Dedicated ENT doctor writes about his journey and life lessons in new book
For years, Robert E. Pickard has worked as a steadfast doctor helping people hear. He has helped so many in other ways, as well.
His ear, nose and throat medical practice was a staple doctor's office in South Miami for over 50 years, and he still serves as a hearing consultant.
Dr. Pickard helped my family through correct diagnosis and treatment, as well as calming reassurance, for three generations.
Now, he has written about his life of service in 'My Lessons Learned, by Robert E. Pickard, MD, Colonel, Artist, My Life and Times.'
'This book tells a story of how I learned my lessons throughout my life. Dating back to when I was a child during World War II and continuing as I grow and go through life's journey,' Pickard said.
'Many lessons I've learned along the way while observing and living through major world events, and personal triumphs and tragedies.'
Pickard, 84, lived as a soldier during Vietnam, as a medical ENT physician, and as an artist.
His incredibly detailed lithographic art, often of the surgical theater, greeted everyone who stepped through his office doors. He said he continues to create through painting, sketching, etching, acrylic on canvas, sculptures and lithographic prints.
'I have lived my life as a life of service, for example creating the Hearing Research Institute, a 501c3 non-profit organization, which helps pay for hearing aids and listening devices for children and people of all ages,' Pickard said.
He also authored the state bill that mandates that all newborn babies have their hearing tested immediately after birth prior to leaving the hospital. This ensures that no child is misdiagnosed and enables early intervention should a hearing issue exist, he said.
I started writing about Dr. Pickard's work in this column almost every December when he and his family and friends donated toys and games to hospitalized children during the holidays. They spread cheer at Jackson Memorial Hospital and Miami Children's Hospital, now Nicklaus Children's Hospital.
'I have had the fortune of having a beautiful family and raising four amazing daughters. I have met many friends along the way and wanted to share some of my life stories in my autobiography,' he said.
'My very candid depiction of my life and its lessons will show readers how I developed my wit and wisdom. Some lessons were learned as a child, some decades later as an adult. I navigate my lessons through this story, as I take you on the adventure called 'my life.''
And what a life it is.
Pickard's stories of highs and lows, his lifelong relationships and personal accounts of helping others are inspiring.
'My hope is that as you read this book you learn from lessons I've learned, because the biggest lesson of all is that we never really stop learning.'
You can read more about his life and 'My Lessons Learned, by Robert E. Pickard, MD, Colonel, Artist, My Life and Times' at robertpickard.com/about-the-book/ The book and audiobook can be purchased on the link.
Write to ChristinaMMayo@gmail.com with news for this column.
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Miami Herald
21 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Dedicated ENT doctor writes about his journey and life lessons in new book
For years, Robert E. Pickard has worked as a steadfast doctor helping people hear. He has helped so many in other ways, as well. His ear, nose and throat medical practice was a staple doctor's office in South Miami for over 50 years, and he still serves as a hearing consultant. Dr. Pickard helped my family through correct diagnosis and treatment, as well as calming reassurance, for three generations. Now, he has written about his life of service in 'My Lessons Learned, by Robert E. Pickard, MD, Colonel, Artist, My Life and Times.' 'This book tells a story of how I learned my lessons throughout my life. Dating back to when I was a child during World War II and continuing as I grow and go through life's journey,' Pickard said. 'Many lessons I've learned along the way while observing and living through major world events, and personal triumphs and tragedies.' Pickard, 84, lived as a soldier during Vietnam, as a medical ENT physician, and as an artist. His incredibly detailed lithographic art, often of the surgical theater, greeted everyone who stepped through his office doors. He said he continues to create through painting, sketching, etching, acrylic on canvas, sculptures and lithographic prints. 'I have lived my life as a life of service, for example creating the Hearing Research Institute, a 501c3 non-profit organization, which helps pay for hearing aids and listening devices for children and people of all ages,' Pickard said. He also authored the state bill that mandates that all newborn babies have their hearing tested immediately after birth prior to leaving the hospital. This ensures that no child is misdiagnosed and enables early intervention should a hearing issue exist, he said. I started writing about Dr. Pickard's work in this column almost every December when he and his family and friends donated toys and games to hospitalized children during the holidays. They spread cheer at Jackson Memorial Hospital and Miami Children's Hospital, now Nicklaus Children's Hospital. 'I have had the fortune of having a beautiful family and raising four amazing daughters. I have met many friends along the way and wanted to share some of my life stories in my autobiography,' he said. 'My very candid depiction of my life and its lessons will show readers how I developed my wit and wisdom. Some lessons were learned as a child, some decades later as an adult. I navigate my lessons through this story, as I take you on the adventure called 'my life.'' And what a life it is. Pickard's stories of highs and lows, his lifelong relationships and personal accounts of helping others are inspiring. 'My hope is that as you read this book you learn from lessons I've learned, because the biggest lesson of all is that we never really stop learning.' You can read more about his life and 'My Lessons Learned, by Robert E. Pickard, MD, Colonel, Artist, My Life and Times' at The book and audiobook can be purchased on the link. Write to ChristinaMMayo@ with news for this column.
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David Murdock, billionaire king of fruit and vegatables, dies at 102
In his astonishing rags-to-riches life, it seemed there was little David Murdock could not do by sheer determination. The billionaire financier who transformed Dole into the world's largest producer of fruits and vegetables was a dyslexic high school dropout who made and lost a fortune by the time he was 40. He then moved to California to start again, becoming a mainstay on lists of the richest Americans. One of the few self-set goals that Murdock failed to meet was his plan to celebrate his 125th birthday. Murdock, who in his later years became a messianic promoter of exercise and healthful eating for longevity, died Monday at what he no doubt would have considered the premature age of 102, according to William Goldfield, a spokesperson for Dole Food Co., which Murdock led from 1985 to 2021. Forbes estimated his net worth at $3.7 billion at the time of his death. He was a longtime resident of Lake Sherwood in Ventura County. Well into his 80s, Murdock lifted weights several times a week, walked on a treadmill daily and drank smoothies made of 20 different kinds of fruit and vegetables including pulverized banana peels. He whipped them up himself in a Jack LaLanne juicer. His health proselytizing was both public and private. He spent more than $500 million of his fortune on a nutrition research institute in Kannapolis, N.C., as well as founding the California Health and Longevity Institute, a medical spa in Westlake Village ('to teach people to eat because they eat wrong'). He also wasn't shy about scolding dining companions who committed such sins as buttering their bread or not eating all their vegetables. 'People are afraid to have dinner with him,' his friend and physician Rolland Dickson told the Wall Street Journal in 2006. Murdock's immense wealth and business acumen came about with little formal education or social advantage. He was born David Howard Murdock on April 10, 1923, in Kansas City, Mo., and grew up in the small town of Wayne, Ohio. His father was a traveling salesman. His mother took in laundry and scrubbed floors. She died from cancer when she was 42 and he was 17. He was raised in a household where 'if it wasn't cooked in bacon grease, it didn't taste good," a by-then vegetarian Murdock told The Times in 2006. At school his teachers told him he was stupid, and he believed them. He earned poor grades and dropped out after the ninth grade. No one recognized his dyslexia at the time. He went to work pumping gas and changing oil until he was drafted into the U.S. Army. He ranked the highest on an IQ test out of 1,500 men. During his World War II service, an army buddy shared his love of books and for the rest of his life Murdock never stopped reading. He said that he was lucky to be uneducated because he spent his whole life learning. He consumed everything from 'Think and Grow Rich' by Napoleon Hill to Shakespearean sonnets. When Murdock took over Dole, the first thing he did was to buy a stack of books on fruits and vegetables. 'There is nothing you can't learn reading. If you read the three best books on a subject, you'll know what you need to know,' he said more than once. At age 22, he was out of the service, living in Detroit, broke and jobless. He did his reading at a diner counter. A friend who worked there would give him free sandwiches. But the place was for sale and his meal ticket was about to run out. One evening he struck up a conversation with another diner at the counter. He told the man he was looking for a job and the man, who worked for a loan company, told him he should buy the little greasy spoon. With the man's help, he raised $1,200 and 18 months later, after fixing the place up, sold it for $1,900. Murdock would go on to develop projects around the world and own a string of corporations, but he always kept the single penny and the one nickel that were in his pocket the night his destiny changed at the diner. With $75 of the profit from the sale, he bought a car and headed to Phoenix. For 17 years, he built houses and office buildings, creating a multimillion-dollar enterprise. But the city became overbuilt and the housing boom went bust in the mid-1960s. Murdock had to sell almost everything to pay off his debt. 'I had all my eggs in one basket and didn't even know it,' he told the Wall Street Journal. At 43, he moved to Los Angeles to start over with what he could salvage of his fallen empire. He built homes and offices, but this time also bought companies. He specialized in undervalued corporations that produced basic goods such as bricks or towels. He could be ruthless in closing divisions and factories while in search of profits. Murdock even described himself as having a 'dictatorial streak.' In the early 1980s, he became the largest shareholder in Occidental Petroleum. He then tried to take over the corporation, famously battling with chairman Armand Hammer, who called Murdock a 'barracuda.' In 1984, Occidental paid a 40% premium on Murdock's stock to get him out — he left with a reported $100 million. In 1985, Murdock took over the nearly bankrupt Hawaiian real-estate company Castle & Cooke, which owned Dole, then a pineapple and banana producer, and the Hawaiian island of Lanai. Investors complained Murdock was incommunicative. He seldom gave interviews or detailed reports of his financial plans. 'I don't believe in going back to Wall Street and shooting my mouth off,' he told The Times. He split Castle & Cooke and Dole into separate publicly listed corporations in 1995, then took both private — Castle & Cooke in 2000 and Dole in 2003. Murdock returned Dole to public trading in 2009, then in 2013, at age 90, reacquired it as a private company. He later reached two settlements with former Dole shareholders who claimed he had shortchanged them in that deal. Along the way, he quietly turned Dole into an operation selling food products in countries across the globe. In 2012, Murdock sold his portion of Lanai, 98% of the island, to fellow billionaire and Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison, saying, 'I have learned in life that change is inevitable and can be quite positive when guided in the right direction.' In 2018, Murdock sold a 45% stake in Dole to Dublin, Ireland-based Total Produce Plc. for $300 million. In 2021, Dole returned to the market for its third run as a public company, and Murdock stepped down from its board. There were times when the change he experienced was the result of deep personal loss. 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With President Donald Trump's day one executive order to leave the World Health Organization (WHO)—blaming their COVID-19 response—and the shuttering of USAID, the country is taking steps towards further dividing health efforts across the globe. Here in the U.S., a sudden end to $11.4 billion of covid-related grants is stifling national pandemic preparedness efforts on the local and state levels. And most recently, Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. purged experts from the CDC Advisory Committee, putting lives at risk. Historical lessons demonstrate the need for global health infrastructure that works together, shares knowledge, and remembers that pathogens do not stop at borders. White House's Pandemic Office, Busy With Bird Flu, May Shrink Under Trump One of the greatest global health achievements of all time—smallpox eradication—provides a perfect example of what can be done with independent scientific research and international cooperation. During the Cold War between the U.S. and USSR, decades of tension brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Yet, incredibly, the nations managed to find common ground to support the efforts of smallpox eradication. Indeed, they understood the strategic benefits that came from letting public health practitioners and scientists work outside of political divides. The WHO was founded after World War II in 1948. Its formation marked a move from international health, that focused on nations, to global health, that would serve humanity first. The WHO's first eradication effort was the failed, U.S.-backed, Malaria Eradication Program from 1955 to 1969. The Smallpox Eradication Program, with intensive efforts beginning in 1967, provided a chance for redemption for the U.S. and WHO. For the United States, investing in disease eradication and poverty helped to mitigate growing backlash against the Vietnam War. In June of 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson stated, 'I propose to dedicate this year to finding new techniques for making man's knowledge serve man's welfare.' He called for 1965—the same year he ordered ground troops to Vietnam to stop the spread of communism —to be a year of international cooperation that could bypass the politics of the Cold War. Previously, the USSR did not participate in the U.S. and WHO's first, failed global eradication plan for malaria. But upon rejoining the WHO in 1956, it was the Soviets who made the first call and investment into global eradication of smallpox in 1958. The WHO functioning as a mediator was crucial to allowing the USSR and the U.S. to work together. It allowed both nations to avoid giving credit to each other; rather success went to science itself. President Johnson called this 'a turning point' away from 'man against man' towards 'man against nature.' The limited role of politicians in the program proved to be key to its success. Scientists made decisions and worked together—no matter what country they came from—by focusing on disease and vaccination, not international tensions. The Soviet-initiated program was lead by Donald A. Henderson, a U.S. epidemiologist, who worked alongside the Russians until the last case of smallpox occurred in Somalia on October 26, 1977. During the 20th century, smallpox was responsible for an estimated 300 to 500 million deaths. Smallpox was officially declared eradicated by the WHO in October 1980, and is today still the only human disease to achieve this distinction. Less than a year after the declaration of smallpox eradication, the emergence of another pandemic, the HIV/AIDS crisis, reinforced the importance of science-first cooperation over politically-driven decision making. In June 1981, the first cases of a new unknown disease were reported in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. In short order, gay men were stigmatized and blamed in what would become one of the biggest public health disasters of all time. It took years of grassroots science-based activism to move beyond HIV/AIDS victim-blaming and find medical solutions. The Poster Child for AIDS Obscured as Much About the Crisis as He Revealed Too often, governments across the globe placed blame on the gay community for their 'sins' and did not provide needed support, leaving the sick to suffer and die. The pharmaceutical companies profited from the limited medications they had available and did not pursue sufficient development. The FDA process for new drugs was scheduled to take nine years, at a time when life expectancy after receiving an HIV/AIDS diagnosis was one year. These issues sparked activism, spawning the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) in 1987. ACT UP organizers took science into their own hands and began educating themselves. Members began reading scientific journals religiously, learning the chemistry and epidemiology of drug manufacturing and clinical trials. Members learned how to translate these dense scientific messages to educate the community members on what was—and what was not—being done to help. Because of this work, the FDA changed policies to allow for new treatments to be tested at accelerated rates in times of emergency. ACT UP was able to shift the cultural blame showing that the issue was a result of politics getting in the way of scientific advancements. By 1990, ACT UP influenced the largest federal HIV program to pass Congress, the Ryan White CARE Act. This program was a vital precursor to the 2003 PEPFAR (The U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) global initiative. Both of these histories offer a powerful lesson: global health is national health, and national health is local health. With the recent funding cuts from the U.S. government, the future of global health is going in an unknown direction. And yet, the occurrence of pandemics is expected to increase in frequency due to climate change, mass migration, urbanization, and ecosystem destruction. It has been estimated that there is about a 25% chance we will have another COVID-sized pandemic within the next 10 years. No matter how secure the world makes borders, history shows that it can not protect us from disease if we do not have a strong, interconnected public health infrastructure. Luke Jorgensen is a Master of Public Health student at Purdue University where his epidemiology research examines human migration and infectious disease. Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors. Write to Made by History at madebyhistory@
