July 22, 2011
MEDICAL UNIVERSITY of SOUTH CAROLINA
Vol. 29, No. 47
Doctor wields Woody Allen flair InsIde EmployEE REmEmbEREd
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At-risk child advocate Marvin Brown dies July 9 in an automobile accident.
ComEdy CEnTRal
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Dr. Frank Brescia enjoys a moment with wife, Jane, and their dogs, Charlie and Max, on their back porch. By dawn Brazell Public Relations
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ou could say MUSC has its own Woody Allen now that Dr. Frank Brescia is back. With the same cynical, dry wit and penchant for a philosophic take on life, the men share uncanny similarities. Brescia, M.D., just comes packaged in a medical version in his roles as oncologist and teacher. Brescia returned to MUSC in April of this year after a short stint in private practice. He left MUSC in 2007 after his wife had breast cancer and he suffered a heart attack, thinking he might need a change of pace.
FRANK BRESCIA
& Personal
Up ClosE
What it allowed him to see is how much he values the camaraderie and intellectual stimulation of an academic medical institution. Thrilled to be back, he will begin seeing patients in the fall. “What I found was that private practice becomes more about billable hours,” he said,
in typical Brescia-style. “You have to wake up in the morning in this kind of a practice and say, ‘This is fun! I want to get up in the morning and work.’” No one knows that better than this native New Yorker who sees critically ill patients all the time. Colleagues note that he brings his extensive training in supportive and palliative care in a humorous way that helps many patients get a new lease of life. Dean Schuyler, M.D., a psychiatrist who worked with Brescia, recalls Brescia knocking on a door and telling a patient ‘if you’re going to complain about something, I’m not coming in there.’” See Doctor on page 8
“An Evening with Stephen Colbert” raises money for the Dr. James W. Colbert Endowed Chair. 4 Currents 5
Meet Kelly
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Classifieds
T h E C aTa ly s T onlinE http://www. musc.edu/ catalyst