Kannada

Everybody who knew young David Hartman thought he was riding for a fall.Even his own family realized that the time to call a halt to Dave's impossible plans was that September 1968 - the night before he first went off to college.The four

Hartmans were lingering at the dinner table in their Havertown,USA,home when David ,who is blind ,broached an old

subject with new intensity."Father," he said, "tell me honestly."Do you think I can be a doctor?"

Fred Hartman,a bank officer and a very practical man,stalled before replying.It was one thing not to pamper Dave,quite

another to let him go on building up for a tragic let-down.What medical college would accept a blind student?The time had come to set David straight.But,wondered the father,how had come to set David straight.But,wondered the father,how could he give a flat no to a boy like Dave? How could he clamp a ceiling on his dreams? And so,Fred Hartman finally said,"A doctor,son? Well you'll never unless you try,will you?"

Both he and David grinned.For this was the same response he had always made to David's "Can I do?'queries-ever since

the boy,born with defective lenses,had gone completely blind at the age of eight."Dad" Dave had asked at the age of

ten,"Can I play baseball?'.

"Well,let's try it and see," his father suggested,and together they worked out a way.Mr Hartman rolled the ball along the

ground to Dave,who learned to bat and catch it by the whistling sound it made through the grass.

Realm of Possibility?

That had begun the family's determined effort to help David become as independent as possible.At times,panicked by darkness,the little boy would cry out,"Mama,I can't stand it!."Then Idamae Hartman,the softest member of the team would rock him gently in her arms and croon,"I know,I know," until he found he could stand it after all.But his mother also joined the others in making David share household chores;and tired though she was when she came home from her job as a cashier,she read to himnearly every night to stimulate his imagination.

It was Dave's sister Barbara,however,who steeled herself to be his toughest taskmaster.Even the time he'd left his braille watch upstairs and asked her to retrieve it,she'd said"Get it yourself.What do you think-that somebody's always going to be around to wait on you?"

So David grew up considering blindness no tragedy-just an exasperating bother-and feeling he could do anything he set

his mind to.Then at 13,he announced that he was going to be a doctor and,unable to see the rueful headshakes that

greeted this childish proclamation,he began preparing for his career.He insisted on leaving the local blind school,and

enrolled at Havertown's high school.He got good marks ,won a place on wrestling team,and was elected vice-president of the student council.

Still,as impressive as his accomplishments were,they had always fallen into the realm of possibility.But David's ambition

to become a doctor,a psychiatrist,was not in that realm,his family believed.So,after seeing him off to college,the

Hartmans felt they had not been frank enought with Dave,and they were afraid he was heading for grief.

At college,Hartman's faculty advisers tried to reason with him."Why not settle for something more within your

capabilities,like history or psychology?' suggested biology profesor Ralph Cavaliere.

Sensing that this key teacher was about to refuse to allow him in his class,David launched into his most persuasive argument."Look,"I'm no different from anybody else! It's true I can't see,but everybody has some kind of disability.I believe the ones who are the most handicapped are those who don't want want to do anything special or challenging with their lives.I want to be a psychiatrist because I happen to believe I'll make a good one-especially in helping rehabilitate people with problems similar to my own.So I want to go medical college and I'm counting on people like you to get me ready!".From that moment on,Cavalier was David's staunch ally.

ON HIS WAY

Handsome and well-built,the young blind man strode briskly around campus with only an occasional searching thrust of his white metal cane.In his second year ,Dave kept happening to meet bright,lissome,green-eyed Cheryl Walker.For months he wondered why he was so lucky.Later,after they had become serious about each other,Cheri confessed to him: "I'd see you and run to get in your path-then hope I didn't sound out of breath when I said,'Fancy seeing you again'."

In the spring of 1972,David was winding up four years at college with top marks.So far,so good.Ready for the big try,he had applied to top ten medical colleges.

By early April,eight had turned him down.Then ,on the afternoon of April 27,a ninth rejection came from a medical college he had counted on the most,and Dave was crushed.He and Cheri both broke down and wept.It was all over,they believed.

But at the one institution Dave had not heard from -Temple University School of Medicine,in Philadelphia - Dr M Prince Brigham,assistant dean in charge of admissions and student affairs,was putting Dave's case most forcefully to fellow admission-board members."If we were on the Olympics committee,"he said,"and a one-legged man came along who was hopping the 100-meter dash in ten seconds.I think we'd have to let him run.By the same token,since David Hartman is already doing impossible things.I think we should see how far he can go."

The other board members agreed.Soon after,Dave received a call from his mother ."There 's a letter here I think you'll want to hear." Her voice broke,and his sister Barbara came on the line."You've done it," she cried."You've been accepted by Temple!' And a few weeks later,when David graduated with the highest honours,the whole student body and faculty stood up to cheer him as he marched for his diploma.He was on his way.

STRUGGLING FOR OTHERS.

Yet it was a very tense David who enrolled at Temple the following autumn.The talking stage was over.He had asked for the heat,the pressure and immediately he began to get it.

Even autonomy,an introductory course,held special problems for him.By plunging his rubber-gloved hands into the cadavers,Dave could easily feel the location and shape of the large organs.But to identify smaller,more elusive things like nerve plexuses,he had to use his bare hands.This involved him in a race to learn all he could before his fingers became numb from the formaldehyde preservative in laboratory specimens.

In comparably more difficult was histology,the study of microscopic tissue structures.In this course,Dave had to depedn on his teacher's and classmate's descriptions of what they saw through the microscope-and on feeling his way through a maze of raises braille-like drawings that this professor prepared for him.

Meanwhile,David began organizing the massive home library he'd need to get through dozens of other formidable courses.Like virtually all of America's 5000 blind college students-and more than half the blind-school population-he relied primarily on Recording for the Blind,Incorporated (RFB),to provide free tapes of textbooks.RFB"s volunteers taped some 30 volumes for David.

"All for me?' an incredulous Dave asked.Not at all,he was told.The material would also go into RFB's master type library in New York where it would wait to help other blind medical students,if and when there should be more in the future.

GRAVE DOUBTS.

In the spring of his first year in medical college,Dave and Cheri were married.Their honeymoon summer was fairly relaxed,but scarcely had Dave begun his second year when he found himself hopelessly swamped.To try to keep up with six lectures a day,he was taping them in toto on one recorder,then,at home,he would replay them and dictate summaries into a second machine.But this system was taking him two hours for every one-hour lecture-a total of 12 hours of homework every day!.

It wasn't long before a distraught Hartman,jittery from lack of sleep,called on Dean Brigham.Together they found a solution.From then on,David took notes in class like any other student-except that he whispered them into a tape recorder.

As David started his critical third year working at Temple university Hospital with real patients,real lives,there were still those who had grave doubts about his chances of getting through college.He couldn't read X-rays ,for example; he couldn't examine the ear,eye or mouth without the help of a colleague;he couldn't see the colour of skin rashes and had to depend on the descriptions of a nurse or the patients themselves.

But Hartman had abilities that made up for such shortcomings.With his keen hearing he was especially skillful using a stethoscope.With his highly developed sense of touch,he could feel out subtle abnormalities in the chest and abdomen.Most important,he was an excellent listener.

Observed Dr John Martin who was in charge of teaching physical diagnosis: "If given the chance to talk about themselves,patients are often very good judges of what's wrong with them.David Hartman,who makes up for his lack of sight by hearing more from each patient,dramatically demonstrates the value of this ancient truth."(David seemed to prove this by getting the highest marks in his class on the final exam in physical diagnosis.)

"Super-Normal."

By the end of his final year,David had made believers of all his doubters - except himself.With most of his academic trials behind him,he was seized with feelings of his inadequacy for the job ahead .Everything he'd done so far had been under strict supervision.But soon,he'd had be on his own!One night ,he poured out his feelings of unreadiness to a fellow student.

"Dave ," said the other senior,gripping his shoulder," I can see like an eagle .But you know something?I feel just as scared as you do!'

On May 27,1976,David Hartman received his medical degree.In his view,he had proved the most important thing:that he was no different from anyone else.

There were those,however,who challenged this appraisal.Many professors at Temple had come to agree with Dr Martin,who declared,"Hartman's not normal - he's super-normal."

One evening a few weeks after graduation,Recording for the Blind celebrated two significant events - its 25th anniversary and the landmark entry into medicine of its most ambitious protege.In presenting the founder's award to David ,RFB president John Castles praised him " for exhibiting a triumph of human spirit.'The citation concluded:"With the example of David Hartman before us ,we feel renewed faith in the infinite possibilities of all people."

These eloquent word brought a standing ovation for David.But in brief response ,it was some simple words from the past that David voiced for the consideration of struggles against obstacles everywhere."My Dad was right," he said ."You'll never know unless you try."