In his lifetime, Dr. Jack Kihm had the good fortune of growing and learning under the guidance of two men who each had a significant hand in shaping Kalamazoo and its future.
The first was his father, Otto Kihm, a skilled and savvy businessman who, for 30 years, ran a successful tire service shop in downtown Kalamazoo that today still bears his name.
Then, after medical school at the University of Michigan and an internship and surgery residency year at Mount Carmel Hospital in Detroit, Dr. Kihm worked for three years under the tutelage of Dr. Homer H. Stryker at Borgess Hospital. He didn’t know it then, but when Dr. Kihm completed his residency in 1961, he would be the last resident physician to complete training under Dr. Stryker.
“I was so proud to be a resident of Homer’s,” Dr. Kihm, 86, said recently. “He was a generous guy. He was generous with his time, he was generous with his cases and he was really interesting.
“You talk about storytellers; Homer could charm the socks off of a brass monkey.”
Dr. Kihm’s reflections came earlier this month as he and his wife, Patti, traveled to Kalamazoo from their home in Daytona Beach, Florida, to attend an inaugural event at the medical school’s W.E. Upjohn M.D. Campus for alumni of the Orthopaedic Surgery residency program. The group who gathered for the event on Saturday, September 15, included physicians from the early days of the Stryker residency program, as well as the Southwestern Michigan Health Education Center (SMAHEC) and the Michigan State University Kalamazoo Center for Medical Studies (MSU/KCMS), both predecessors to WMed.
The alumni who attended the event were welcomed to the medical school by Dr. Keith Kenter, chair of WMed’s Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, current residents and the medical school's Office of Development and Alumni Affairs. The event also marked the formation of the Hanson Society within the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at WMed.
Dr. Kihm said he was honored to attend and be a part of the alumni event. The day provided a chance for him to reconnect with former colleagues and return to his hometown, a place where he practiced medicine for 30 years.
The trip also gave Dr. Kihm time to reflect on his time as a physician and the lessons he learned from Dr. Stryker that served him well in his career.
“I think his biggest lesson to me was that if you can’t do good, don’t do anything,” Dr. Kihm said of Dr. Stryker. “Homer was a farm boy and he was used to dealing with things on a very practical basis, and surgery was not always his first thought. He was an inventor and he really liked to tinker and he liked to improve things.”
Dr. Kihm spent seven years at U-M completing his pre-med courses and his MD degree before coming on board as a resident physician with Dr. Stryker in 1958. The move back to Kalamazoo, he said, was welcomed at the time because it brought him closer to his family, including his father, who was dealing with health issues at the time.
When Dr. Kihm arrived, he was one of three residents working under the guidance of Dr. Stryker, as well as Drs. Bob DeLong and Grant Howard. The three men referred to Dr. Kihm and his counterparts as their associates and Dr. Kihm said the residents were given a great amount of responsibility the moment they arrived.
“The residents always had breakfast together and then lunch with the attendings,” Dr. Kihm recalled. The surgery list was Stryker, Howard, DeLong and then the residents. It was a lot of responsibility very, very early.”
Dr. Kihm traces his path into medicine back to his love of science – especially chemistry – in grade school at Kalamazoo’s St. Augustine Grade School. His classmates called him “Chemistry Kihm,” he said.
Later, when he attended Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana, as a teenager, he said his love of science, specifically biology, grew even more. By the time, he was 15 years old he said he had made up his mind that he wanted to be a doctor.
“I said that what I’m going to have to do is cut my path my own way,” Dr. Kihm said. “I knew I couldn’t go in to the tire business. My father was incredibly smart and an incredible businessman and he had a very high ranking in the community.
“It would have been an impossible act to follow.”
After he completed his residency training in 1961, Dr. Kihm opened up his own practice on South Park Street. The practice eventually grew to include himself and five other physicians. In addition to his work as a doctor, Dr. Kihm overcame a fear of flying and became a licensed pilot, a skill that allowed him to see patients and perform surgeries throughout Southwest Michigan, including at Borgess and Bronson Methodist Hospital, as well as hospitals in Allegan, Dowagiac, Hastings, Plainwell and Three Rivers, among others.
He sold his most recent airplane – a Cessna 210 – earlier this year and he chuckles when he points out that he has owned more airplanes – 13 – than cars – 3.
By the time he retired in 1990, Dr. Kihm had enjoyed a long career with accomplishments that included performing the first total hip replacement in the region in 1969.
In coming back to Kalamazoo to join his former colleagues and see firsthand the growth of the medical school that now bears Dr. Stryker’s name, Dr. Kihm said he was proud to have been a part of the Orthopaedic Surgery residency program in Kalamazoo and honored to work with Dr. Stryker.
“I think Homer gets all of the credit he deserves,” Dr. Kihm said. “He was a good guy, he was an honest guy. He was an inventor, he liked to fix things and he fixed people.”