1965

For many months my file on class doctors has been building as questionnaires continue to slip into the roadside mailbox. During a week of fighting the neighborhood headcold and reading Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward, I resolved to map out just what our men in white are up to. The most obvious conclusion to be drawn from looking at the group as a whole is the amount of time involved in getting to the position where starting a private practice is feasible.

Let's consider Bob Witty, who has mapped out his path in detail. This coming January he will go to Dayton to start at last as a nephrologist in a group practice. During 1976 he has been a renal fellow at Duke University following three previous years there as a resident in internal medicine. In 1973 Bob received his M.D. from University of Miami after two years of study. All of this followed two years of post-doc work at the University of Missouri School of Medicine and four years at Albany Medical College getting a Ph.D. in medical physiology. In the midst of these 11 and a half years of preparation Bob has found time to bring along a family now numbering three children. Jim Roche, M.D., is also at Duke as a gastro-intestinal fellow. Kris Greene apparently is also an M.D., but Bob didn't say in what field.

Already in Dayton is John Bullock, M.D., with his wife Gretchen and two children. John is on the faculty of Wright State University School of Medicine and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. One of his 35 published papers received the Marvin H. Quickert Award in the field of opthalmic plastic and reconstructive surgery. If my own eyes don't recover from 15 years abuse (prolonged wearing of contact lenses) I may be tripping to Dayton. Another ophthalmologist is Dr. William Bourne who joined the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., a year ago as a consultant. His path traced through the University of lowa Medical School (M.D. 1969 then residency to 1974) and the University of Florida (post-residency). He will also be an assistant professor at the Mayo Medical School.

Many of our classmate doctors have been in the military service for part of their training. Jerry Putnam for example left the army last year and is now assistant professor of medicine and chief of the pulmonary disease section at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C. Jim Markworth, on the other hand, stayed in the Navy to become a lieutenant commander and has been an orthopedic surgeon at Portsmouth Naval Hospital in Virginia since July 1975.

Brad Hawley, M.D., has moved to West Virginia to become assistant professor of medicine and director of the infectious diseases service at the Charleston Branch of West Virginia University. Even further west of the Cumberland Gap beyond the Ohio River, the Mississippi, and even the Missouri - in fact all the way out west in Laramie, Wyo., stands another proud physician. Looking more closely we're likely to find that he is actually standing at the stern of a pontoon or long boat bounding down a roaring mountain waterway. In addition to his private practice in OB-GYN, Bob Shine is lead boatman on the middle fork and main Salmon Rivers and the Selway River in Idaho, Bob didn't say whether he uses his Cessna 182 for house-calls or commuting to Idaho in the summer.

Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York coughed up a lingering resident this summer as John Flanagan left for Fitchburg, Mass., and a practice in OB-GYN at the Burbank Hospital. Part of John's medical education took place at the University of Bologna, Italy. Against the ebb tide of a declining birth rate and the impact on his specialty, John has tried to stem the decline by having five children of his own!

Although setting up a private practice may sound like a starting point, the road through med school, internship, and residency always provides opportunity for making useful contributions to the body of medical knowledge. A news release from USC, Los Angeles, gives an example. With the help of a training grant from the Sickle Cell Disease Research Foundation, Dr. John F. Simmons will be studying patients in the sickle cell clinics of Los Angeles County to find the link between sickle cell disease and liver disease. John received his M.D. from USC in 1969 and has specialized in diseases of the blood since then. He also plans to enter private practice in the Los Angeles area.

That's all I have at the moment on "The Young Doctors." As the rest of you emerge from your cocoons, let us hear about it.

As for the rest of you - a toast to your health!

"That's my Alma Mater!" Delta captain John Achorn '50 and first officer ThomasGrove '67 discovered, while flying over Hanover, that they were both Big Greeners.

Secretary, 22 Surry Drive Cohasset, Mass. 02025

Treasurer, 45 Ethan Allen Dr. Acton, Mass. 01720