We at Carroll and, I suppose, most of the other universities
in the country, had kind of an isolationist posture, and this
disappeared almost overnight with Pearl Harbor.
I left John Carroll in ’42, not ’43. There might have been six or
seven of us in that class who were accepted to medical school
after only three years. I applied early, and, of course, with Pearl
Harbor, the word went out that they needed doctors, and the
government encouraged acceleration. In medical school, they
crammed four years into three years. We went right through the
summer. It kind of wrings the social implications out of school.
I enlisted in the army. If you were physically fit, they expected
you to be in the military, and other than the few women in our
class and a few people that were infirmed and not in uniform,
the rest of the class was. And we had a certain time set aside
each week for marching and other military ventures.
We remained in the military on inactive duty. As we finished
internship, we were picked up for, in my case, two years of
military service as a physician. I was based in Temple, Texas,
which was a very large army medical facility. These were
veterans returning from the war. My two years there amounted
to a residency. Altogether, I had four years in the military.
I remember being in a lab as an intern and hearing that the
atomic bomb had been dropped. I had been quite certain that
I would be called up and probably sent to Asia. But it didn’t
happen.
There was a time when I routinely biked to [work at] Euclid
Hospital. It’s probably close to 10 miles each way. I rather
doubt that I could do it now. But I still bike. The interesting
thing is I can bike more comfortably than I can walk. |
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As life expectancy has improved, people are thinking a little
differently of individuals who are 60 and 70. I remember, in
my practice, seeing a person who was 70, and I always thought
that was pretty ancient. But [now] there are a lot of people
getting close to 100.
[Greater longevity] is a tribute to many things: improved
medical care, probably better nutrition, better understanding
of what’s good and bad for you, and generally a more
supportive society. There’s great provision for the elderly
and infirmed. And there have been specific innovations
in the medical field that have very genuinely extended life
expectancy: a better understanding of cardiovascular disease,
and certainly the various operative procedures for coronary
artery disease. And the various joint replacements have kept
people much more mobile.
I met my wife when we were in St. Louis together. She was in
college and I was in medical school. I met her at a dance that
her college offered, and I continued to think she was pretty
neat. And before we left our respective schools, we became
engaged.
One of our parental achievements has been that all seven of
our kids have advanced degrees. Establishing and raising a
family of seven kids has been a very happy experience.
I’ve greatly enjoyed my retirement years. Both Laney and I
have felt that these have been very generous years, ones we’ve
been able to share with our family. We feel very fortunate
that it’s been a very happy family – I mean, everybody talks to
everyone else, and we get to see all of our children’s families.
As told to David Budin |
