Abstract
In remembering Tony Wolfe, I think of the word mentor. He regarded Ralph Millard and Paul Tessier as his mentors. A host of others regard Tony as their own mentor.
Our use of the word mentor, meaning teacher, guide, friend, comes from Greek antiquity: Mentor, son of Alcimus, was a friend of Odysseus. When Odysseus left to fight the Trojan War,1,2 Mentor was left in charge of the education of Odysseus’ son, Telemachus. Mentor was responsible for training his mentee to become a noble leader. 3
This mentoring is further recorded in The Odyssey, where the goddess Athena appears to Telemachus as Mentor, his teacher, warning Telemachus about dangers and the correct path to find his father, Odysseus, who has been absent for 10 years. Eventually father and son reunite and triumph in reestablishing their home with Penelope, wife, and mother, in Ithaca. 4
The word mentor took on a wider and more common usage in 1699 when Francois Fenelon published a book entitled Les Aventures de Telemaque, which established the standard for novels about educating princes or heroes. The book represents the first modern use of the word mentor. 5 Multiple languages have adopted this use of the word, including in English, where the word means a trusted counselor or guide. 6 The word indicates a disparity between the mentor and the mentee (the mentor has something—generally knowledge and wisdom—that the mentee needs). The mentor is generally acting in an altruistic manner (there is no payment for being a mentor). It is a gift. The relationship between mentor and mentee develops as the pair purposefully spend time together.
Being a Mentor
We need to search for mentors. Though these relationships may develop spontaneously, they are often crafted. Tony searched out Ralph Millard and joined the new Plastic Surgery Program in Miami to learn from Millard. He then asked Dr. Millard to write a letter on his behalf to Paul Tessier requesting a visit to Paris. The answer was yes, thankfully. The other lesson from these relationships is that we will have a number of mentors as we mature. Our needs for mentoring change, and as they do, we need a new mentor, or a series of mentors. However, many of us can point to a single, signature mentor to whom we owe our careers, as Tony did with Paul Tessier (
Over a lifetime, our relationships with mentors will likely move from formal to friendly (
Learning to be a Mentor
If Tessier was the grand Mentor, the inspiration for Craniofacial Surgery, then Tony Wolfe, Henry Kawamoto, and Dave Matthews
From Millard and Tessier, Tony learned to be a mentor: though the list of people that Tony mentored is quite long, in North America and internationally, it includes Dave Matthews, Bill Hoffman, Reza Jarrahy, Joe Williams, and Jordan Steinberg (
It also includes me: My connection to Tony Wolfe as a mentor is meager in comparison to the others who have written tributes to him: Cleveland and Dartmouth College. I first met Tony personally when he visited the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2009 as an ASMS Visiting Professor: he gave multiple lectures and came to the operating room with us over 2 days. The 2 parts of the visit I remember most was a one-on-one dinner at an Italian restaurant in Chapel Hill. We talked about life, my aspirations as a craniofacial surgeon, and Tony’s relationship to Tessier. We talked about Dartmouth, where we both did our undergraduate work, and Cleveland, where he was born, and I finished General Surgery training. The second memory I have was his generosity: he gave me the PowerPoint slides he had made of Tessier’s cases. I remember being overwhelmed by this free and unsolicited gift. I also remember feeling empowered by Tony as a young craniofacial surgeon.
Our best tribute to our mentors is to become good mentors ourselves.
What Tessier and Millard did for Tony, he did for others. What Tony did for Dave Matthews, Bill Hoffman, Joe Williams, Reza Jarrahy, and Jordan Steinberg, these individuals are doing for others.
To all of us: Let’s be good mentors.
In memory of Tony Wolfe, FACE would like to name our section of case presentations after Tony. Among Tony’s many characteristics, he was honest: he would just as likely say “well done,” as he would directly say “you could have done better,” and give suggestions for improvement.
Case presentations in FACE will now focus on lessons learned from complications. What could we have done better? What should we have done differently? The reality is that we generally learn more from our complications than from our beautiful cases. The name of our Case Reports Section in FACE will now be Honest Cases: How to Learn and Grow from Mistakes.
Please enjoy the tributes to S. Tony Wolfe, the incredible articles that are published in the March issue of FACE and consider submitting articles to “Honest Cases.”