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CHIP GOLD |
Training for life as a healer began early for Dr. Chip Gold. He was 9 when bulbar polio prevented him from speaking or swallowing for nearly two years.
"I think it really informed his becoming a physician who would be dedicated to making people well in the full sense of that term," Dr. Philip W. Gold said of his older brother. "He was devoted to his patients personally, as well as clinically, and he would push things to the limit and never give up."
Pushing the envelope sometimes meant taking a treatment designed for one ailment and using it to address another, or approaching a cardiac affliction in ways other physicians had never imagined. A cardiologist admired by colleagues for his bottomless reserves of energy and compassion, Dr. Gold died Saturday in Massachusetts General Hospital, where he had headed the cardiac catheterization laboratory.
Confident that other physicians could be as creative as he had been in his career, Dr. Gold did not give up hope while he was being treated for leukemia, his brother said, and was still optimistic when he died at 67.
"He was extraordinarily upbeat because he believed you can make good things happen," said his brother, a psychiatrist in Bethesda, Md., who is a researcher at the National Institutes of Health.
Herman Kalman Gold, who grew up in Newport News, Va., chose to adopt a youthful nickname when he attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va.
"His roommate said: 'Herman, you've got to change your name. It's going to haunt you here,' " his brother said. "Since he had just arrived at college, he thought the timing was right."
Dr. Gold, who was known as Chip from then on, graduated from William and Mary and Duke University School of Medicine. A cardiology fellowship brought him to Mass. General, but the specialty beckoned for reasons beyond the intellectual challenge, because his father had suffered from heart disease.
"Although he was an objective and really clear-thinking physician, a lot of personal decisions and career decisions were formed by close relationships or by feelings he had for other people," his brother said. "They weren't separable for him as they are for some other people. He would follow his heart."
Inspired by that deep connection to patients, Dr. Gold looked for solutions where others saw barriers. Among his many contributions, Dr. Gold's family said, was realizing that acute heart failure could be treated with nitroglycerin at a time when many in the medical community thought the practice would be too dangerous.
"He ultimately ended up saving our father with IV nitroglycerin," his brother said. "He really took great care of both our parents, and I think extended their lives considerably. I think he took care of all his patients as if they were his parents or relatives."
Dr. Gold also supervised clinical studies that used the plasminogen, a proenzyme, as an activating factor to dissolve clots immediately after a heart attack, his family said. And he conducted studies in which antibodies were administered to platelets that are essential to block the formation of clots, his brother said, laying the groundwork for treatment still used to control coronary thrombosis.
While working at Mass. General, Dr. Gold met Dr. Barbara J. Nath, a gastroenterologist. They married 30 years ago and had two children, Lisa and Jonathan, who both live in Brookline.
As with his professional life, Dr. Gold's personal life was informed by his childhood brush with a severe type of polio, his brother said.
"When function returned, he got back into life and really embraced it," Philip Gold said. "I think, though, he never took anything for granted after that."
Devoted to his wife, children, and patients, "he was unconditional in his giving, and it was natural," his brother said. "It was never a chore or a duty, just a natural expression of the person he had become."
Part of Dr. Gold's duties included training the young doctors who would follow him into cardiology. His brother provided a copy of a tribute from a former student who said he knew Dr. Gold "as a friend, mentor, and a physician."
When Dr. Gold believed in his proteges, the former student wrote, he treated them with respect "even though his depth of experience was so much greater."
Whether guiding students as a mentor, helping them make medical decisions that affected their own lives, or arranging treatment for their close relatives, Dr. Gold was always available, the former student wrote.
Indeed, his brother said, Dr. Gold was often entrusted to treat the siblings and parents of his colleagues.
"He was the kind of person, I think, who you would send your closest friend or relative to, or your most difficult patient," his brother said.
A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. today at Temple Emeth in Chestnut Hill. Burial will be in Temple Emeth Memorial Park in West Roxbury.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
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