VOLUME 36, ISSUE 2

Amy P. Woods, MD

Medical Director, Parkland Pre-Anesthesia Evaluation Clinic
Associate Professor of Anesthesiology
Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Management
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Dallas, TX

On the Shoulders of Giants: Legends of Texas Anesthesiology- M.T. ``Pepper`` Jenkins, MD

Marion T. Jenkins, better known as “Pepper,” was born in 1917 in Hughes, Texas. The son of a country doctor, he was an excellent student and a strong leader from an early age: he attended Hughes High School, where he served as class president and was the valedictorian of his graduating class. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Texas before pursuing a medical degree from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

During his medical studies, Pepper completed a rotating internship at the University of Kansas, where he met and fell in love with a student nurse, Elizabeth (Betty) Jean Weaver, whom he later married on April 22, 1942. They would eventually have three children together: Gregory, Philip, and Christine.

Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Pepper was commissioned as a naval officer, serving on the USS Chandeleur in the South Pacific. Before the war, he had planned to complete residency training in internal medicine, but during his service he cultivated an interest in surgery and anesthesia. Upon his discharge from the Navy in 1946, he decided to change course and took a position at Parkland Hospital to train as a surgeon.

Arriving in Dallas, Pepper and Betty moved into the guest home of a prominent Dallas woman, Mrs. Grace Milam. They became very close with the Milam family, particularly with Mrs. Milam’s daughter, Margaret, and as a result of this relationship, Margaret Milam McDermott came to know and love Parkland Hospital. She ultimately became one of the medical center’s greatest financial supporters.

In 1947, seeing an opportunity to improve patient care, and at the insistence of Parkland surgeons Dr. Carl Moyer and Dr. Lee Hudson, Pepper made the move to Boston to learn the practice of anesthesia at the Massachusetts General Hospital, which had just celebrated the 100th anniversary of Ether Day.

When Pepper returned to Parkland in 1948, he established an Anesthesiology division at Parkland Hospital under the Department of Surgery. His first order of business was to create a proper post-anesthesia recovery room which debuted in January 1949—at the time the only formal recovery room west of the Mississippi River.

Shortly thereafter, Pepper published a landmark article on fluid resuscitation, called, “Congestive Atelectasis: A Complication of the Intravenous Infusion of Fluids,” which revolutionized the way physicians thought about the administration of fluid to trauma and burn victims and made balanced salt solutions a mainstay of fluid resuscitation.

In 1955, Pepper’s Division of Anesthesiology became its own department at UT Southwestern, and naturally, Pepper was chosen as Chairman. He would serve in that position for the next 26 years. As his successor, Dr. A.H. “Buddy” Giesecke once said, “[Pepper believed] you take care of the patients first, teach the residents and students second, and do research with whatever you have left.” Pepper had the dynamic personality and the unrelenting dedication necessary to create a world-class reputation for his department. With this mentality, he recruited many outstanding physicians to join the faculty at Parkland and invited our field’s best and brightest to visit and teach.

Fondly recollected, “Pepper’s guest book read like a roll call of the world’s best-known anesthesiologists.”

On November 22, 1963, Pepper Jenkins inadvertently became famous when he was called to help care for President John F. Kennedy in the Emergency Department after he had been shot riding in his motorcade through downtown Dallas. As one of the few physicians involved in the attempts to resuscitate the President, Pepper’s life was inevitably changed—at times, he feared that, despite his many accomplishments, this might become his only legacy. Nevertheless, he contributed meaningfully to the discussion surrounding the President’s assassination, and although he did not believe in the many popularized conspiracy theories, thirty years later he was hired by Oliver Stone to consult on the movie JFK. Here he also made his Hollywood acting debut, playing himself in the film’s Emergency Room scene.

Pepper recognized the tremendous value in professional societies and was a committed member on the local, state and national levels throughout his career. He participated on and chaired countless committees, councils and boards, and ascended to leadership positions in nearly every organization with which he was involved. He served as both President of the Texas Society of Anesthesiologists (1962-63) and of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (1972).

Pepper received many impressive accolades, including the Ashbel Smith Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (1974), the Texas Society of Anesthesiologists Founders Award (1987), and the Dallas County Medical Society Max Cole Leadership Award (1990). In 1978, he was presented with the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Distinguished Service Award, one of the highest honors granted in our profession. He was invited to speak as the Rovenstine lecturer at the ASA Annual Meeting in 1980, another tremendous commendation. During his talk, he prophetically admonished the implementation of mandatory continuing education, nationalized health care, and exploitive practices of anesthesiologists. Pepper was a man with a keen vision and a remarkable passion for our specialty.

In 1988, the American Medical Association recognized Pepper for his lifetime of achievements in the field of medicine with the AMA Distinguished Service Award. Pepper was the first anesthesiologist in history to receive this award. In the two decades that have followed, only one other anesthesiologist—notably also from Texas—has been honored with this distinction.

To again quote Buddy Giesecke, “we all recognize that the work of these councils, committees, and boards is important, and we are happy that somebody is willing to sacrifice the time and effort required to keep the massive system of medical education in motion. Pepper made that sacrifice and most of us don’t even realize that every day we enjoy the benefits of his vision of the future, his wisdom, and his skillful negotiations.”

After a four year battle with gastric carcinoma, Pepper died at home on November 21, 1994, leaving behind a great legacy at UT Southwestern and in our specialty at large.

Sources

  1. Giesecke, AH. Anesthesiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas: The First Fifty Years. Dallas: The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, 2001.
  2. Woods, A and Ogunnaike, B. “An Interview with Adolph “Buddy” Giesecke, Jr., M.D.” Bulletin of Anesthesia History, 2013 (1): 14-17.