FAMILY: What do you want all of Michiana to know about your practice?

DR. HSIEH: That we have great patients. Without them and their referrals and support, we couldn't have come this far.

FAMILY: How does family play a role in your practice?

DR. HSIEH: Family is everything, from our personal lives, to what we do in the office. We have a lot of 3-5 generations of the same family in our practice. That relationship is so unique but vital to serving patients in the really complicated aspects of health care today.

FAMILY: What are your favorite cases to see each day?

DR. HSIEH: The kids. And watching them grow. I've had many grow up to bring me their kids to take care of.

FAMILY: How do you balance stressful work/family?

DR. HSIEH: It wasn't always as easy as it is now.

FAMILY: How do you have "fun" at the office/practice?

DR. HSIEH: Laughter and humor with patients and staff is important. Don't take yourself too seriously.

FAMILY: Favorite pastimes - off the clock?

DR. HSIEH: Rock & Roll, skiing, hanging out with the boys-mine and the boys in the band.

FAMILY: Best part of being a father and family man?

DR. HSIEH: Being able to pass things on. Teaching, sharing,

FAMILY: How did you meet your wife? Years married?

DR. HSIEH: Married 20 years this July, and 6 years together before that. We met over a cadaver in Gross Anatomy the first month of med school.

FAMILY: Why Michiana?

DR. HSIEH: Close to Chicago area, where I grew up, and family-oriented.

Some of Dr. Hsieh's best fatherhood memories sound very familiar to many of us but his thoughts below, in his own words, had our FAMILY team belly-laughing! Happy Father's Day to all the great Dads and Grandpas out there who can enjoy memories and thoughts like these!

When my wife stopped breast-feeding and made me taste the different types of formula so "we should know what the baby tastes". It was like a brown-bag wine party of guess-the-wine; except with formula. Yuck. I remembered thinking, nasty as this stuff is; at least it isn't breast milk.

I was tricked into changing diapers. Breast fed babies use their milk so efficiently that their stool, while not odorless, wasn't too bad. Of course, I thought changing diapers was no big deal. So when the unbelievably pungent odors began after the baby started to eat solid foods, I had already shown my wife what an expert I was changing diapers. None of that "you're hopeless, just like all the other sloppy dads, leaving poop on the baby's butt, so just forget about doing it" excuse for me. I remembered thinking "how can such a cute little thing make such a putrid stench that it brings tears to your eyes?

My wife left me alone for a weekend for the first time with the kids when they were toddlers. Every father needs to go through that. It's like boot camp: pure survival. I learned 90% of being a parent is trying to keep the kids from killing themselves. Any father that can take all the kids alone for a whole weekend deserves a gold medal. I remembered thinking, "When do I get to go to the bathroom?"

During those home-alone weekends without mom, we'd all end up sleeping in my king-size bed together with the baby on my chest and the 3 and 4 yr-olds sprawled out in different directions after an exhausting chaotic day. As I watched them sleep in peace, (finally), I remembered thinking this is all so much worth it.

One morning, I was getting dressed, and got one sock on, then got distracted by the babies and misplaced the other sock. I looked all over the house and never found it. After seeing patients, nurses, and other doctors all morning, my last patient, a very sharp 80-yr old asked, "Doc, what's that sock doing hanging over your suit?" I must have walked around with that stupid old sock hanging off my shoulder all day, and no one said a word.

Another time, I was talking to a patient in the hospital, and felt something in my pants. I started to shake, and then shimmy, my leg. As it rolled across the floor, we both stared at this baby sock that had just popped out of the bottom my pant-legs. It had gotten caught in my underwear during the laundry.

When my son was 3 yrs old, he wanted to help me wash my brand new sports car-the very first real car for me, since mini-vans were all we had before. While I was in front, he went behind the car with the hose and stuck it up the tailpipe, to "clean the inside of the car for you, daddy". After I aged about 5 years in 5 minutes, I patiently thanked him, and then explained to him, without showing any anger at all, because he didn't know any better, "uh, here's the correct way, son, to wash a car….."

Then I went inside and beat my head against the wall for a while.

The car gurgled and coughed so much that my friends would ask how many packs a day my car smoked.

When the kids were little, and my wife was still practicing as a full-time pediatrician, I would take them on rounds with me in the hospital. The boys would worry about the patients and ask if they were going to get better. The 3 yr old would say to the patient, "Are you going to be okay? Don't worry my daddy's going to make you better."

The elderly patients would just light up and the radiance on their faces told me that whatever my kids said to them was probably more therapeutic than anything I could have said. They so much looked forward to me coming by with the boys.

I remembered thinking, as I watched my boys with the patients: I'm so lucky to be a father".