Moniker is a nick name or pet name. I have picked up a few over my career. I need to thank all the individuals that called me a number of colorful and creative epithets over the course of my education and career, those words were very useful for me to step on to ascend to a higher place in life. I also need to apologize to you for my whispering loud enough for you to hear, “There are far too many fat, coffee-slurping, donut-eating, tobacco-chewing, trailer-park-living, cheese-whiz-sucking, cousin-marrying asses in the world” I thought you already knew that about yourself? oh well……

To those that read this and don’t know me, ask someone who does know me, because I can only tell you, ” I can neither confirm nor deny”.

so I need to share my favorites with the rest of the world:

1. Renegade, apparently when I showed up at this world renowned hospital, only minimal care was dedicated to cardiovascular diseases. One of the charge nurses on the sickest units in the hospital said” We are not accustomed to dealing with situations like this, you are a Renegade”. Every time she saw me, she called me Dr. Renegade.
2. RoboDoc- during residency training I was always told I was all business, I wasn’t much for socializing, so the nurses at the Veterans Hospital decided to call me RoboDoc.
3. Big Dog- I had this patient whom was quite a vortex of energy, flawed, but lovable like an old, homeless dog. I had heard about every hardship she had in her life, sexual abuse, rape, domestic violence, yet she’s the one you always want to adopt and give her a good home. One day she did not show up to my clinic, the following day I heard a message she left on a land line to my physician assistant. ” Hey, M, tell the Big Dog, I could not make it to clinic, last night we had a lot of alcohol, smoked some weed and did some coke, sorry I just could not get my ass out of bed. I am still hearing about this one twenty years later, and still called Big Dog.
4. Redneck Genius- One of my patients gave me this one, because I can talk country to him, but I don’t know? I never grew up on a farm or in the country?
5. Batman-During my transplant days, I spent many hours in the critical care and post surgical units, I was always in the hospital, so whenever the nurses called, I would sneak in the back and check on the patients and leave, always leaving no trace, so they said, “your Batman, you appear out of nowhere and disappear, you should at least have the decency to say hello, even if it is 3am in the morning.”
6. Mr. President,-when Kayne West declared he was considering running for president, I had mouthed off, “well hell if he runs, I might as well run on the ticket, every time I walked into clinic, they call me Mr. President.
7. 7-11- In my early years, “That doc is always open for business, he is like 7-11”
8. Magic Hands, from nurses whom assist me in procedure while training young cardiologist, when I do, and then show them, it looks awkward in their hands, so they have said you always make it look so easy, you have magic hands we all know its not as easy as it looks, so the trainees get really frustrated because they can’t replicate.
9. Superman- A new woman cardiologist, joined our group and the first week on the hospital services she called me, told me what the problem was and what she wanted me to do and how to do it. She knew that I came from an era of training where I was the only one with the expertise to handle these, so she said, ” I know you can do it superman”, So I told her, “Ok, let’s do this! This shit better work.”
10. Pablo Escobar, Pancho Villa, Wyatt Earp,Doc Holiday,- I grew a mustache during covid under my mask, when people saw the mustache, they said, any and all of the above.
11. The Wolf- This is my favorite, remember Pulp Fiction movie? when John Travolta shot a person in the back seat of the car? and they drive to their friends house to cool things down? Its at a character played by Quinton Tarentino, and Samuel L Jackson calls his boss and tells him reluctantly about the dead body, so his boss tells him he is sending Martin Wolf. Mr Wolf is a cleaner, he cleans up other peoples messes, He cleans up the dead bodies. So my practice has always, always been about being called to a bedside of a patient, when they have one foot in the grave and the other is on a banana peel, so I always was in a position that I felt like “Ok, lets pull out the DUCKTAPE”! since everything had been done, I knew I was the last line of defense between life and death, sometimes I could pull the proverbial rabbit out of my hat, and others, I tried valiantly any and all available options.
12. Arnold- Its top secret, “if I told you, I would need to kill you”.