All in the family: Grandfather and granddaughter graduate 65 years apart

Dr. Madeline Cullins and her grandfather, Dr. Max Faykus, at her June 1 commencement.

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In 1949, Dr. Max Faykus was accepted as a UT Southwestern medical student – with only a letter of interest and an interview. There was no Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), residencies were not required, and only five women were in his graduating class. His first-term tuition cost just $175. On June 1, exactly 65 years following his own graduation, Dr. Faykus’ granddaughter, Dr. Madeline Cullins, continued his legacy as a UTSW graduate.

After completing college in Texas and serving as a U.S. Navy medic during World War II, Dr. Faykus applied to Southwestern Medical College in 1948. His medical school class consisted of mostly veterans who benefited from the GI Bill®. Then and now, his mind is as sharp as his tongue is clever.

“In the interview, they asked if I ever read A Tale of Two Cities, and I said yeah,” said Dr. Faykus, now 91 years old. “They asked: ‘What were the two cities?’ and I couldn’t remember. So I said, ‘It must not have been a very good book.’”

His persona as a maverick extends as far back as his Navy days. While he was stationed in San Diego at the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, a Marine colonel asked him to play the trumpet in the band. Despite his prior marching band experience at UT Austin, Dr. Faykus refused.

“They said, ‘We have a place for guys like you. You’re going to the Marines,’” Dr. Faykus said.

As a third-year medical student, Dr. Faykus was already seeing patients – another striking contrast to the institutional practices of today. It was the early 1950s and Dallas faced a polio epidemic. Parkland Memorial Hospital took in a majority of those afflicted with the virus, and Dr. Faykus’ class kept IVs going for the patients with iron lungs.

While working 12- to 14-hour shifts to aid the public health crisis, he found time to be the center of shenanigans, one involving a full-body cast and his then-fiancée, Martha, just a week before their wedding. To help with fluid buildup on the groom’s knee, a physician placed Dr. Faykus’ leg in a cast. The prank began by extending the cast all over with the help of his medical school buddies.

“She walked in and said, ‘God, I can’t even get you down the aisle in a wheelbarrow,’” Dr. Faykus said. “When the joke was over, she went home and I said, ‘Let’s get this thing off.’ They said: ‘The joke just started. We’re going to leave you in it.’”

By spring of his senior year in 1953, while Dr. Donald W. Seldin – the “intellectual father” of UTSW who died April 25 – was wrapping up his second year as a faculty member, Dr. Faykus was ready to practice on his own.

“I wasn’t going into a specialty,” Dr. Faykus said. “I was tired of school and wanted to make some money.”

On the heels of graduation, Dr. Faykus and his wife relocated to Florida for a change of scenery. Only specialties required a residency, so he spent the first year interning and then practiced general medicine for 10 years. He eventually completed a radiology residency at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

His son, Dr. Max Faykus Jr., now practices radiology as well. But the family parallels do not end there. In 1981, his daughter, Marcia Emmons, graduated with a law degree from Southern Methodist University in the school’s McFarlin Memorial Auditorium. It was the same location of her father’s medical school commencement, held there because of space issues at UTSW.

Two generations later, a second-grade Madeline Cullins expressed an interest in becoming a doctor – and not just because of her “Paw Paw,” the loving name she calls her grandfather. Her mother, Mary Sue Cullins, is a pediatric nurse practitioner and her sister, Katherine Cullins, is also a nurse.

“I remember telling my friend in sixth grade that I’m going to be a pediatric radiologist, and my friend said, ‘Do you even know what that means?’” Dr. Cullins said. “Then I made a PowerPoint presentation in the ninth grade about how I was going to be a neonatologist.”

As a first-year medical student, Dr. Cullins was gifted her grandfather’s UTSW degree certificate. She used it as visual inspiration to earn her own.

“At 90, you’ve got to start thinking about getting rid of stuff,” said Dr. Faykus. “That was a hard-earned piece of paper, and she was the perfect person to hand it off to.”