Frank D'Agostino wasn't sure what lay ahead when he walked into Easton Hospital for the first time in 1959. Now almost 57 years later, D'Agostino is the unofficial dean of the medical staff -- a doctor whose affiliation with the...
Frank D'Agostino wasn't sure what lay ahead when he walked into Easton Hospital for the first time in 1959.
Now almost 57 years later, D'Agostino is the unofficial dean of the medical staff -- a doctor whose affiliation with the community hospital in Wilson Borough has spanned nearly half of its 125-year history.
"You learn a lot of things in on-the-job training," said D'Agostino, a gastroenterologist who started his own practice in 1966.
His passion for biology and medicine is as fervent at age 84 as it was when he joined Easton Hospital as an intern during the Eisenhower administration.
Doctors and other staffers discovered that during two recent lectures, "Looking Forward, Looking Back: 125 Years of Care at Easton Hospital," set up to celebrate the hospital's 125th anniversary.
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D'Agostino earned $200 a month, with room and board and "all the sandwiches you could eat," when he started as an intern after earning his medical degree from the University of Bologna in Italy in 1959.
Back then, general practitioners made house calls, performed autopsies, delivered babies and ran urine and blood samples to the lab themselves. Most patients didn't have health insurance.
After serving as a captain in the U.S. Force from 1960 to 1962, D'Agostino returned to Easton. It was during his residency in 1965 that he was asked to launch a gastrointestinal clinic that would form the foundation for his life's work.
Dr. Frank D'Agostino in 1960 at Easton Hospital. He joined the hospital in 1959 after graduating medical school. (Courtesy photo) In 1965, D'Agostino became the first doctor in the Lehigh Valley and one of only a few in the East to perform endoscopies. The nonsurgical procedure allowed doctors to use a flexible tube to examine a patient's digestive tract, bringing a new dimension to gastroenterology and acclaim to Easton Hospital."It must have been like it was when X-rays were started in 1895," he said.
Endoscopy allowed D'Agostino to see ulcers, inflammation, bleeding, tumors or foreign bodies. Doctors from all over came to learn of the procedure, he said.
When an unruly prisoner with a bad stomach bit on his scope, D'Agostino had to suspend the procedures for two weeks until the damaged instrument was fixed.
"It took awhile for people in Allentown and Bethlehem to know that we were doing it," he said. "The other hospitals weren't even aware of it. The instruments were quite crude. Nobody was bragging. We weren't really talking about it. We were just doing it."
D'Agostino grew up in Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. He knew nothing of Easton before he stepped foot here as a 28-year-old.
"Pennsylvania was as far away as California for me," he said. "All I knew about Pennsylvania was coal miners."
D'Agostino ran a successful practice out of his Palmer Township home and grew into one of the Lehigh Valley medical community's most respected figures.
He resisted offers to move elsewhere and enjoyed practicing in a small-town setting.
"The guys who work at Easton Hospital or Warren Hospital go to the same universities that everybody else goes to," he said. "Just because it's a bigger hospital doesn't mean they're that much greater."
Mostly, he says, he stuck around because he liked the people.
"I was treated like a prince and I've been treated royally ever since," he said. "They treated me so well here."
D'Agostino met his wife, Joanne, when she was in the hospital's School of Nursing. A nutritionist, she would go on to head Easton's medical and surgical nursing teams. The couple have been married 54 years.
D'Agostino retired 12 years ago at age 72 but didn't hang up his zeal for learning. He's a regular at Easton Area Public Library and at Easton Hospital, where he still does research. The hospital library bears his name.
He also teaches Italian there. Classes are open to the public at $65 for 15 lessons, with the money donated to the Easton Area Community Center.
In his lecture with doctors earlier this month, D'Agostino mixed six decades' worth of anecdotes with a glimpse into the challenges physicians face in the next generation.
He noted that today's prevalence of autism, juvenile diabetes, childhood asthma and allergies has coincided with the expansion of antibiotics and rise in births by Cesarean section.
Bacteria that help the immune system are being destroyed by antibiotics or bypassed by fewer and fewer natural childbirths, he said.
"Are these antibiotics killing us?" he asked. "We've been inundated with one stronger than the next. We're killing ourselves.
"Bacteria probably have a lot to do with the way we behave. I'm trying to tell you that antibiotics aren't good for us. We're sidestepping evolution.
"Bacteria have been around for 3 billion years. We've only been around for 2 million years. These bacteria know what they're doing."
D'Agostino said he's fascinated by recent studies that have shown success in using stool transplants to treat colitis and even neurological conditions such as Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis.
It involves taking fecal bacteria from a healthy person and putting it into a sick patient.
"I'm doing GI all this time and all of a sudden we find that you take stool and put it in a sick person, and they're cured?" D'Agostino says incredulously. "What the hell have we been doing all these years?"
It's illustrative of the constant change in medicine -- something that he said keeps him active, curious and excited for what might be next.
"In high school I won the award in biology," D'Agostino said.
"It just led me directly into medicine. You get into the study of the sciences and you just keep moving. One subject leads to another and it just gets more and more interesting.
"I'm more interested in what's happening now than when I was a student. It's incredible."
Jim Deegan may be reached at jdeegan@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @jim_deegan. Find lehighvalleylive on Facebook.