Class Notes
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2001
Anna Barbosa, M.D. shared, “I am happy to announce the birth of Alexander Djinzinho Barbosa, born on my husband Armando’s birthday, 11/30/11. His siblings are very excited: Ariana is 6, Armando is 5 and Angelica is 3. I enjoy working full-time as an internist at South Shore Medical Center in Norwell, Massachusetts. Hope you all have a happy and healthy 2012!”
1994
Adam Perlman '94 and family
1991
Charnjit Singh '91 and family
We did enjoy a fun and interesting trip this summer to Walnut Grove MN and De Smet, South Dakota as we followed the path of the Ingalls family (Little House on the Prairie).
I always enjoy reading about classmates’ great professional accomplishments and family/personal joys. Best wishes to everyone. CJ”
1990
Kathleen Kelly, M.D., shared, “Traveling lots for work this year has been an eye opener to the abundant absurdity of life in America. If you’re traveling with your GPS in a rental car in Montana and it tries to send you to a road called “Jeep trail,” go a different way.
I’m also married into a large family (twice), so there is ample fodder for humor there. Like my husband’s aunt, who is physically vigorous despite her advanced dementia. She mows at the Christmas tree farm regularly, but often runs out of gas on the tractor. She can find her way back to the barn for a can of gas, but then can’t remember where she left the tractor… So the call goes out and we each have a section of the farm to search. Married twice because friends asked us to be godparents to their second son, but there was a new parish priest with new rules. Married in the backyard doesn’t count in church, so we had to get married again in church so we could be godparents at the baptism a week later.
I’m recovering from knee reconstruction (no thanks to the pack of goldens) after losing an argument with gravity from the painting scaffold this spring. Oddly enough, it feels much better after a day of hiking in the mountains than a day of working in the office. The big finale after our late summer hiking trip with the RV happened when the RV disengaged itself from the pickup truck on the way home. Happily, it was only about 5 miles from the house, and we were able to pick up all the truck bits, reconnect the trailer, and depart before the local constabulary arrived. The other change is that I’m now officially an escapee from primary care medicine, now working full time in wound care and palliative medicine. Better late than never. Best wishes.”
1988
Jamel Patterson, M.D., M.P.H., shared, “I have been on several medical missions, and have a non profit organization called Ageno Foundation International, Inc. our web site is www.agenofoundation.org. We service Eastern Africa and the Caribbean, providing medical support, nutrition, scholarship funds, and school supplies. Last year we donated 1600 mosquito nets in the fight against malaria in Gulu and Kampala, Uganda during one of our medical missions. One of the students we supported graduated from Law School in Burundi this August. Our nutrition program, which began in January 2011, have fed over 1000 people, we focus on pregnant females and children under 5 years old. This is just a short note of what I have been up to. Please consider partnering with us. Thank you, Jamel Patterson, MD, MPH, President, Ageno Foundation.”
1987
Linda Burke-Galloway, M.D. '87 and family.
Lorraine Potocki, M.D. shared, “I just published a text book entitled: Human Genetics: From Molecules to Medicine (Schaaf, Zschocke, Potocki). Preface by Dr. James Watson and many photos by Rick Guidotti of Positive Exposure. Happy Reading! :)”
1986
Ziv Haskal, M.D. '86
I keep a full clinical and research schedule and have built up and run the division at the University of Maryland, travel and lecture… and try to get out on my bike. Thank goodness for my lovely wife and two talented daughters.”
1985
I. Michael Leitman, M.D. shared, “Greetings from Manhattan. I was appointed Professor of Clinical Surgery at Albert Einstein Medical College and Chief of Graduate Medical Education/D.I.O at Beth Israel Medical Center. I work closely with Burton Surick, MD (CAS and MED ’86) as Directors of the Surgical Residency Program.”
David Kam, M.D., D.M.D., shared, “I have joined the Mass. Eye and Ear Infirmary on 12/1/11. Please see the press release on my practice website @ http://www.ssent.org for details. “
1984
Marcia Katz, M.D. shared, “Howdy from Houston! I am a pulmonary and critical care medicine physician, having completed all my training at BU and BCH and have been a member of the Baylor College of Medicine faculty for 11 years. I am the Director of the Adult Cystic Fibrosis Center and I hold the Brown Foundation Professorship in Adult Cystic Fibrosis. I have recently been appointed to be the Associate Chair of Medicine for Clinical Affairs and the Chief of Adult Medicine at Texas Children’s Hospital. Busy life.
Most importantly, I am married to Asher Aremband and have 4 beautiful daughters: Rebecca Wolinsky, 19, and a sophomore at Brown University; Jessica Wolinsky, 16, and a junior in high school, Lisa Aremband, 22, a graduate student in Jewish education at The Jewish Theological Seminary and Jody Aremband, 20, a sophomore at American University.
Highlight of 2011 – a WONDERFUL reunion of Class of 1984 lifelong girlfriends, Kathy Bennett, BJ Entwisle, Julie Kaufman, Jennifer Hosmer and me in Boston where we toasted with wonderful champagne our wonderful memories of medical school at BU and how we have not aged a bit.
If you come to Houston, give a call! mkatz@bcm.edu”
Kurt Wharton, M.D. shared, “Greetings from California. I still have my Boston winter clothes but I haven’t worn them much in the past 27 years since graduation. I was just promoted to Clinical Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Medicine at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) where I also did my Residency. I am the Site-Director for Resident Education at Alta Bates Summit Hospital in Berkeley where I teach Advanced Laparoscopic Surgery and Pelvic Reconstruction. I am past-Department Chairman at ABSMC (thankfully). While I was chairman our hospital was the busiest OB Department in the Western United States. For many years I have also sat on the Claims Advisory Committee for NORCAL Mutual, a physician owned malpractice company based in San Francisco that provides coverage to physicians throughout the country including Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. My wife Jill and I have 2 daughters in college (USC and UC-Davis) and two sons in High School. The boys row crew and hope to row in the Head of the Charles next year. I’ll definitely return to Boston for that event. My sons are also active in Boy Scouts and I am an Adult Leader which has allowed me to backpack quite a bit and enjoy life outside of medicine. It seems I spend my life teaching the tying of knots to either my Residents or my Scouts. I was fortunate to have many great teachers in Medical School and in Residency that I do my best to emulate. I hope my classmates have been able to enjoy their careers as much as I have.
1983
Arnold Pallay, M.D. shared, “I have just celebrated 25 years in family medical practice as Medical Director of Changebridge Medical Associates, P.A. in Montville, New Jersey. Most recently I have started a Personalized Genomic Medicine program at the Atlantic Health System ( a three-hospital, 2000 physician system ) where I serve as the Program Director. We just received a 1 million dollar private capital donation to support clinical activities in this growth area of medical practice. (Jacobs-Levy Equity Management Personalized Genomic Medicine program at Atlantic Health. ) I have four children with my wife Robin, two of whom are Engineers and the oldest is special projects manager of a political web site www.Ballotpedia.org . His wife is a 2nd year OB/GYN resident at Tufts. Our youngest is a high school junior who will soon start his college search in the Boston area or somewhere in the northeast.”
1977
Laura McCann, M.D., shared, “I came to the east from the southwest and thus I was in a winter coat by the end of September. I remember seeing my first icicles from outside the second floor classrooms. Our welcome speeches in Keefer auditorium with the old wooden chairs consisted of being told that “look to your left and your right and one of you will not be here next year”…what a thing to say to our class when everyone had worked so hard to get to this point in our lives…but they were wrong as their were few that did not finish with the class. All of my surrounds were such a change from the southwest as we had no subways and rare buses for travel as everyone drove. The area around the medical school was such a change from the secure and very nice campus of the University of Arizona in Tucson. One had to walk down from the elevated train-line on Washington street and pass dilapidated brownstones, strewn garbage, homeless people, and rats as large as cats..no one wanted to live around the area yet I knew that this was a place to get a full range of experiences in my medical education. It enlightened my views of people and their lives and I think made me a better person and physician. I think that during our stay in the 70′s the Boston City Hospital Cafeteria had full dinners available for I think less than a dollar…hard to believe. In my capacity as a member of the American Medical Women’s Association I mentor the local student branch at Boston University where their events are frequently on “The 14th floor” which is the same as I remember with the breathtaking view of Boston.”
1975
Joseph Matthews, M.D., shared, “My son, Richard Douglas Matthews BUSM ’03, just joined me in surgical practise as Board Certified Colon and Rectal Surgeons specializing in laparoscopic Colectomy. We are glad to have him home along with the three grandchildren and one on the way.”
1969
Marc Hirsch, M.D. '69
I am now fulfilling my dream of writing. I have been working on a murder mystery for the past two years, and am almost done.
Another dream has been to be a bartender.
I have been working behind the bar at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville for the past year, since before I retired. It’s just like practicing medicine, only less paperwork.
I have fond memories of struggling through medical school at BUSM. I never regretted it. My career has transitioned from mainly surgical, to Board Certified in Family Practice, to intensely internal medicine as a hospitalist.
I have been a speaker at the local college, Western Kentucky University, to the pre-med honors society. They sent me one of their tee shirts to thank me.
My only advise to medical students facing a life in medicine, and to any young person in any job, is to live as cheaply as possible so you never have cause to doubt your reason for being in your profession and you never feel trapped in a job you no longer love.
When I finally understood that, I traded my BMW in for a Prius, paid off my mortgage, quit my country club, and retired to bartend and write my book.
I do volunteer work as a doctor in a Free Clinic, for working people who cannot afford health insurance.
Keeping the promise to cover every American and lower the cost of medical care did not support the lifestyle of the HMO.
1962
Norman Gaudrault, M.D. shared, “I am pleased to announce that a novel that I wrote in French entitled “Deux ans en Amérique” was published earlier this year in Paris by the “Société des Ecrivains”. The story was coauthored with a French friend, Georges Idier. A translation of excerpts of the back cover summary reads as follows: “In the Benoit family, there is the father, Pierre, a scientist in infectious diseases; the mother, Dominique, a teacher; and their two children: Julie and Philippe, both adolescents. It is a French family about to cross an entire ocean to go spend two years in the United States where Pierre has been invited by the NIH. They are understandably a bit overwhelmed to be flying off to Washington where they will become acquainted with the lifestyle of the Americans and learn to live in their own way the ‘American way of life’…
From east to west, from north to south, the family wanders around the United States and embraces the New World in its diversity, its particularities, its thinking patterns, its culture, its customs, its myths…
More human and sensitive than a tourist guide, this novel of Norman Gaudrault and Georges Idier offers a total immersion into this fascinating American society…Turn the pages and embark on an adventure that risks welling up in you many desires !”
1957
Mark Ozer, M.D. shared, “This is my first class note. I thought it apprpriate to sum up my career now that it has been 55 years since my graduation in 1957. I had a fruitful career in neurology ending as Professor at the Georgetown University Medical School as well as Associate Medical Director of the National Rehabiitatiion Hospital here in Washington. I attribute my interest in neurology to the exciting lectures given by Charley Kane in my freshman year at BUSM. I still remember those lectures that took place at the Mallory Building at Boston City Hospital. My work focused on how to help persons and their families with chronic neurological illness live fuller lives. Starting with children, I branched back into adult neurology with focus on persons with strokes and spinal cord injury. The last of my 10 books in neurology was published by Butterworth-Heinemann called “The Management of Persons with Chronic Neurological Illness.” It sums up that focus in that it contains chapters on persons with migraine, seizure disorder, Parkinson’s Disease, MS etc as well as head injury, spinal cord injury and stroke. Note the focus on persons with illness rather than on disease categories. After retirement, I went back to my first love of history. I have since become accepted as a local historian of the Washington DC area and have had several books published, lectured on the history of most of the world’s great cities at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at American University as well as organizing a Civil War Discussioin Group at the Cosmos Club where I now belong. All this keeps me busy but my major legacy is my 5 children and 7 grandchildren with whom I have maintained close relations as they have grown in their own productive family lives and careers. I have just finished a family memoir recounting those years in Boston including the time at the Boston City and the Home Medical Service at BUSM that profoundly influenced my career.”
1951
Richard Rihn, M.D. shared, “After 43 years of General Practice I semi retired to work in various administrative positions in HMOs. Retiring from Medicine completely, I then built an airplane from plans produced by my son (who is Chief Engineer for Advanced Design of Northrop/Grumman). I still fly that aircraft after eleven years and 282 aerobatic hours. I taught pilots for many years (1800 plus hours of flight instruction given). Accolades garnered along the way are Master Certified Flight Instructor and Master Pilot Award from the F.A.A. My wife, June Hall Rihn, known to many classmates as a nurse on the Smithwick service died suddenly in 2002.”
1950
Henry Schoenberger, M.D. shared the attached photograph which was taken in July 2011 in Maine. “The subject third from left is my classmate Ramon Isales MD (BUSM 1950) who is 92 and completed a 10K race this past year. Other subjects left to right: Ramon’s daughter Lydia, his wife Phoebe, me (BUSM 1950) and my wife Pat.”
