At the beginning of World War II, my mother and I returned to Richmond while my father commanded the Fifth Evacuation Hospital of the First Army that landed shortly after D-Day on Omaha Beach in Normandy. During this time, in Richmond, I was confirmed at the Church of the Epiphany by the Rev. Rufus J. Womble, who touched my shoulder one day 15 years later while I was strolling outside the buildings at the Medical College of Virginia. He stated: “You don't think you are really providing a cure for these patients, do you?” I sheepishly responded that it was God who was the true healer. Rev. Womble subsequently became leader of the Order of St. Luke of the Episcopal Church, whose major mission has been to promote healing through Christianity. We again joined forces in the late 80s as he became a patient at the Virginia Heart Institute and, through his teaching, we created conferences to educate patients and physicians in regard to spiritualism in the management of medical illnesses. It was at this time that I became acquainted with the Rev. Stanley Baird, an Episcopal minister from Dublin, Ireland, who worked closely with Rev. Womble in Christian healing. I bring this out, since an acquaintance of Rev. Baird was Dr. J. Frank Pantridge of Belfast, Northern Ireland, who was the pioneer of portable defibrillators and the developer of the mobile coronary care system in Belfast in 1965.

At the end of World War II and my father’s rehabilitation at McGuire’s Army Hospital for which he was hospitalized for rehabilitative management of an injury that occurred during the Battle of the Bulge, I matriculated in 1949 as a freshman in the University of Richmond. It was at this time that I attended St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, located a short distance from the University of Richmond campus and became aware of the major contributions of the Rev. Reno S. Harp and Mr. Granville Munson (the rector and director of music respectively). Dr. Harp delivered outstanding sermons that combined current events, art, literature and history with Christian teachings that created a very potent message—particularly to an undergraduate teenage student such as myself. In addition, Granville Munson created masterful accomplishments with the choir and under his astute guidance blended the total experience at St. Stephen’s Church and provided a deep and broad spiritual foundation that could be applied to the practice of medicine in the distant future. The subsequent clergy at St. Stephen’s have also been outstanding in this regard, providing enthusiastic and intellectual activity during formal teachings. Major contributions have been provided by the music and choral activities. Interestingly enough, the present rector at St. Stephen’s Church, the Rev. Thom Blair, attended one of my early cardiac catheterizations at the Virginia Heart Institute approximately 25 years ago, at which time, a mother of a U.S. senator from the Commonwealth of Virginia underwent this procedure. At that time, I wondered why support from the clergy was necessary, but if you contrast a walk-in/walk-out procedure with the then current standard of 3 – 5 days in the hospital due to the seriousness of the procedure, one can understand the skeptical behavior of physicians as well as other groups in regard to the appropriateness of what I was trying to accomplish.