It was raining softly 12 years ago, the day Jack McConnell, MD, had the epiphany. McConnell remembers how the rain had turned the dirt roads on Hilton Head, South Carolina, into mud, and how, as he drove out the back gate of his subdivision, he spotted a man walking along a path without an umbrella.
McConnell had a habit of picking up hitchhikers. It was payback of sorts for all the rides his family received when he was growing up in the hills of southwest Virginia. His father was a Methodist minister who never had a car. He told folks that he "couldn't support Mr. Ford" on a preacher's salary and send his seven children to college.
His father also was fond of asking his children at suppertime. "And what have you done for someone today?"--a phrase that became part of McConnell's muscle memory as he grew older. So, on that drizzly day 12 years ago, he slowed down without thinking and gave a ride to a man who would change his life and thousands of others.
The man's name was James. McConnell asked where he was going. "To look for a job. Any kind I can get." He said he had two children, and that his wife was expecting. Always the doctor, McConnell asked whether he had access to medical care. No, James said. "We have to take care of ourselves. No one else is going to help us."
After McConnell drove James to a work site, he thought about the other hitchhikers he had talked to since his retirement on Hilton Head. They were maids, waitresses, construction workers, and every one of them said they had trouble getting basic medical care. Someone should do something, McConnell thought.
Then he heard an echo from his past--"What have you done for someone today?" And, as he did in the 1960s, when he directed the development of Tylenol, and in the 1980s, when he helped create the first commercial MRI system, McConnell began to visualize a solution.
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Jack McConnell, MD: "what have you done for someone today?"
"A few years ago I read an article written by Jack McConnell, MD. He grew up in the hills of southwest Virginia in the United States as one of seven children of a Methodist minister and a stay-at-home mother. Their circumstances were very humble. He recounted that during his childhood, every day as the family sat around the dinner table, his father would ask each one in turn, “And what did you do for someone today?”1 The children were determined to do a good turn every day so they could report to their father that they had helped someone. Dr. McConnell calls this exercise his father’s most valuable legacy, for that expectation and those words inspired him and his siblings to help others throughout their lives. As they grew and matured, their motivation for providing service changed to an inner desire to help others."
