentially traveled through time, thirteen years in an instant! In Brad’s mind, the world around him—the people, city structures and technology—had remained frozen in time since 1994. So to come out of darkness after such a long time was to discover a world that’s not at all the same as the one he knew before. Brad’s thirteen-year time travel then led me to reflect on my earlier patient, Joel Case, who had actually time-traveled even further, four entire decades!
Jackie’s email continued. “He finds several new things to see every day. He loves looking at the sky, the clouds, the trees, green grass. It’s like having a kid who’s learning to walk or talk. I hate going to work now because I’m going to miss something.”
Coming out of blindness is, in a way, like a new birth. The patient sees the world again for the first time in a long while. Thanks to the Wang Foundation and all of Brad’s supporters, he is now rediscovering a life he had been missing for more than a dozen years, and the ability to actually see his beloved wife is what he considers his ultimate blessing.
“There is just no way to thank you for what you have done,” Jackie wrote at the end of her email. “Not only have you changed Brad’s life, through his testimony you have changed the lives of thousands. Now I’m crying again!”
Though taking care of charity patients is difficult and demanding on one’s time, our foundation has shown that it can in fact be done and done well. I believe this model of care should be an important part of our healthcare system. I’ve been inspired to treat charity patients as a way of giving back to America, and many other Nashville doctors have joined me in this important cause as well. The model practiced by the Wang Foundation attests to the effectiveness of embedding charity patients into the flow of patients in private clinics, fully utilizing the technology and service available at such clinics. Our hope is that the success we have experienced with embedded Charity care as such will spread to other medical specialties across the country, and will thus help reduce the nation’s financial burden to care for the poor.
An example of this need is the fact that the second part of Brad’s surgery almost didn’t happen. After the completion of his saliva gland surgery, we realized that the costs involved with his and Jackie’s travel and lodging, as well as hospital and operating room fees, was beyond their limited financial resources. Given how severe his damage was, even though I had waived all my surgeon’s fees, the other aspects of his care were going to be expensive. Furthermore, insurance does not typically cover new, experimental sight restoration procedures such as laser-assisted artificial cornea implantations. Cases like Brad’s were exactly the reason I had started the foundation in the first place, but now we needed to raise funds to cover the various costs beyond physician fees.
I came up with a plan to accomplish this goal. In the fall of 2005, I asked Brad and Jackie to be my special guests at the foundation’s first annual fundraising gala—called the EyeBall—at which ballroom dancing would serve as a symbolic source of exquisite beauty that the gift of sight allows us to fully appreciate. At the event, Brad shared his story with the gala’s attendees. In the end, it was the unique combination of modern technology, and the loving hearts and giving spirit of everyone involved, that ultimately gave Brad his sight back.
Chapter 17
The Dancing Doctor
An elderly couple had taken to the dance floor, and although the eight decades of life’s joys and sorrows they had experienced were evident, their demeanor was lively and self-assured. The husband stood tall in his black coattails, leading his nimble wife with skill and sensitivity. She wore a light pink gown that flowed around her legs as the pair glided across the polished wood. They were doing the foxtrot with such light and airy ease that they seemed to be floating above the dance floor.
It was a Sunday afternoon during my first semester of medical-school at Harvard, and I was at a community ballroom dancing event hosted by the MIT Ballroom Dance Club at Walker Memorial, a grand Beaux-Arts building on the Charles River. I watched in awe as these older dancers moved with grace. They made ballroom dancing appear to be perfectly ageless, and I longed to be part of this exquisite art form that transcended time.
The tranquility and elegance exuded by the dance couples was much different than the fear and panic that drove me to dance so many years ago.
When I was six years old and the Cultural Revolution in China had been going on for quite some time, I would watch my dad perform with his hospital’s communist song-and-dance troupe. He was a spectacular dancer, stately and naturally graceful. He captivated audiences as he performed traditional Chinese minority dances in vibrantly colored costumes. Dad was recruited to perform at Chinese New Year parades and other festivals throughout the year. He was my first teacher in the art and discipline of dance, and I wanted to be just like him. I even joined my elementary school’s dance troupe and performed quite frequently in public venues across Hangzhou.
When I was forced to drop out of school after the ninth grade at age 14, and took up dance more fervently in order to try to join the communist propaganda song and dance troop so I could avoid the devastating fate of deportation and life sentence of poverty and hard labor. I would practice dancing for hours on end. I had no access to a studio, nor any recordings of the eight permitted model Chinese plays. In an open patch of land near my parents’ medical college, I practiced the dances I had seen on stage and in movies. Since I had no recorded music, I sang tunes to myself while I danced. I constantly ran out of breath from trying to sing and dance at the same time, so I couldn’t practice for very long before I would need to take a break. But because my life was on the line, I was driven to dance nonstop. Just like in the ballet Giselle, in which the young man was condemned to continue dancing until he collapsed and died, I danced constantly, consumed by the ever-present fear that I would be deported if I was not a good enough dancer to get into the communist song and dance troop.
After I was finally able to pursue an education at the end of the Cultural Revolution, I didn’t return to dancing as a hobby until after I arrived at Harvard Medical-school in 1987.
Watching the elderly couple’s timeless dance at the MIT event that day inspired me to resume my long-lost interest in dancing with renewed fervor. During my first year of medical-school, I helped create the Harvard Ballroom Dance Club, which was made up of both undergraduate and graduate students from the U.S., Germany, Vietnam, China, and South America. Few of the students had any ballroom dancing experience prior to joining the club, but I had been through enough of the basics of dancing to help us get started.
We had to learn all ten international style ballroom dances, five standard and five Latin. The international standard ballroom dances—waltz, foxtrot, tango, Viennese waltz, and quickstep—demonstrated
sublime beauty, elegance, style, and discipline. The international Latin dances—cha-cha, rumba, samba, paso doble, and jive—on the other hand emphasized speed, rhythm, power, and passion. Together, the ten dances embody the full range of human emotion.
The Harvard Ballroom Dance Club practiced frequently, often with the MIT group. Our team of beginners was a sight to behold—stepping on each other’s toes, bumping bellies, going every which way but in the right direction. Sometimes couples even got into argument or fight. Eventually we realized that our biggest problem was that the men on the team simply couldn’t lead, and the ladies could not follow very well either. Dancers sometimes even argued with their partners because the men expected the women to know what they were thinking, and the ladies would retort, “How am I supposed to know what you want me to do before you actually do your part correctly yourself?”
We brought in a professional coach once a month, and we actually received our most valuable lesson in dance during one of those sessions.
“Gentlemen, you are the leaders,” declared the teacher. Her name was Dawn. She was of medium height, svelte, and crowned with a blaze of red hair.
“So if the lady isn’t following, then it’s all her fault, right?” I asked.
The guys on the team laughed.
“No! In fact, if she’s not following, it’s most likely the gentleman’s fault,” Dawn replied.
“How come?” I retorted. “If I’m the leader, and she’s not following properly, then it’s only logical that it’s her fault.”
“Well it could be your fault actually because you’re supposed to communicate with her before you actually lead, in what we call the pre-lead phase.”
“The pre-lead,” she went on to explain, “is what occurs in the instant before the man actually leads. For example, if you want to make a back step, you don’t just simply move back. You first need to stay in place, and expand your body outward with an intention towards the direction you want to move so your partner can feel that intention,” Dawn explained. “Your partner will then have the time to read your intention and give you feedback as to what she wants to do herself. She might want to go in another direction. So you have to feel each other and form a compromised, unified plan to move together.”
According to Dawn, the most beautiful part of ballroom dance isn’t the movements that everyone sees. The magical part is the pre-lead moment before each movement, when the timing, musicality, and amplitude of impending movement are negotiated and then decided together, through the communication between the two partners.
Our team’s initial response to this lesson was less than enthusiastic, mainly because we didn’t really understand it. To us, there simply didn’t seem to be enough time in that split second to accomplish so much. Also, the men didn’t want to let go of our egos and compromise. We just wanted to lead without having to alter our original plan. Not willing to learn this pre-lead technique properly, we continued to step on toes and bump into our partners’ bellies, often going nowhere.
A few months later, the Harvard Ballroom Dance Club team entered a small regional competition on MIT’s campus that included many schools and more than one hundred dancers. At the competition, the standard dance pairs were outfitted in tuxedo tails and flowy gowns, and the Latin dancers wore black shirts and pants and sexy, barely-there dresses. We danced our hearts out from dawn until dusk, but the Harvard team came in dead last because we simply weren’t good! The male members of the team had been convinced that Harvard men can accomplish whatever they do, without compromising leadership. But when we came in last place in every dance category, we walked out of the gym slumped in defeat.
But this loss was a turning point for our team. The men realized that embracing the pre-lead technique—giving our partners the time to understand our intention and negotiate a joint plan as a couple before we actually move together—was the only way to have a partnership on the dance floor. The guys reluctantly let go of their pride and started practicing true partnership dancing.
We poured our Harvard work ethic into ballroom dancing as if it were a math or science class, and we practiced more frequently and with more devotion. Over the next four years, our team grew from the initial few students to more than fifty dancing pairs. Every semester our results in amateur ballroom competitions inched closer and closer toward the top. By my senior year, we took first place in the U.S. National Collegiate Championships—hosted by the U.S. Amateur Ballroom Dance Association—which was an unexpected victory for Harvard, known otherwise only for our academic achievements.
After graduating from Harvard, and throughout my years of clinical training, I continued to dance for fun, and occasionally I would even teach my colleagues and friends to dance … but always for free. All I wanted was to encourage more people to enjoy ballroom dancing as I did. To me ballroom dancing was, and still is, a way to relieve the stress of daily life and demanding work by appreciating music, exercising, and learning to be sensitive to another human being, physically and emotionally. During my fellowship and residency at Wills Eye Hospital, I didn’t have much time for dancing, but when I landed in Miami for my corneal fellowship at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, I earnestly resumed my dance hobby.
At a dance party following my interviews at Bascom Palmer, I met a couple named Misha Bartnovsky and June Rudolph, who were both in their late fifties. Misha was a tall, elegant Jewish gentleman who was a fellow scientist. His wife, June, was a beautiful Japanese-American lady with a deep appreciation of art. We hit it off immediately; they invited me to join their table, and we danced and talked throughout the night. I visited them the next evening at their home in Delray Beach, and it became the start of a lifelong friendship. I was drawn to their joviality and love of life, and their cultural values resonated with my own emphasis on family and education.
During my year in Miami, I spent many weekends visiting Misha and June’s home, where we would enjoy dancing, laughing and talking. My parents and brother were still in Boston, so I didn’t know anyone else in town. Since my real parents were more than fifteen hundred miles away, Misha and June became my surrogate father and mother. Bascom Palmer’s hospital cafeteria offered less than palatable meals, so I often went to June and Misha’s house to enjoy delectable Japanese and American cooking. Misha was a master engineer and helped keep my used car running throughout my fellowship. We often took dance lessons together and discussed our love of dance. Even after my time in Miami, I went overseas with June and Misha on our annual pilgrimage to the capital of ballroom dancing—Winter Garden in Blackpool, England—home of the Blackpool Ballroom Dance Festival. June and Misha also helped me organize a ballroom dance event at the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s annual meeting. Teaching dance to a group of ophthalmologists, who are not known for the dexterity of their feet, was a fun experience. June and Misha loved me as much as my own parents did, and I loved them too and eventually considered them my godparents.
At the end of my cornea fellowship in early 1997, ballroom dancing actually played a key role in my decision to accept the position as founding director of the Vanderbilt Laser Sight Center in Nashville. Dr. Harry Jacobson was the newly appointed vice chancellor for health affairs at the university. After my interview with him, he asked me, “Ming, what can we do to attract you to Vanderbilt?”
During my job search, his was the only laser eye surgery center at which I had been offered such a prestigious directorship, so I was already leaning toward accepting it. But our conversation that followed soon sealed the deal.
“I’m a ballroom dancer,” I said. “Does Nashville have nice places to dance? Where can I go dancing tonight? I don’t fly out until tomorrow morning.”
As it turned out, Dr. Jacobson was also a ballroom dance enthusiast himself. He pulled out a pen and a piece of scrap paper and drew me a map to a studio in Belle Meade. I had a wonderful time dancing that evening, which made the decision to commit to the job at Vanderbilt even easier.
Ballroom dancing has
served an even bigger purpose in my medical career since then. It has taught me how to better connect with my patients. Like the pre-lead—which requires sensitivity, awareness, and communication with your dance partner and try to make a joint decision together—these unique qualities, which I learned through ballroom dancing—have brought me closer to my patients and have allowed me to listen to them more and pay more attention to their needs. When insurance company restrictions and the costs involved with modern technology create barriers between doctors and their patients, this sensitivity allows me to overcome such barriers by listening to, caring for, and more fully connecting with my patients.
Before I perform an eye surgery, I always pray with my patients. Our prayer invites God into our team to lead us from the beginning of the journey, rather than asking Him for help only when we get into trouble. Praying also allows me to pause, slow down, focus, and emotionally connect with my patients before we begin. I learned much of that process from honing my partnership skills in ballroom dancing.
I continued dancing as soon as I was settled in Nashville. My teacher and partner, Shalene Archer, is a former U.S. professional ballroom champion, and I have taken lessons from her nearly every week since then. We have competed in competitions throughout the country in the Pro/Am division, which showcases professional-amateur pairs (she’s the professional; I’m the amateur). Our dance career reached its peak in November of 2007 when we won fourth place in the U.S. Pro/Am International Ten-Dance Championships at the Ohio Star Ball in Columbus, Ohio. Years earlier, that same competition was the one I had invited Gwen to, and the last event we attended together before her final goodbye at the Columbus airport.
* * *
When the Wang Foundation for Sight Restoration was created in 2003, our founding board of directors included Gene Angle, a banker who served as board treasurer; Charles Grummon, a financial consultant; Mary Beth Thomas, an attorney who served as secretary; and Shirley Zeitlin, a real estate executive. Not long after we treated our foundation’s first patient, Joel Case, we realized that we needed more board members, more awareness of our mission, and most of all, more funding to help cover the costs beyond physician fees. So we decided to host an annual fundraising event. We just needed to come up with a great theme.