Paying it forward

By Diane Blanks

It's payback time for Joe Craver.

The Emory Clinic won't be quite the same without the outspoken candor and passionate concern of this veteran cardiothoracic surgeon when he completes his career here at Emory. But even with retirement on the horizon, Craver continues to pay attention to details. Not only is he grooming successors to care for his high-risk patients, but he's also found a way to help ensure that Emory continues to train future generations of this nation's best heart surgeons.

Craver and his wife have established the Joseph M. Craver and Amelia W. Craver Charitable Remainder Trust to support teaching in cardiothoracic surgery. The Emory portion of the Craver endowment is valued at about $2.2 million and will provide annual lectureships as well as financial awards to faculty surgeons for outstanding teaching. An additional goal for the Cravers through this fund is to create an endowed chair in clinical adult cardiac surgery with emphasis on the clinical teacher.

"My mother and dad were both teachers and early on instilled in me the joy of teaching," says Craver, who was recruited to Emory three decades ago. His intersection with Emory in 1974 came at just the right time. He was looking for a position in academic heart surgery with a strong clinical component, and he wanted to return to the South.

The 1970s, Craver remembers, was an exciting new era for heart surgery at Emory, with the advent of coronary angiography and coronary artery bypass surgery, improved valvular substitutes and repair techniques, and recognition of the importance of intraoperative mycardial protection -- "how to take better care of hearts while you repair them," he says.

"Emory's aspiration and commitment at that time to become one of the top five cardiac surgical centers for both patient care and resident training convinced me that this was a place like no other." Thirty years later, he still has no doubt that Emory was the right place. In these years, he has surgically repaired the hearts of more than 15,000 patients and taught more than 90 cardiac surgical fellows the skill and art of heart surgery.

Both parts of his career here bring deep satisfaction to Craver. "You can't place a value on helping save a patient's life. But when you teach a new surgeon, one who's going to go out and save thousands more people, that extends your life's work exponentially."

He worries, though, about the future of the clinical teacher and hopes this gift will actively affirm the importance of the teacher. "I want a person teaching my future surgeon and physician -- a person who's committed to teaching, so that future students and fellows don't depend on machines, video files, computers, or other impersonal learning methods," he says.

The gift also is a form of payback to Emory, in gratitude for the opportunities that Emory provided him. "Emory and The Emory Clinic gave me the opportunity to realize many of my life's goals, so I felt that it was important to make my thanks concrete," Craver says.

"If you believe in something strongly, you should be willing to provide financially for its continuation. My goals and talents seemed to have been right for what Emory needed when I came along, and I feel fortunate that I was given that opportunity. The hard work and the selfless dedication of my colleagues in cardiac surgery, cardiology, and anesthesiology have helped our program at Emory achieve recognition by various specialty boards as being among the top five for cardiac surgical care and professional training -- fulfilling a commitment Emory made 30 years ago. The success of Emory's advances in cardiology and cardiac surgery over the subsequent years have also enabled and made us proud to make this gift."

Joe and Missy Craver believe strongly that through such gifts individuals can make a positive long-term impact, and they hope their gift will motivate others. "It is up to those of us who have invested our careers here to look for giving opportunities at The Emory Clinic and Emory Healthcare. We just need to do it."

Diane Blanks is an editor in health sciences development.

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