I’m not sure if “CJ” were Dr. Wards’ real middle initials, or if it’s just a fable he shared with his pathology students in their first year of medical school, or maybe it was the second year. I can’t remember now, almost forty years later; but what I do remember is Patrick CJ Ward, very specifically and clearly, like the face of Jesus, and not because he looked remotely Jesus-like nor did behave similarly as one would imagine Jesus behaving. Perhaps that is because Dr. Ward referenced Jesus when he said to his class on the first day, pointing to his name he had written on the chalkboard, standing before us in that space between the board and the first row of seats of which I was in, wearing a black turtle neck knit sweater that did little to hide his paunch thrusting forward, his jet black goatee above the neck almost an extension thereof, black hair short and trimmed on the sides, contiguous with sideburns with his beard as though all that robust growth would account for the shiny bald plate above, “Patrick CJ Ward,” he exclaimed emphatically as though he were a burning bush, “CJ Ward,” he clarified further, “that’s CJ, Christ Jesus to you poor bastards.” I am paraphrasing “poor bastards” as I don’t recollect what specific profanity followed although I do know it was something similar.
And we were, all poor bastards in his pathology class over the ensuing semester, I think perhaps two, with tests so brutal, with a curve so dramatic that a raw score of 30% might be considered passing, if only barely. Everything in the Robbins (I think it was) text was fair game, and my obsessive reading with highlighting of all possible questions resulted in a text book of carefully illustrated pages of typeface mostly in yellow, which did offset the advantage of highlighting in retrospect as most of it was yellow in the end.
Dr. Ward had all sorts of rules for us, the most dramatic in my memory being Let Pus Out! I remember him standing in front of the class telling us all to remember always, above all, “Let Pus Out!” except that ‘pus’ sounded more like ‘poose’ and ‘out’ sounded more like ‘oot.’ It is a rule that has served me well these past thirty years, and I couldn’t help think of Patrick CJ Ward this morning as for the Nth time, in the office, I let some poos out, relieving again another’s pain and suffering; so, wherever you are today, Dr. Ward. God Bless you and thank you.