Distinguished alum has "only happy memories"

October 15, 2011


By Carly Evans
Copy Editor

’85 grad Colin Kaide was moonlighting at an emergency care center during his senior resident when a 40-year-old man was rushed in. He had collapsed because his artificial heart valve was stuck open. The man did not survive.
When Kaide was about to the leave the hospital room the man’s wife came up to him with her two young children. They thanked Kaide for how hard he had tried to save their father’s life.
This was the moment when Kaide realized that he could “see through the patient’s eyes.”
Years later, and Kaide is an Attending Physician in Emergency Medicine at Memorial Hospital in Ohio and a Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine at Ohio State University, where he studied after graduating from the University of Illinois.

At Prospect, Kaide was involved in wrestling and baseball for three years, Spanish Club and martial arts. Always having known he wanted to go into medicine, Kaide focused his Prospect career around the math and sciences. During his senior year, he took AP Chemistry and AP Biology.
One class that he particularly remembers is his junior year physics class because his teacher, Bruce Illingworth, or “Doc I,” taught him the art of deductive reasoning. This method is a way to problem solve by isolating variables.

Kaide utilizes this method when working on a particularly hard case, or when teaching his students how to problem solve.

Other than his studies, something Kaide remembers fondly is his homecoming week, especially during his senior year. Homecoming back then was surrounded around the football team, and everyone joined together as a school to support them.
Kaide especially remembers the homecoming queen from his senior year. In fact, he remembers Julie Renfro every day because he loved her name so much, he named is daughter after her.

“All I have is happy memories,” Kaide said. “The memories may even be better than what actually happened”