What’s It Like for Father-Son Cardiologists to Work in the Same Hospital?

There are more than 150 medical specialties recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS). And there are approximately 6,000 hospitals in the U.S.

The fact that father and son Dr. Stephen “Steve” Pollock, 76, and Dr. Jeremy Pollock, 41, both became cardiologists is rare enough. That they both work at the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center in the same group of cardiologists is nothing short of astonishing.

The two doctors have their own reasons, though, for choosing both the field and the hospital.

“My dad had his first heart attack when he was 36 and died from heart disease at age 54,” says Steve. He remembers sitting bedside in the  emergency room of what was then known as University Hospital, now the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC), after his father passed. “My dad’s death motivated me to do what I do now. I’m really committed to the early diagnosis of coronary disease.”

From age five, Jeremy was primed to take after his dad—at least as far as becoming a doctor was concerned.

“When people asked me what I wanted to be [when I grew up], I said ‘a doctor.’ There are photos of me here in the cath lab with dad when I was six years old,” says Jeremy, now the medical director of cardiology operations at UM St. Joseph Medical Center as well as the co-director of the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) Comprehensive Heart Failure Network. “I always wanted to come to work with dad because I looked up to him.”

He admits, however, that he wasn’t always planning to become a cardiologist. “I thought I couldn’t do exactly what my dad did. I wanted to be a surgeon but quickly realized in med school that it wasn’t for me,” says Jeremy.

“I remember at one point, he said he was going to be a urologist. That lasted about three weeks,” Steve cracks. When Jeremy asked his father what he did all day as a clinical cardiologist, his dad told him it was really about establishing longstanding relationships with patients. That sold Jeremy on the specialty.

“For me, cardiology has it all,” says Jeremy. “It’s complex, the physiology of it. You get to help people when they’re really sick, and you get to help patients for decades. At the end of the day, it fit like a glove.”

Sitting in Steve’s office, it’s impossible not to notice the huge wall across from his desk, filled with framed photos. Many are of him and his wife, his sons, his daughter-in-law, but he admits that now most of the photos are centered around his grandchildren. The oldest photo on the wall, though, shows Steve after a night on call with a baby Jeremy resting on his chest. Behind Steve’s desk is a much younger Jeremy pitching in the championship game in Roland Park Little League.

Jeremy adds, “And now I’ve got family photos on my office wall, too.”

“I THOUGHT, I COULDN’T DO EXACTLY  WHAT MY DAD DID. . . ”

The father and son also took similar—if not quite identical—paths to their current positions. Both attended the Gilman School and then prestigious universities for their bachelor’s degrees (Brown for Steve and University of Virginia for Jeremy) and graduated medical school from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, in 1975 and 2011 respectively.

But while Jeremy was born and raised in Baltimore, Steve was born in Roslyn, Long Island, in 1949 and then briefly lived in Chicago until his family moved to Baltimore after his father’s first heart attack. Back then, if you had a heart attack, you had to stay in bed for six weeks and often lost your job, as you were thought to be on borrowed time. His father worked at a retail store and was let go, but landed a job at Hecht’s in downtown Baltimore.

From that point on, young Steve was a Baltimore boy. “The only time I went away was when I went to Brown,” says Steve.

After medical school, he took three years of internal medicine and then two years of cardiology training at the University of Maryland. In 1980 he was hired at North Charles General Hospital and began working at St. Joe’s because he liked the hospital, and they gave him privileges to work there, which was harder to come by at that time.

Jeremy completed his residency at Vanderbilt University and then did a cardiology fellowship at the University of Maryland, graduating in 2017. While he knew that a lot of sons spent a lifetime trying to get out from under their father’s shadow, he never felt that way.

While he got the job at St. Joe’s on his own merits, it probably didn’t hurt that his father was able to put in the good word for him—and that some of the other doctors had known him since he was a kid. Recently, Jeremy has taken on more of a leadership role in the hospital.

“When I joined here, there were six cardiologists, and dad was the head of the group,” he says. Now Jeremy serves that role. “We joke about me being the boss. I’m not the boss. Dr. Shumile Zaidi is the chief of cardiology. And today, we have 13 cardiologists.”

“I used to be in charge, but he came in, and I’m right out the door,” says Steve with a laugh.

It’s clear that this good-natured, back-and-forth banter is part of the dynamic between father and son. Besides working together, the two are friends, meet for lunch at least twice a week, and share a love for interestingly colored, fun socks. Jeremy, for example, is sporting rose-colored footwear that matches his tie.

“I think they are one of the best things that happened in fashion,” says Steve. “And patients notice them all the time.”

Steve and his wife, Patricia, raised Jeremy and their younger son, Spencer, with an emphasis on family and community. The two boys, born 18 months apart, ended up pursuing very different career paths.

“Spencer is a local, high-powered, cyber-security privacy lawyer,” says Jeremy. “When he started, though, he wanted to be a medical malpractice lawyer! We’re polar opposite humans. I always wanted to be a doc, and Spencer wanted to sue docs.”

“There’s a picture of him when he graduated law school. Jeremy is in a white coat, and Spencer is pretending to choke him,” says Steve.

And is Spencer jealous of the closeness of his father and older brother? “Oh yeah,” jokes Steve. “He’s really unhappy with this interview!”

Reached for comment, Spencer kept the bit going. “I’m totally unhappy,” he says. “In fact, I’m furiously writing in my diary about it. Page 47 is titled ‘Why Jeremy Ruined My Life,’” he jokes. “We have a running joke that my brother is the golden child—always better in school, wanted to pursue medicine, wanted to work with my dad, etc., so this joint exposé fits into the narrative. But I love them for this—plus I carved my own path.”

Getting serious, Spencer, a partner in the law firm McDonald Hopkins, says that he is very close with his father and brother, and speaks to them both daily. “I can’t express how proud I am of them and everything they’ve achieved and will continue achieving.”

Oh, and the family proclivity for fun socks? Spencer maintains he originated the trend in 2012. “They both gave me a hard time about it, but finally came around,” he says.

HIS DAD TOLD HIM [CLINICAL CARDIOLOGY] WAS REALLY ABOUT ESTABLISHING LONGSTANDING RELATIONSHIPS WITH PATIENTS. THAT SOLD JEREMY ON THE SPECIALTY.

Of course, life at St. Joe’s isn’t all rose-colored socks. When Jeremy started working with his dad, he says there were a few inevitable hiccups.

“When I joined St. Joe’s, I wanted to quickly prove myself. I had to think about how I would distinguish myself outside of being ‘Steve’s son’ or ‘Dr. Pollock Jr.’,” Jeremy says. “The positive is that I got an advice-giver, a mentor, from the beginning with dad. The negative is that you’re going to be seen in the beginning as walking in someone’s shadow. I think that quickly changed. We were able to make it so that we were seen as two very separate and different people.”

And it turns out, father and son both have had lessons to learn from each other. When Steve became a cardiologist in 1980, the field didn’t yet know how aspirin could help the heart, for example.

“The medicines, interventions, and the data behind what we do is exponentially greater than when dad was in medical school,” says Jeremy. That said, nothing is a replacement for experience. Seasoned doctors know how to communicate with patients, families, nurses—and health insurance companies.

“The new docs learn all about the practices of medicine from the senior docs,” says Jeremy. “They don’t teach you the business of medicine when you’re in medical school.”

So it’s been a give and take between Steve and Jeremy, and over the years, the relationship has, inevitably, evolved, especially as Jeremy has taken on greater leadership roles.

“It’s taken a while,” says Steve, “but I’ve learned to act as a consigliere and not talk unless I’m asked—and I do get asked about things all the time.”

And Steve, who works regular hours at the hospital but is no longer an on-call physician (he stopped during COVID) is more than just a mentor to Jeremy, he’s a father figure to the whole staff.

“Steve is a saint. He helps whenever and however he can,” says cardiologist Dr. Elliot Sultanik, who has worked with the Drs. Pollock for the last three years. “He loves what he does and has more energy than the rest of us combined. It’s not just a job to [Steve], it’s a calling.”

Working with both Pollocks, Sultanik has developed perspective on their differences. “Jeremy has a clear, rational, and practical approach to medicine. He thinks three steps ahead, coordinates patient care seamlessly, and has a gift for improving efficiency without sacrificing quality.”

He notes that, as leader of the general cardiology group, Jeremy dramatically improved the group’s workflow in just a year. A certain level of humility goes a long way with colleagues, too.

“He takes feedback with grace—no small feat in a leadership role—and handles challenges with confidence.

“Steve is a gregarious, lovable gem of a partner. Jeremy is a talented leader, always striving to make our practice better,” says Sultanik. “Watching the two of them playfully bicker is pure entertainment.”

IT TURNS OUT, FATHER AND SON BOTH HAVE HAD LESSONS TO LEARN FROM EACH OTHER.

There is, of course, the pesky matter of what to call each other while at the hospital. Steve suggests that his son simply call him “Steve.” But Jeremy admits it can be a bit awkward.

“I still don’t know what to do with that,” says Jeremy. “I usually say ‘Senior Pollock.’”

Another hazard of working together so closely? Bringing their work home with them. Jeremy married his high school sweetheart, Elizabeth, who works full-time in the admissions office at the Calvert School, and they live with their two daughters, Reese, 9, and Charlotte, 6, in Lutherville-Timonium. (And lest you think this story can’t get any more wholesome, get ready: The couple had their first date at age 13, when they went to the Maryland State Fair.)

Steve and Patricia live in Reisterstown. And when they gather with family, they try to talk about anything other than medicine.

“It’s very easy for us to get into going back and forth about work, patient care, things that are going on here,” says Jeremy. “So, we’re at a family dinner, and he and I start talking about work—well, my brother doesn’t want to hear it, and my wife doesn’t want to hear it. The rule we’ve had to make is when we’re outside of these walls, we’ve got to keep the talk just about family, the Ravens, the Orioles, anything but work!”

Despite a few growing pains, the Drs. Pollock are grateful to work together in the same field, the same group, and at the same hospital.

“I don’t think there’s anything better. I have two boys who I’m really close to. Watching Jeremy grow in this field, that’s magic. He’s taken the leadership roles I’ve had in the past, and he does them a thousand times better than I did,” says Steve.

“It’s a privilege to get to work with my dad,” says Jeremy. “I feel lucky and honored and blessed every single day.”