This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Tom Clancy professorship awarded to Terrence O’Brien
|
BALTIMORE — Author Tom Clancy has endowed a professorship of ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute here, as a token of his appreciation after undergoing refractive surgery with a successful visual outcome. Terrence P. O’Brien, MD, is the inaugural recipient of the professorship.
“Any jerk can give money; the hard part is doing useful work,” Mr. Clancy said during the presentation of the $2.5 million endowment. Dr. O’Brien performed the surgery on Mr. Clancy, whose popular novels include “The Hunt for Red October” and “The Teeth of the Tiger.”
Mr. Clancy said that he wanted to do something for the Wilmer Eye Institute, a part of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, following his surgery.
“The heroes, in my opinion, are the people who advance the frontiers of human knowledge,” Mr. Clancy said. “Finding the things that no one else has found before is useful and admirable. … It is my honor and privilege to know and in some small way to support the people who make the world a better place.”
“I’d like to congratulate Terry. This is a richly deserved honor,” said Morton F. Goldberg, MD, a former director of the Wilmer Eye Institute.
Peter J. McDonnell, MD, the current director of Wilmer, said that endowed professorships are vital to Johns Hopkins mission to encourage significant research by allowing the recipient the time and resources to do so.
To emphasize the importance of his refractive correction and his appreciation to Dr. O’Brien, Mr. Clancy pulled from his pocket a pair of sunglasses.
“All my life I wanted to wear decent sunglasses, not those goddamn clip-ons,” he said.