Reflections from the Editor

JULIA ST. PETERY, M.D. – A LIFE DEDICATED TO HELPING CHILDREN

By Frank Skilling, M.D. No act of kindness is ever wasted, or so we have been taught. At times we doubt this is true. Julia St. Petery, M.D. never worried about wasting kindness: it was built into her nature. It was not a sign of weakness; kindness was her strength.

Judy, as she was always known, was born in Dothan, Alabama in 1943. She was adopted as a newborn by Elizabeth and Alton Revell, a childless couple from Tallahassee. She never knew her birth parents, nor did she care about discovering who they were. When she was asked by children how her parents found her, she said that they went to Moon’s Jewelry Store and picked her out of the display case. Judy always had a tender spot in her heart for adopted or abandoned children, and this feeling propelled her into medicine and, eventually, pediatrics.

At the age of ten she was found to have a heart murmur, probably by George Palmer, M.D., the first board-certified pediatrician in Leon County. Dr. Palmer had trained at Johns Hopkins University (JHU), and he was familiar with its program for surgical correction of congenital heart disease that was pioneered there by Alfred Blaylock, M.D. Judy was referred to Helen Taussig, M.D., a pioneer in the treatment of children with cardiac conditions, and later the first female president of the American Medical Association. After the diagnosis of congenital coarctation of the aorta was made, Judy underwent corrective surgery at JHU. Had she been born ten years earlier, she probably would have died in childhood from the coarctation. For many years afterwards, Judy’s mother drove her to Jacksonville where they caught the train to Baltimore for her follow up appointments at JHU.

Judy attended public schools in Tallahassee and graduated from Leon High School in 1961. She spent her first college year at FSU but transferred to the University of Florida for the next three. She graduated in 1965 with a degree in biology before matriculating into the medical school at UF. During her first week in medical school, she was assigned to dissect a human cadaver. Because the assignments were alphabetical, she was placed next to Louis St. Petery, and they soon fell in love. After dating for two years, they were married at Blessed Sacrament Church in Tallahassee between their second and third years in medical school. Judy had been raised in the Methodist Church, but she converted to Catholicism for Louis’s sake. She later said that the main motivation for conversion was that the Catholic Church allowed alcohol. As a tradeoff for her conversion, Louis agreed to move to Tallahassee to practice pediatrics.

They both completed residencies in pediatrics at UF, and Louis entered a pediatric cardiology fellowship while Judy performed outreach supervision for the rural family medicine clinics staffed by UF. During their residencies in Gainesville, they had three children: Elizabeth, Leigh and Louis. The State of Florida was just developing Children’s Medical Services (CMS), and they took turns running the newly established bureau in Tallahassee under the tutelage of Gerold Schiebler, M.D. She served as the statewide director of CMS during her first year as a pediatrician in Tallahassee in 1974.

Judy and Louis practiced together in Tallahassee for forty years. Judy was the generalist pediatrician, and Louis the cardiology consultant for North Florida. He also helped with night coverage of the emergency department, the most challenging part of any practice. It was rare to see them apart during those years. Judy had an immediate rapport with children. Small in stature, she could look at them eye to eye on the exam table. She was always friendly, but she was firm and serious at the same time. Her no-nonsense attitude made her an attraction for parents and children, and the families she cared for still remember her insight and compassion.

After my wife Karen and I moved to Tallahassee in 1978 our daughter Sara Kathryn was born at TMH and immediately became a patient of Dr. Judy. When she was a toddler, Sara developed acute epiglottitis, an often-fatal condition. Because my wife, a pediatric nurse, was so astonished at the diagnosis, Louis drove them both to the hospital where Judy admitted her immediately to the Pediatric ICU. She also was present at the C-section birth of our youngest child John, and, along with Louis, became his godparent. John grew up with the feeling that he could talk with her about anything. He wanted her to continue being his doctor even as he entered college. She had to explain to him that at age eighteen, he needed to find a physician who treated adults.

When I was a young physician in Tallahassee, I was placed on the medical records committee at TMH. In 1980 Judy was the chair, and we met monthly to review hospital records. I vividly remember one morning when the call went out over the PA system for any pediatrician to report to the operating room for an emergency C-section. Judy quietly left to assist at the birth of an infant whose mother had metastatic breast cancer and had suffered a seizure. With Judy’s help, the baby pulled through, although his mother died a few weeks later.

With her quiet Southern mannerisms, she was always polite and attentive, but she could not be bullied, especially by the older physicians. For many years’ medicine had been a “boys’ club,” and certain doctors were used to getting their own way. Judy never had trouble standing up to them, and she served as the first female chief of the medical staff at TMH. For many years it was an unwritten rule that there was a permanent seat on the medical executive committee for a pediatrician. It was usually Judy St. Petery.

As a consultant physician for Children’s Medical Services and Medicaid, I saw many children over my forty-two-year career as an ophthalmologist in Tallahassee. Judy often called me to ask my advice or refer a child. She never “abused” her consultants. Many times, she’d call me to see if I could squeeze in a patient who had come from out of town. She didn’t want to inconvenience the family by having them make two trips for a condition I might be able to handle that day. Kids and their families always came first with her. In 2008, the Capital Medical Society recognized Judy and Louis as the outstanding physicians of the year in Leon County. It was a shared honor that is unlikely ever to be repeated. Their beaming children and grandchildren were in attendance, and many of the administrative staff from CMS and the Tallahassee Pediatric Foundation were also there.

As advocates for children, Louis and Judy were plaintiffs with the Florida Pediatrics Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics in a suit against the Florida Medicaid program for failing to provide adequate compensation for physicians who cared for children in our state. Although it dragged on for many years, physicians are now compensated at Medicare rates when caring for children. Even after retiring from private pediatric practice, Judy continued as the regional director for the Medical Foster Care Program of Florida.

Unfortunately, after doing well for so many years with her heart condition, she developed calcification of the aortic valve, which necessitated replacement surgery. The operation was successful, but a year later she had surgery on the mitral valve. She developed progressive congestive heart failure, which was not relieved by medical therapy. She died peacefully at home in her sleep next to Louis. Characteristically of Judy, she had spent the previous day reviewing medical foster care placements for Children’s Medical Services.

Her many contributions to our community will continue to be honored through the establishment of The Julia Revell St. Petery, M.D. Scholarship in Pediatrics Endowment. The Endowment will provide scholarships to 4th-year FSU College of Medicine students who plan to practice pediatrics upon completion of their residency programs.

To support The Julia Revell St. Petery, M.D. Scholarship in Pediatrics Endowment, visit https://capmed.org/donate/ or mail a check to the Capital Medical Society Foundation, 1204 Miccosukee Road, Tallahassee, FL 32308.

Please write St. Petery Endowment on the memo line of your check.