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Talking to the Children Who Followed Their Parents into Otolaryngology

by Linda Kossoff •

Having an otolaryngologist as a parent, especially an academic otolaryngologist, gave me early exposure to the people, societies, and structure of otolaryngology. —Michael M. Johns III, MD

Q: You’ve both achieved striking success in your otolaryngology careers. Were your trajectories the same as well?

Dr. Johns III: My dad’s story is very different from mine. He was born in humble circumstances in the Detroit area. His father worked as a janitor for the Catholic Church and his mother worked as a cook/ caretaker at the local parish. He thought back then that he might want to be a pharmacist, because walking home from school he’d see the pharmacist doing interesting things and making a stable living. Back then, when you went to medical school you did a general internship and saw lots of different things. It was a mentorship with Dr. Frank Ritter at the University of Michigan that got him interested in otolaryngology. By contrast, I grew up as the child of an academic otolaryngologist, so my situation was a lot more privileged than my dad’s due to his journey and hard work.

Dr. Johns II: I wanted my son to pursue what he loved; it didn’t matter what that was. I certainly wanted him to get a good education, which he seemed to be doing at the University of Virginia. He didn’t start out planning to be a physician and was interested in the business world and securing a job in business.

Dr. Johns III: I was an economics major—I was going to break free from the mold and do something different. But I did an internship at a bank doing credit work and I found it extremely boring. And frankly, I wasn’t very good at it. But I was good at the sciences.

Dr. Johns II: He came back after his experience at the bank, and he said he’d decided he didn’t want to go into business. He wanted to pursue a “noble profession” and go to medical school. I was shocked! It was totally unexpected. Back when he was in high school, he just wanted to be a billionaire. This caught me completely off guard.

Dr. Johns III: I went into medical school with an open mind about what I could accomplish and contribute to the world. So, at the end of the day, the nut didn’t fall far from the tree!