Dr. Edward Cohn Retires from Boys Town Ear, Nose & Throat Institute

When the guidance counselors said these are your possibilities medicine was one of them and it seemed to me that that would be sort of a perfect place for me. The first time I talked about Boys Town hospital was in June of nineteen seventy-two with Pat Brookhouser. We had just finished our residences and he was telling me about this opportunity here. The idea that there would be an interface between clinical medicine and research and that would help the future of medicine. Pat and I would meet at national meetings at least once a year and we would talk about things. In about nineteen ninety Pat called me and said you know we're starting to do some of the things that you and I have talked about. He was excited, I was excited and this seemed very opportune and it sort of met my perception of what I should do.

My brother and I would share a room when we grew up and we had a picture of the Boys Town logo in our room. The he ain't heavy, he's my brother. So it always had a sense of a circle, a completed circle for me.

I hesitate to use the word steady Eddy but he was always very even in his temperament very thoughtful in his responses. Older patients loved Ed. He would care for them, he would be the one that would really provide that compassionate care, particularly in the area of dizzy patients that have been really struggling with the problem for many years. Ed was so compassionate, so careful with them and always wanting to help improve their life. The idea that medicine is helping people and the idea that you should try to understand disease process so that you could intervene is something that i was always brought up with. I was privileged to be able to do research while I practiced clinical medicine.

He was always wanting to improve the medicine, the providing of that medical care and so he would interact with the scientists he would be the one asking those questions that would help generate ideas for additional research. Even though I'm not going to be seeing patients, I'm going to have an office and I'm going to be involved in some of these research projects hoping to tie things together. We are going to try and improve the way we treat hearing loss. I would like to see us improve the way we diagnosis Usher syndrome. We very much want Ed to stay around and because of his because of that scientific inquiry and that and those questions you know that's going to continue and we really want to support that because Ed has those questions that he wants to see more answers. I think Boys Town does a great job taking care of patients. I think they have a very good mission and I think they have a great infrastructure to allow those of us treating patients to do so wel and I thank everyone who has contributed to that effort.

I've been able to practice medicine in a way that i think is the proper way to practice medicine. I think recognizing that that the patient is the reason that were here, that our job is to take care of the patient. I think that keeps everything in perspective.