Floyd L. Atkins Jr., Mended Hearts, Inspired Minds, 59
DGH
Dr. Floyd L. Atkins Jr., who mentored and inspired hundreds of medical students
and hundreds more young people as a scoutmaster and basketball coach, and who
lived in Westwood, Massachusetts, died Saturday, March 29, 2003, of a brain
tumor at Tippett Home, a hospice care home in Needham, Massachusetts, at the age
of 59.
A cardiologist, Doctor Atkins was for 18 years chief of cardiology at Lemuel
Shattuck Hospital in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, a beloved figure to patients,
students, and staff.
Shattuck, a teaching hospital associated with Tufts University's School of
Medicine, where Dr. Atkins taught, renamed its intensive care unit after him in
October, citing his "dedicated service and compassionate care."
"The students literally adored him," Dr. Nicolaos E. Madias, the medical
school's interim dean, said yesterday. "His door was always open to them and he
gave of his time."
Dr. Atkins was named associate professor of medicine in 1985 and also served as
assistant dean of student affairs from 1992 until his retirement in June.
"His efforts to increase diversity and his mentoring of many aspiring physicians
was instrumental in increasing the number of minority medical students at the
school and left Tufts a better place to educate future generations of
physicians," Madias said. "This is his most important legacy."
In Westwood, where Dr. Atkins coached sixth-and-seventh-grade girls in CYO
basketball for nine years, Ken Foscaldo, athletic director for the town's
Catholic Youth Organization program, said Dr. Atkins "applied the same
characteristics of his own life to his coaching.
"Floyd taught the girls not only how to play basketball but how to get the most
out of oneself by practicing and studying. Our whole program is about
experiences and molding young people with proper role models, not winning
games," Foscaldo said, "Floyd was that role model."
Over nine years, the teams Dr. Atkins coached recorded 111 wins and 32 losses
and won two Eastern Massachusetts championships, in 1992 and 1995.
"At 6-foot-2," Foscaldo said, "Floyd was a gentle giant. He was a taskmaster,
but he gave a lot of himself. It meant giving up two to three evenings a week
from November to March plus one or two games every weekend from December into
March."
On Sunday, the day after Dr. Atkins died, the CYO officially awarded him its
McCoy Award, given annually to an adult leader who is "a true role model and
outstanding coach." Dr. Atkins's son, Dr. G. Brandon Atkins, a senior internal
medicine resident at Brigham and Women's Hospital, accepted the award on his
father's behalf.
"My father was the ultimate teacher," Atkins said yesterday. "All his roles in
life involved teaching and mentoring others. He was able to get complex ideas
across in a simple manner and he was genuinely nice."
Dr. Atkins became involved in the Boy Scouts when his son became one, and stayed
involved long after his son outgrew the group. The Scouts awarded him their
Silver Beaver Award for distinguished service to youth.
His other interests included gardening and amateur photography. One of his
photos of flowers was printed in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Dr. Atkins was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, one of two children. His father was
a high school principal and his mother a teacher. When Dr. Atkins graduated from
I.C. Norcom High School in 1961, he was valedictorian of his class.
He went to Howard University in Washington, DC, on a full scholarship and
majored in chemistry.
His younger sister, Dr. Margery Atkins Scott of Virginia Beach, Virginia, a
dermatologist, recalled that her brother "always wanted to be a doctor and take
care of others."
Dr. Atkins attended the Medical College of Virginia, in Richmond, graduating in
1969. While in Richmond, he met and married college student Joyce Biggs.
Dr. Atkins completed his medical training at Yale-New Haven Medical Center, and
moved with his family to Boston in the 1980s.
He chose to work at Shattuck, a Department of Public Health hospital that,
according to its medical director, Dr. Joseph Cohen, provides acute medical care
to patients the private sector "doesn't have the time, patience or resources to
care for."
Cohen recalled how impressed he was with Dr. Atkins's resume, including his
published research in cardiac pharmacology and pathophysiology of the heart
conducted at the National Institutes of Health and the University of Kansas
Medical Center.
When he became chief of cardiology at Shattuck in 1984, Dr. Atkins became very
involved with teaching students, residents, and interns, lecturing at the
medical school and at Shattuck.
Dr. Larnie Booker, a pediatrician of East Brunswick, New Jersey, said Dr. Atkins
made a strong impression when he applied to Tufts. It was unusual, Booker said,
to be sitting across the interview table from a fellow African-American.
"During my four years at Tufts, he was a father figure for me," Booker said. "I
felt that each successful step I took made him proud. I work hard each day for
not only my patients but also because I wanted him to know how much I appreciate
the confidence he had in me during that first interview."
Dr. Atkins also ran Shattuck's laboratory for testing patients for non-invasive
cardiology and he diligently followed all his patients.
"Floyd had a very warm relationship with his patients, some of whom were
difficult," Cohen said.
Brenda Blake, a Shattuck nurse, who taught advanced cardiac support with Dr.
Atkins, said his patients often came back to him to manage their care when they
had nowhere else to turn. "The Chief treated everyone the same," Blake said of
her boss, "from the housekeeping staff on up."