Melvin D. Cheitlin, MD: A passionate teacher who never stops learning

Cheitlin retired from the U.S. Army as a colonel and remains a prominent teaching clinician in San Francisco.

Melvin D. Cheitlin, MD, spent the first part of his storied career in the U.S. Army, where he developed a love of patient care and teaching that continued throughout his life.

Cheitlin received his medical degree from Temple University in 1954 and then served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. Cheitlin has been a research scientist for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, D.C. since 1973. He spent more than 20 years in the service in various roles such as clinician, teacher and researcher. Cheitlin has also served as a clinical professor of medicine at Georgetown University, and clinical professor of medicine and a professor of medicine in residence at the University of California San Francisco, where he remains an emeritus professor of medicine. Cheitlin also served as the chief of cardiology at San Francisco General Hospital until 1997.

He has received numerous awards and honors, including the U.S. Army’s Meritorious Service Medal and Commendation Medal. Cheitlin has written numerous book chapters, books, articles and studies and has been published in numerous scholarly and peer-reviewed journals. Cheitlin has served as a reviewer for multiple publications and on the editorial boards of American Heart Journal, Circulation, Journal of Clinical and Basic Cardiology and Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

What do you enjoy doing when you’re not practicing medicine?

I do a lot of reading. I also love photography, and in particular, animal photography. We take a lot of Lindblad cruises (which offer many nature trips), so we have been whale watching, and we have been to the Antarctic and to the Galapagos. The kind of photographs of animals that I take on those kinds of trips is the kind of photography that I love.

Melvin D. Cheitlin, MD Emeritus Professor of Medicine, University of California San Francisco Member, CHD and Prevention section, Cardiology Today Editorial Board

If you hadn’t gone into cardiology or medicine, what would you have done?

When I was in college, I was considering going to graduate school to become a physiologist. I have always been focused on biology of one kind or another. Because of the relative narrowness you have to develop if you want to go into a field of science, I would have had to be fairly narrowly focused on academic physiology. I just never felt that I wanted to be that narrow in interest, and medicine was my second choice.

What would you consider one of your biggest successes in your specialty?

Teaching is the thing that I love to do and do the best. Taking care of patients is related to teaching, and you cannot separate those things in medicine. You have to be a good clinician to be a good teacher of medicine. I spent the first 20 years of my professional career as an Army cardiologist. I served at four different medical centers, including Walter Reed, at the end of my career. Those were not only patient-care jobs but teaching jobs as well.

What is the last book you read / art collection you saw / CD you bought? Why, and what did you think of it?

The last book I read was called “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett. It is a book about the South in the 1960s and is written from the point of view of the black maids of white women.

My wife is a volunteer in the museum stores of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the de Young Museum and the Jewish Contemporary Museum of Art. We have gone to see the art collections in all three places, especially the rotating art collections that come through.

I do not buy CDs very often, but my wife and I love going to the opera out here.

Who do you most admire, and what would you ask that person if you had five minutes with him/her?

Right now, since he currently has the hardest job in the world, I admire President Barack Obama. This may make some of my friends unhappy, but I would ask him why his administration, which is totally controlled by Democrats, cannot get its act together and be more aggressive in pushing its agenda. That is especially true with health care reform, and if it can get something through with universal coverage, transportability and no exclusions for preexisting conditions, that would be a good start. As far as controlling costs, that is much more difficult.

What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

The best advice I have ever gotten was to never go to bed angry. Philosophically, that is probably the most important advice I can give people. You also have to listen carefully to people and pay close attention to what they say.

Melvin D. Cheitlin, MD, and his wife Hella with tens of thousands of King penguins in the Antarctic. Photo courtesy of: Melvin D. Cheitlin, MD

The other advice I recommend is to never stop learning. For some time, I have been the medical adviser to the University of San Francisco’s Fromm Institute, which is an institute for continuing education for seniors. Continued learning throughout your life is exceedingly important.

Who do you consider a mentor?

There were two people who were extremely influential in the beginning of my medical career. The first was Thomas Mattingly, MD, who was the chief of cardiology when I was in training at Walter Reed. He became a Brigadier General and took care of Eisenhower when he had his MI. He was a consummate clinician and a wonderful cardiologist. The other individual I considered a mentor was Proctor W. Harvey, MD. He was the chief of cardiology at Georgetown University and used to come out to Walter Reed each week and present patients. He was a master at cardiac auscultation.

What kind of diet and exercise regimen do you have?

I eat a regular diet and try not to limit anything. I have Meniere’s syndrome, which affects the inner ear and sometimes gives me vertigo or hearing loss. The condition is influenced by salt intake, so I try to limit salt as much as possible. I am actually taking a statin right now because my LDL was recently at the upper limit of normal, and now my lipids are wonderful. I do not worry too much about diet.

I exercise almost every day and walk at a 4-mph pace between 35 and 60 minutes almost every morning. I have found that exercise is vitally important to the way that I feel each day.

What do you think will have the biggest influence on cardiology in the next 10 years?

Stem cell research and genetics are going to be very influential in cardiology. Technology will continue to develop in treating disease we have never been able to treat really well. Stem cell research will be a way of approaching those unsolvable problems at the present time.

We will eventually get to the point where we can use drugs in individuals much more effectively if we know which individuals are genetically programmed to metabolize drugs faster or slower. The drugs that we choose for diseases like cancer will be determined by the genetics of the cancer. Right now, we are learning what the problems for stem cell research are. Once we solve those problems, the clinical applications are going to start pouring in.

What is your favorite travel destination?

We travel frequently with Lindblad Expeditions, which is a cruise company that offers smaller cruises with between 60 to 110 passengers on each ship. As far as the destination is concerned, we like nature cruises, but we have also done cruises of various important world cities located around seaports. For example, we went on a cruise through the Suez Canal to Alexandria. We crisscrossed the Mediterranean and visited Greece, Sicily, Crete, Malta, Tunis and Gibraltar.

What is your favorite restaurant?

One of our favorite restaurants is called Le Charm. They serve great French-American food. It is very small, but I recommend anyone visiting San Francisco to visit it. The other restaurant we like is called Yank Sing. If anybody likes deem sum, it has the best deem sum in the world. – by Eric Raible