L+M Physician Friday -- Dr. Joseph Benedict

Dr. Joseph Benedict doesn’t call himself a “Renaissance man,” but he’s flattered when others invoke the term.

“It makes me feel good,” he says, “but I’m just doing my thing. I do what I enjoy.”

A Renaissance man, by definition, is an expert in a number of different subject areas, and Benedict fits the bill:

He grows and studies orchids in his backyard greenhouse; he’s a singer who has performed the works of Mozart and other composers with choirs throughout Europe; he has circumnavigated the globe in his quest to know history, culture and geography – and he holds the distinction of being the only doctor at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital (as far as we know) who has fired a torpedo from a submarine in Long Island Sound.

Beyond that, Benedict is also a 31-year veteran of Lawrence + Memorial Hospital who usually focuses his eyes and his inquisitive mind on the latest tissue sample under his microscope.

Benedict is a pathologist who works in the L+M Laboratory. He served as chairman of Pathology from 2001 until 2007, and he remains one of the key experts other doctors rely on when a patient’s condition is under review.

Benedict says he loves medicine because it holds so many challenges and mysteries, with each slide that he places under the microscope offering myriad possibilities in the realm of human health.

“My wife wants me to retire, but I won’t,” Benedict says with a laugh. “My work is intellectually challenging. I love this place, and I love the people, particularly.”

Even as a child, Benedict’s interests were varied. He dreamed of being a philosophy professor while growing up in upstate New York. That is, until the Russians launched their Sputnik satellite and he contemplated being an engineer.

Navy fighter planes on black-and-white television in the 1950s prompted Benedict to consider a career as a pilot (and he has flown small planes and gliders) but, when he enrolled in the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and graduated in 1961, Benedict found himself sailing the Pacific on a guided missile destroyer.

“Pacific typhoons were so bad, we had to tie ourselves into our bunks,” he recalled.

Benedict eventually transferred to submarines, went through Sub School at the Submarine Base in Groton and during his officer qualification test on the USS Angler, he fired the torpedo in Long Island Sound.

“Of course,” he says, “it wasn’t armed.”

Later, serving on the ballistic missile submarine Thomas Edison, Benedict had great respect for the ship’s doctor, prompting him to take a leave of absence from the Navy to earn his medical degree from the University of Vermont, graduating in 1972. His medical career began in the Navy, working at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

Benedict remembered how much he liked southeastern Connecticut from his days at the Submarine Base, so when he heard about a job opening at L+M in 1981, he applied – and the rest is history, as they say.

Throughout his career at L+M, Benedict and his wife have traveled much of the world on vacations with unique twists. For example, in 2006, for Mozart’s 200th birthday, Benedict traveled to Salzburg and sang with a choir at the Salzburg Cathedral during a Mozart festival. He sings locally with St. Patrick’s Choir in Mystic and also the Schola Cantorum at St. Michael’s in Pawcatuck.

And when he’s not tending to the 40 to 50 orchids or the Bird of Paradise plant in his greenhouse, Benedict is often contemplating his next adventure.

“We’re thinking about circumnavigating South Africa next January,” he says.

“I consider myself blessed that I can do all these things,” Benedict added. “My career at L+M has given me many opportunities. With all the things I love, I feel as though I’m trying to share beauty with people.”

To learn more about Dr. Benedict, click here.