A Keen Eye And Sharp Wit Shaped His-Story
The past 60 years have revolutionized medicine. But some things
- such as the commitment physicians feel toward their patients -
never change.
Chat with William Gambill, MD, '39, and you may feel you've had
a short course in medical history. A delightful storyteller, Dr.
Gambill interweaves his personal story with that of the practice
of medicine over more than half a century
He recalls when medical school was a two-year program. When the
practitioner's pharmacopea did not include penicillin, cortisone
or diuretics. And when syphilis was treated with months of mercury
injections. "They used to say, spend a night with Venus and
a year with Mercury," Dr. Gambill chuckles.
He also remembers when medical costs were lower, much lower. The
hospital bill for his first child, born at the old City Hospital
(now Wishard Health Services), was $13. He also remembers when his
medical skills were put to the test in World War II.
As one of 150 doctors, dentists and nurses drafted from the IU
Medical Center to serve abroad with the 32nd General Hospital Medical
Corps, Dr. Gambill was part of the only American Army medical unit
to set up a general hospital on German soil following the D-Day
invasion. "Those were trying times, but I wouldn't trade the
experiences for a million dollars," says Dr. Gambill, adding,
"and, I wouldn't do it again for a million dollars."
His first child Judy was born the day he received his orders for
deployment. He left two weeks later and returned home after V-J
Day (Victory in Japan, Sept. 5) when Judy was two-and-a-half years
old. The retelling of those two-plus years still elicits deep emotion.
The 32nd General, named in honor of a World War I medical unit
also organized at the IU Medical Center, was initially stationed
in England, but after D-Day (June 6, 1944) was sent to France via
Omaha Beach and, by a circuitous route into Germany where it established
a general hospital at Aachen.
Dr. Gambill peppers his stories with the names of battles and European
cities. The 32nd General was in La Haye du Puits when Patton's Third
Army came through before breaking through at LeMans. "We went
from La Haye du Puits Nov 21 and ended up at Liege, Belgium, on
Nov. 23 where we stayed until Feb. 1, 1945. You heard about the
Battle of the Bulge- That was just about eight miles from us."
1 During the Battle of Roer River, casualties sent to the 32nd General's
hospital made for one of its busiest times. "We admitted and
treated 1,800 soldiers in one 24-hour period," he says.
Toward the end of the war, while in Liege, Dr. Gambill was on "detached
service" at a place called the Citadel. "It was an old
fort on top of a big hill and I was there taking care of a ward
full of German POWs, all of whom had frostbite. Many were double,
triple or quadruple amputees," he recalls emotionally "This
frostbite was a terrible thing. This was the worst detached service
I had because I sat there all night long at a desk on a dais at
the end of the ward listening to the buzz bombs fly over and looking
at the POWs with their feet elevated, all black from frostbite."
Other, happier, stories recall American ingenuity It has been said
that an army travels on its stomach, but Dr. Gambill counters that,
at least in some cases, it traveled on alcohol.
"We were in Normandy where they made calvados, which is nothing
but distilled cider. They let these big kegs full of cider sit out
in the winter. The alcohol would come to the top and the rest would
freeze so it could be decanted, and that was calvados. This was
a time when gasoline was in short supply so these soldiers adapted
their jeeps so they would run on calvados. You could drink it or
put it in your jeep."
As he mentions various members of the 32nd General, it sounds like
a Who's Who from the rolls of IU Medical Center in the 1940s - Drs.
Cyrus J. Clark, Charles E Thompson, Glenn Pell, Donald E. Wood,
Fred Cheney, Carl Culbertson and Brandt Steele.
In late 1945, Dr. Gambill and his fellow medical officers returned
to Indianapolis to resume their normal lives. Dr. Gambill built
a successful practice as an internist at Methodist Hospital and
a volunteer faculty member at IUSM. In 1993 he was named a clinical
associate professor emeritus of medicine.
Though he closed the doors on his private practice on his 75th
birthday, June 22, 1990, retirement isn't for Bill Gambill. "I
have one patient who continues to retain me as her personal physician.
I also have two other little jobs, one-half day a week each, which
I call `no-brainers.' They get me out of the house and give me something
to do."
Those "little" jobs are conducting examinations at a
blood plasma center, where he takes every opportunity to counsel
the young people he encounters on matters of life and health. If
he shares even a few anecdotes in the process, these youth also
undoubtedly gain a richer sense of history.
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