Legacy of Excellence Digital Flipbook

LEGACY OF EXCELLENCE: K.J. LEE, MD PRESIDENT FROM 2001-2002

W hen K.J. Lee, MD, was age 17 he immigrated to a new country from Malaysia, learning new customs and language, he was equipped with a big plan. Being dazzled by 1957 Sputnik’s cosmic dust, he hoped to make nuclear physics his career and entered Harvard University with that in mind. Harvard’s Nuclear Physics Program proved more challenging than the young man had imagined. He determined that he could engage in the science he loved within a medical career and majored in pre-med. After graduating from Harvard with honors, he entered medical school at Columbia University. He had some vague ideas only on what type of medicine he would like to practice. But Dr. Lee did know firsthand that physicians helped people when they were most vulnerable. In Dr. Lee’s young life, frequent bouts of otitis media led to facial paralysis in high school. Dr. Lee was a motivated student. He credits Robert Hui, MD, of the Department of Otolaryngology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, with an introduction to the specialty of otolaryngology that was of significant interest. Then in his third year, Dr. Lee needed help from another otolaryngologist, Dr. Jules Waltner, who performed a mastoidectomy on him. As Dr. Lee now puts it, “Because of all these ear problems, I became enamored with otolaryngology, and then having these two mentors, I signed up for it.” Dr. Lee moved into a residency that he had hoped for with Harold F. Schuknecht, MD, who was the Walter Augustus LeCompte professor and chair of the Department of Otology and Laryngology at the Harvard Medical School and chief of Otolaryngology at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. In 1967,

during that program, he received a $100 grant to attend an AAO-HNSF Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois. This was the beginning of his lifelong connection with the AAO-HNS/F, attending every Annual Meeting to 2020 except in 1976 when a personal surgery prevented his attending. Five years after that first meeting, Dr. Lee gave his first course and continued to do so annually. By 1970, he had completed his residency at the time of the Vietnam War and was drafted to military service. As his residency ended, Dr. Schuknecht had introduced him to Colonel Krekorian, who sought a young academically minded physician to help establish a residency program at Tacoma, Washington, U.S. Army

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