Tero's host John Hartle
circa 1952 on a Boy Scout fishing trip
Tero Kangas
I was the American Field Service exchange student at LAHS in
1955-1956, living with the Hartles. John Hartle was my "American
Brother," and the following year's student president at LAHS.
When I came back to Finland, I was very sick, and on the 12th of
September, I was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. I spent a month in
hospital before I was allowed to continue school in the senior class in
Finland. The following spring I graduated with honors.
Because of my diabetes, my intention to study medicine (which I
had dreamt of) was denied; and therefore, I started to study
mathematics, physics, chemistry and astronomy at the University of
Helsinki. Within half a year, I found that those subjects were not for
me, and I again asked my doctor whether I could study medicine--and she
gave permission. The next summer I participated in a one-month-long
preparatory course and the written tests, which you had to pass in
order to enter the medical school of the University of Helsinki. I made
it to the top of the list of 600 participants. I became an MD in the
spring of 1965.
During my studies I met my wife Tove, and we were married on
Midsummer's Day in 1961. Our first daughter, Ilka, was born on the 16th
of May 1963. I delivered her personally, even though I had not
graduated from the medical school--that was an experience which I shall
never forget! Our second daughter, Kea, was born on the 27th of May
1967. At that time I had become a more experienced doctor, and so I did
not deliver her by myself (although I was present when she was born).
In August 1967 we moved to Boston, MA, for my studies in clinical
diabetes at the Joslin Clinic, which then was (and still is) the top
place to study diabetes. This specialization was not my idea, nor was
it because of my diabetes, but my professor suggested it and arranged
all the formalities for me. At that time the treatment of diabetes was
very poorly managed in Finland, and he wanted someone to be trained at
the Joslin Clinic, where he himself had studied in the late thirties.
The year at the Joslin Clinic changed both my understanding of
diabetes and my personal relationship to my own diabetes, which became
totally different. Until then I had the idea that I would not live very
long, but at the clinic I learned how much can be done--and I became
interested in developing the treatment of diabetes in Finland.
After coming back from the States I specialized in internal
medicine and started to develop the treatment of diabetes in our
country. I was also asked to write a patient manual for diabetics, a
book which contained 400 pages. It became a bestseller in Finland and
sold some 40,000 copies in six printings between 1972 and 1982, which
was an astounding number in our small country of some 5 million
inhabitants. It was even called "the bible for diabetics." The book was
also translated into Swedish and some 40,000 copies in three printings
were sold there. Altogether the book changed the treatment of diabetes
in our country dramatically for the better.
I was elected Vice President and then President of the Finnish
Diabetes Association, serving in that organization from 1972 to
1994. From 1976-1982 I represented all of the European Diabetes
Associations on the Executive Board of the International Diabetes
Federation (IDF), and from 1982 to 1988 I served as one of their eleven
Vice Presidents.
In the late nineties I was asked to rewrite the manual for
diabetics. That suggestion ended up as a totally new 500-page book. I
am one of four editors and have written about one-fourth of the text
(mostly on insulin treatment of type 1 diabetes). This book is already
in its fourth revised printing and has sold over 15,000 copies.
After the student revolution in Europe in the late sixties, there
was a very strong leftist movement in our country. My wife Tove was
influenced by it and became an extreme leftist in her political
thinking in the 1970's. That resulted in her demand for a divorce
based, as she later put it, on my "different political views." So our
marriage, most of which was a very happy one, ended in a divorce in
1979. Tove moved to Denmark and has since remarried there. Both girls
stayed with me, which was both a very happy resolution and also a heavy
responsibility for me. Thereafter, we were a very happy family, my
daughters and I and their many friends, who sometimes lived longer
periods with us.
My older daughter is presently happily married and works at the
University of Helsinki as a researcher. She has a Doctorate in Social
Sciences (Dr.SocSc) and is also a Docent. My younger daughter, who has
a Master of Arts in General Linguistics, is also happily married and
works at Nokia Company and is much appreciated there. She and her
husband, Markus, have my only grandchild, a son named Uki, who is four
years old and already, among others, is reading. He is my real delight.
After our divorce I met Kirsti, who is an architect. She had also
been recently divorced when we met. We have never married because all
of our daughters (She also has one of the same age!) never agreed that
we all could live under the same roof--and so we still live together in
two separate houses. But we continue to be very happy and deeply in
love with each other after over twenty-five years.
In 1993 I finished my thesis for a Ph.D. and have thereafter
continued studies in epidemiology, health care organizations and costs
of diabetes. I was granted the title of professor in 2001.
In December of 2000, at age 63, I was forced to retire according
to our laws, and thereafter I have spent the past five years teaching
doctors and nurses about diabetes and its treatment.
So, at the present, I am a happy "senior" and lucky to have had
diabetes for fifty years with no complications whatsoever from the
disease. So far I have lived a very rich and wonderful life.
27 February 2006
Tero Kangas
Professor, MD, Ph.D.
Specialist in internal medicine and diabetology
Valinkauhantie 7
01640 Vantaa
Finland
Mobile phone: +358-50-5217955
e-mail: tero.kangas@iki.fi