How Lucky to Have Been Trained at USC-County

By way of introduction may I explain that I am the incoming President of Salerni Collegium, the 1,500-member support society of USC School of Medicine and the L.A. County-USC Medical Center. I spent 10 years in training at County USC and have taught there for the past 11 years.

You can therefore imagine my keen interest in the extensive articles by Peter H. King (Jan. 27-30) on the L.A. County-USC Medical Center. In my opinion, and those of many of my professional colleagues, his articles were the most honest and extensive depiction of the realities, of the heart and the soul of life at the medical center, that we’ve ever seen. The drama depicted was accurate, without exaggeration. As I love the medical center and its tradition, his articles brought some tears to my eyes.

Thanks to the fabulous training of County-USC, I was able to learn the journeyman skills of head and neck surgery and facial plastic and reconstructive surgery to prepare me for the best possible management of my patients.

Thus when I read King’s article (Jan. 28) on the County Hospital, then turned to the Sports section and read Chris Cobbs’ fine article recapping the terrible “punch” injury suffered by Rudy Tomjanovich in the infamous Lakers-Rockets basketball game of 1977, I was struck by a heartwarming coincidence; how lucky I was to have been trained in the crucible of County-USC so that one day I would be ready to take care of one of most serious and consequential sports injuries of our era. I was the facial plastic surgeon called upon to reconstruct Rudy Tomjanovich’s face.

PAUL H. TOFFEL MD

Inglewood