When the wealthy couple saw their newborn’s face, the mother gasped, “Take him away, he’s a monster.” They abandoned him at the hospital. A kind nurse raised him. Twenty years later, the couple desperately needed a rare surgery. The world-famous surgeon walked in, revealed his birthmark, and…

operating room, nor in the quiet hallways of our clinics. It happened in Washington, D.C., beneath the vaulted, gilded ceilings of the National Academy of Medicine.

I had been selected to receive the nation’s highest humanitarian distinction for medical service. The auditorium was packed with thousands of people: leading surgeons, politicians, civil continue reading …