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The Peter Bent Brigham building holds many memories for Don Bienfang, MD, who began his career there nearly five decades ago.
When Don Bienfang, MD, walked into the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital for the first time in 1960 as a medical student, he could not have envisioned what was in store for the next five decades.
Now, as he prepares to mark 50 years since that summer, Bienfang fondly reflects on the people and places that shaped his life and career.
“I hold so many treasured memories in this place,” said Bienfang, now chief of Neuro-ophthalmology. “I asked my mother in-law for my wife’s hand in marriage just right outside the Peter Bent Rotunda. Years ago, there used to be a gift shop there, and that’s where my mother in-law worked.”
That’s just one of the many memories he recalls of his time at the hospital, which started during his first year at Harvard Medical School when he was hired as a blood bank technologist at the hospital. A year later, he would become the hospital’s first respiratory therapist. Both jobs were instrumental in getting him acclimated to the area and patient care, he said.
So too was the old cafeteria near the 15 Francis St. lobby entrance. “That was the place where doctors got together, talked and shared stories,” he said. “Most importantly, that’s where young doctors went to listen.”
Also vivid in his mind are the medical rounds at the former medical wards where patient beds were divided by cloth curtains. Some wards even had access to an outside patio where patients were wheeled out to catch some fresh air.
Bienfang, who now cares for patients diagnosed with eye diseases, said he was fortunate to have the opportunity to learn from icons in medicine, such as Leroy Vandam, MD, the first HMS professor of Anesthesia at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Francis Moore, MD, a pioneer in organ transplantation, and many others.
“They made a profound impact on the way we learned,” he said. “They both had strong personalities, but what I admired most about them was the clear vision of the future of surgery.”
Although Bienfang spent a few years away from BWH for his internship, fellowship and residency starting in 1965, he returned in 1972 and has been here ever since.
“I consider myself lucky,” he said. “I’ve been fortunate enough to see the hospital grow into the world-renowned institution that it is today.”