Robert "Bob" Lehmberg, a University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospice and palliative care physician, wouldn't stand at the foot of the hospital bed and talk with his patients the way some doctors did.
He sat as close to them as he could, holding their hands, leaning in to listen to them and even hugging them in their final days of life.
"He connected with his patients on a human level," his wife, Jennifer O'Brien, said. "He would connect with the pain and the struggle they had. He knew what they were going through."
Lehmberg, 69, died at a Little Rock hospice Thursday morning after a lengthy illness.
"He was always looking for a bright spot in difficult situations," said his friend Rick Smith, a professor of psychiatry, medicine and public health at UAMS. "He wanted to help [patients] to keep going on."
Lehmberg was born in Austin, Texas, the eldest of three children of Seth Lehmberg, a general practitioner. He knew at an early age that he would become a physician.
In 1965, just before going to college at the University of Texas, he worked as an orderly at Breckenridge Hospital in Austin.
"Before that summer, becoming a physician was simply the plan for me," Lehmberg said in a 2013 interview with Medical News of Arkansas. "During that summer job, it became clear to me that becoming a physician was what I wanted to do -- what I was meant to do."
He attended medical school at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, and rotated on the plastic surgery service at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, where he was offered a position.
In 1979, he moved to Arkansas, where he specialized in reconstructive surgery in trauma cases.
His career thrived. He was named a fellow of the American College of Surgeons in 1983 and became active in the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. He was appointed chief of surgery at Baptist Medical Center in Little Rock in 1998 and assistant professor of plastic surgery at the Department of Surgery at UAMS, where he taught for five years.
Pain from a previous neck injury began preventing him from doing surgery, and in 2008, rather than quit the medical profession, Lehmberg trained to become board certified in palliative medicine to help patients deal with the pain and anxiety of life-ending illnesses.
When he was certified on Nov. 16, 2010, he was only the 19th physician in the nation to have certifications in both palliative care and plastic surgery.
"That was a head-turner for me," O'Brien said.
The two met at a Little Rock gallery in 2009 and began talking. O'Brien, from Chicago, was a business management consultant for physicians and had just taken a job managing a Little Rock orthopedic center.
"Anybody who can do plastic surgery for 30-plus years and then face the fact you're not able to do it anymore, and then chose to retrain," O'Brien said. "Well, that said it for me."
The couple married in 2012.
Susan McDougal, associate director of the UAMS Department of Pastoral Care, officiated at the couple's wedding.
"His patients felt like they were understood," she said. "What he wanted for his patients were what they wanted for themselves. He'd hold their hands and say, 'It doesn't look good.' But then he'd say, 'Let's see what we could do.'
"He became part of the process when there was nothing left to do," McDougal said. "He didn't sugarcoat things, but he did it with laughter and compassion. He was about as perfect as he could be when taking care of folks who were sick and dying."
In a profession that dealt with loss, Lehmberg battled with depression.
He was featured in a 2008 documentary called Struggling in Silence about physicians who fought depression, addiction and thoughts of suicide. The film won the International Health and Medical Media Award in Psychiatry that year.
"It was very inspirational for young physicians," Smith said. "They'd show that at medical schools across the country. It's had a tremendous impact."
As Lehmberg's own health worsened, he decided to undergo palliative and hospice care. After decades of giving medical care, he received it.
"He had the insight of what patients and families went through," O'Brien said. "He said he would see how spouses looked tired before, but now he realized what they really had to do."
McDougal said something that Lehmberg told her a few years ago has become a mantra.
"This is a hard business," she said. "When you're dying, you lose dignity, but Bob made sure his patients kept it.
"He told me, 'You only get one chance at this.' He said, 'Think about what you are doing.'"
State Desk on 01/21/2017