Doctor Curmudgeon ® Along Came Wally!
By Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D. FAAP Doctor Eisman, is in Family Practice in Aventura, Florida with her partner, Dr. Eugene Eisman, an internist/cardiologist
Doctor Curmudgeon® is Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D., a physician-satirist. This column originally appeared on SERMO, the leading global social network for doctors.
The thought of attempting to ride a bicycle fills me with fear. My previous efforts at this daring pursuit have found me in a ditch by the side of the road, hitting a tree and putting dents in the poor bicycle.
Although I am old, there may still be hope for me and my bicycle.
Wally Funk is an eighty two year old aviator.
This intrepid woman has so many firsts that my mind has truly boggled itself!
She was the first woman to be a safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, the first woman to be an inspector for the Federal Aviation Agency, and the first woman to be a flight instructor at Fort Sill in Oklahoma
Mary Wallace “Wally” Funk has served as the chief pilot for five different aviation schools across the United States.
Her accomplishments are really too numerous to mention here. But her heartfelt aspiration has been to go into space. Wally graduated from the “Women in Space” training program and on some of the tests she underwent, she scored higher than John Glenn. That program was also known as the “Mercury13,” but it was canceled before she had a chance to be an astronaut.
Lt. Col. Eileen Collins was the first woman to pilot a space shuttle. But this was 1995 and Wally Funk was considered too old to qualify.
I, Doctor Curmudgeon, fearful of getting on the seat of a bicycle, applaud this trail blazing aviator who had her first flight lesson when she was only nine years old and got her pilot’s license at the age of seventeen! I have logged about twelve upright minutes on a bicycle while she has logged more than nineteen thousand flying hours.
On July 20 Wally got her chance. She never gave up on her dream.
There she was, at eighty two, finally going off into space with Jeff Bezos on Blue
Origin.
Chronologically, she was the oldest person to fly into space and she proved that eight two is simply a number.
I may find the courage to try out a bicycle again. But it would have to have safety wheels, world class braking system, a capsule to surround and protect me, and be accompanied by four ex secret service people to secure my path.
Dr. Curmudgeon suggests “Bitter Medicine”, Dr. Eugene Eisman’s story of his experiences–from the humorous to the intense—as a young army doctor serving in the Vietnam War.
Bitter Medicine by Eugene H. Eisman, M.D. –on Amazon
Doctor Curmudgeon® is Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D., a physician-satirist. This column originally appeared on SERMO, the leading global social network for doctors.
SERMO www.sermo.com “talk real world medicine”
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