6.20.2024 | Forbes
By Steve Brozak
Dr. Anthony Fauci has been the most significant figure in healthcare for almost 40 years. But healthcare, and especially public health, is very often not science but a matter of trust. And today most will agree that during the pandemic, Americans were visited by ever-changing medical guidance that tested that trust. This is the dilemma that Fauci’s memoir, On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service, tackles. But it raises two questions: What is Fauci’s intention in writing this book, and how much of it is focused on the defense of his legacy?
Fauci starts his book by recounting his youth in a 1940s working-class Brooklyn neighborhood with all the expected sports references of the era. He noted his 98.8 elementary school grade point average followed by a series of challenges he conquered throughout his life. The only constraint he couldn’t outgrow was his 5-foot-7 height, which caused him to pivot from a self-declared sports mindset into medicine. His entry into healthcare is appropriately titled the chapter “Becoming Dr. Fauci,” which chronicles his No. 1 status in medical school even as his mother died from an aggressive cancer during his final year of studies.
What emerges from these memories of his early years is his message to us: I have succeeded in everything I attempt, and that is who I am. It begs the question, how do you define success, when you can no longer use grade point averages or class standings? The simplistic answers seem to be visibility, funding and authority.
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