LINN" Premature birth of his first son hellped guide Linn into medicine
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Dedicated to patients

Linn had written: "Medicine is my second career, but my first calling.  I bring to my new calling an appetite for knowledge; I bring the experience of having been a patient; which has given me invaluable insight into patient care; and I bring a commitment that has been tested by adversary."

His patients loved him, DuBose said.

"Troy had such a calm manner, and could relate to anyone.  He was one of the most down-to-earth people you would ever care to meet."

He was also an accomplished musician and composer, and an excellent cook, even mastering South Indian cuisine.

"A guy who you would expect could make pretty fabulous biscuits and gravy turns out to have all these other talents as well, " DeBose recalled with a laugh.

Geetha Linn said the couple fought cancer together  for six years.  They eventually divorced, their marriage perhaps one more victim of that debilitating battle

Cancer is a terrible, terrible disease process, she says today,  " We fought this together for six years, and if Troy hadn't fought for all that time, his sons would not have known him," Linn Said.

"In the last six years we accomplished a lot.  His children clearly understood that he's gone, but the most difficult part is understanding that you can't see him anymore.

"Earlier this year," Linn said, Troy was going to Texas every other week for spot radiation treatments."

"I thought it would buy us a year," she said, "it gave us another month,  But I'm glad he was here for that month, and still feel like he is with me;"

By spring, his fellow residents noticed that Linn's health was failing.  His lungs were filling with fluid, making it difficult for him to walk more than a few steps. But he continued to see his patients

"He had to have fluid drained off his lungs while was here at work.  He didn't want to go home, because if you're on duty and have to go home, someone else has to take your place.  That was the last thing Troy would allow." Dubois said.

In late July, Linn entered the hospital, where some of the same residents who had worked beside him now had to care for him.

"The were peers and had looked up to him, so it was very challenging and emotional for them to care for a colleague that they so respected and admired." Stalvey said. "After all, Troy knew his disease better than anyone.:

It was just a matter of days before Linn was moved into the intensive-care unit and placed on life support.  But there was one more extraordinary moment to come.

His fellow residents come to his bedside to give him the certificate that said that he had completed the requirements for residency, Linn responded with a thumbs up, DeBose Said.

"It meant the world to Troy to complete that residency," Stalvey said.  "He wasn't going to let any illness stop him from doing that.  He was very proud to become a physician and very determined to finish."

On Aug 6, Linn died.  He was 35.

"While he was in the ICU, we came up the idea of a trust fund.: Stalvey said. "Troy has two great little boys who are going to be without a dad."

"What he said on his death bed to me was that the one thing he worried about whether his kids would be able to go to college." Block said.  

The department of medicine has established a trust fund, the Troy Linn Children's Fund to be used for Teddy's and Sammy's college education.  The boys are now 9 and 6.

We wanted them both to realize how important their dad was to all of us," Stalvey said.

" The thing about Troy was that his passion for being a doctor was so incredible, it is a light that is leading us even now," DuBose added.  "He epitomized what it means to be a physician."

As Linn put it in his own admission essay, "I am, and always will be a doctor."

Diane Chun can be reached at 374-5041 or chund@gvillesun.com