Doctors Path in life

 still inspiring others

Troy Linn lost his battle to cancer, 

but not before earning his M. D. Degree

Article Published in The Gainesville Sun Times on Sunday Dec. 1, 2002 Page 1A

By DIANE CHUM -- Sun staff writer

 "I am a doctor, No, I am not yet an M.D. and I do not have a license to practice medicine, but I am a doctor nevertheless.  I am a doctor the same way John F. Kennedy was a Berliner; from the day I decided to study medicine, I was a doctor in my heart.  I did not always know I wanted to be a doctor, but I am certain of it now; and all the events that have accompanied me down this path have changed me forever."

That's the opening paragraph of the personal statement Troy Linn included when he applied for a medical residency in the University of Florida's College of Medicine in 1999.  Little did he suspect how the path his life would take over the next three years would inspire others

When he applied for a residency in internal medicine here while in his last year of medical school at the University of Tennessee, Linn was already battling cancer.  It was a battle he would loose in August, but not before earning the certificate that stated he had completed the residency requirements -- the certificate that said he was, and always would be a doctor, And for Troy Linn that was everything.

Linn was born in 1956 and grew up in Dayton, a town of about 6000 in East Tennessee.

He went to the University of Tennessee to earn his bachelor's degree in engineering in 1991.  While in college, he worked as an upholsterer in the Dayton La-Z-Boy plant to cover his tuition and expenses.

A New Calling

Linn Married a fellow engineering student, Geetha Shanmugasundaram, whose family is from South India. It was the premature birth of the couple's first son, Teddy, that convinced Linn that his real calling was not engineering, but medicine.

"My son, Teddy, helped guide me into medicine." Linn wrote.  "His birth represented my first significant exposure to health-care professionals; he was born prematurely, and my wife and I practically lived in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) for three weeks.

The people and technology used to support that life also made a deep impression on me.

That experience led me to a new calling, and I have been a doctor ever since."

It was in his second year that Linn was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.  The thyroid is a gland in the neck that acts like the body's gas pedal, and the form of cancer Linn had contracted was slow moving but tough to treat.  He underwent two surgeries at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and a six weeks course of radiation therapy, then went on with his studies.

Dr. Edward Block, chairman of the department of medicine at UF, describes Linn's story as one of heroism.

"When he applied for residency, he wrote a personal statement that absolutely grabbed you.  We read hundreds of these every year, but his was so moving," Block said.

Linn was admitted to the residency program despite his cancer.  Block predicts that his essay on why he wanted to become a doctor "is sure to become a mantra for most of the medical trainees at the college."

Trey DeBose and Carolyn Stalvey entered the internal medicine residency program along with Linn, and DeBose said the Tennesseeian definitely stood out among the new residents.

"He was a fairly tall guy with short, spiky red hair -- pretty hard to miss," DuBois said.

DeBose. who is from South Carolina, added, " I remember talking to him, and I was just glad to hear another Southern drawl down here in Florida."

"He didn't want to burden anyone else with what he was dealing with," Stalvey recalled.  "If you didn't ask him, you wouldn't have known anything was going on.