Dr. Charles Hamlin

Some of his epiphanies hit him aboard a freighter in the Atlantic…some came to light on the analyst’s couch. No matter…Charles Hamlin was gaining insight into himself and the world—and how he wanted to contribute to society. And contribute he did…he changed a nation.

Now a retired hand surgeon, in 2001 Dr. Hamlin was honored with the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) Humanitarian Award for providing years of expert care to the Navajo Nation—all at no cost to the patients. For this work Dr. Hamlin was also presented with the Navajo Indian Health Service Directors Award.

Raised in a “stern” New England household, Charles and his brothers were expected to “do something” with their lives—but for awhile they would find their way without paternal guidance. “My father was a neurosurgeon who at one point joined the WWII effort and went to the Pacific for three years. Sometimes when I reflect on my work with the Navajo I get a chill up my spine. When I ‘lost’ my dad to the Pacific, in an eerie way it’s like the Navajo code talkers—whose war contributions were immeasurable—were responsible for bringing him back alive.”

Most college graduates are itching to get on with their lives. The itch that Charles Hamlin felt after completing Yale undergraduate, however, was one that whispered to him, “seek solitude.” “I boarded a freighter for Spain by myself and began to reflect on what it was like to be alone. In nine months of walking the streets of Europe and reading, my thoughts coalesced. From Geneva I phoned the Dean of Freshman at Yale and asked for a job as a freshman counselor, my plan being to take up the sciences and enter a life of medicine. In my time alone I had actually discovered that I quite enjoyed the company of others, and that the best way to be with people was to help them solve important life problems. Perhaps because of my unusual experiences, I was accepted to medical school before my grades even came out. I chose Dartmouth.”

While medical school brought challenges, the most significant obstacle of his young life was in the personal arena. “I married a classmate at Dartmouth, but the marriage didn’t survive. We both tried our best, but ended up on separate paths professionally and personally.”

During this time, my wife, a psychoanalyst, convinced me that I should undergo a full Freudian analysis. I saw the merit in this, and so four times a week for nearly five years I took my motor bike and headed to ‘the couch.’ In fact, this experience was invaluable, and has made me a much more astute physician. In particular, I am able to sense the messages that patients are trying to send me, but are not verbalizing.

“This experience, as well as my time studying the humanities, has given me the ability to form trusting relationships with my patients.”

And the experience in his career that has changed him the most? “It’s a combination of two things. The first is the excellent training I received at Roosevelt Hospital in New York, Hospital for Special Surgery, and Columbia. Additionally, the grounding experience of undergoing psychoanalysis gave me a willingness to accept myself and kept me from being restless or bitter. These two things permitted me to work like hell, enjoy it, and see the richness of life.”

With such a foundation, Dr. Hamlin was well positioned to set about “selling” his thoughts on the necessity of hand clinics. “One of my most significant accomplishments was the establishment of a hand clinic at Craig Hospital in Denver (where they only do spinal cord injury and traumatic injuries). I approached the administration about starting a hand clinic in the late 1970s. While the hospital was somewhat skeptical, they gave the approval, and we built a stellar program. I derived a great deal of satisfaction from working with these patients. So much had been taken away from them…they had lost so much independence that to be able to help them regain some of that was tremendous.”

A trip with a Craig Hospital medical team would lead to the expansion of Dr. Hamlin’s world—and the expansion of life possibilities for the Navajo people. “On occasion, the Craig team went to the Four Corners area to evaluate quadriplegic patients. One look at this high Colorado plateau and something struck me.”

After some convincing of the local people in charge, I started a volunteer hand service there in 1994. We now hold 18 clinics a year, and treat the Navajo Nation (population: 350, 000 people), the Hopi, and the Zuni.

“While these are not complex hand problems the point is that we are solving them. For example, the people cook with wood, something that often leads to a child or adult getting a bad burn on the hand. Traditionally, any sophisticated treatment was unavailable. You might also have situations where patients cut tendons or nerves in the upper extremity, leading to significant functional loss. Because of our clinics, repair or reconstruction leads to a return to full activity.”

In between trips to the Four Corners, Dr. Hamlin was in a thriving group practice in Denver. To keep the staff, the patients, and the practice thriving, he established something rather unheard-of in the world of private practice. “My brother was a professor at Yale, and had just returned (quite refreshed) from a sabbatical. During an office meeting one day I announced that our practice should start a sabbatical program. The idea gained ground, and we established it such that after seven years—and then every five years—a doctor has three months off with financial support. He or she can write poems or visit some mysterious place, etc. The idea is not to produce a body of work (as in academia), but to go refresh oneself. For those who are hesitant to take time off I say, ‘First of all, no one will probably notice that you’re gone. If they do, they won’t miss you…and, you will be just as busy when you return.’ During my sabbaticals my wife and I have traveled to Italy, New Zealand, Australia, East Africa, New Guinea…and we just missed meeting Nelson Mandela in South Africa. I fully support the idea that in a forty year career one should occasionally take a side road. Our sabbatical program exists to this day.”

In pondering what has brought him this far in life, Dr. Hamlin notes, “I accept the fact that I have not been able to solve every problem that I have encountered. Yet I also believe that we physicians can at least make a start in solving some problems. I think it’s also been helpful that I never took my intellect as seriously as I took my energy. I put the time into working rather than thinking that my idea was going to be a dominant solution in the field.”

Dr. Hamlin does have a tendency to be the master of his ego. And it was a stormy Colorado night—and a very large cow—that led him further down this path…and into retirement. “One rain-soaked night three years ago I was returning from our mountain house when my car hit a 1200 pound black angus cow. Two weeks before I had been listening to Virgil’s epic poem, ‘The Aeneid’ on tape and was struck by a certain passage where the warrior asks, ‘Bless me in battle.’ Hercules responds: ‘Each man has his day and life is short and does not come again. But to take action, that is true courage.’ Fast forward and I’m stuck in a coffin of a car when a truck arrives. The driver looks in and says, ‘You’re Dr. Hamlin. You took care of my Pa.’ He put the cow out of his misery, pushed my car into the ditch, and drove me four hours to my front door in Denver. The words, ‘Each man has his day…’ were never far from me during that drive. I took this experience to mean that for me, courage through action would be my retirement by my 70th birthday.”

Dr. Hamlin, who says he is gifted with rose colored glasses, looks through them and sees a world of innovation coming down the pike. “We are in an enlarging frontier of vascular and nerve surgery. With the unraveling of the genome, we may well see the manipulation or regenerative growth of damaged cartilage. This will affect not only the diseases we get but our response to them. For example, let’s say that someone develops an inflammatory condition—perhaps rheumatoid arthritis or some kind of infection. We might eventually be able to program the environment and orchestrate its response to such problems. I am also excited about the acceptance and advancement of stem cell research to help tissue regenerate. The recently launched Geron project in this country is beginning trials using embryonic stem cells in the freshly injured spinal cord. This could give us great insight into how we can help the central nervous system heal.”

There is always change, imperfection, and, if we’re fortunate, great growth. “Study the humanities, ” says Dr. Hamlin to young surgeons. Medicine is an imperfect human endeavor where the landscape is always changing. “Read a book, look at a painting. You will better comprehend the landscape of your patients.”

Dr. Charles Hamlin…bringing the family of man into his heart and light into so many lives.