In 1950 we were part of the largest class to graduate from Yale College. By my count one in twenty of us contemplated four more years of medical school. That common goal, however, had not particularly inspired us to seek out one another's company as undergraduates. We pursued varied academic, musical, political and athletic interests, rarely sharing thoughts of our future profession.
When Sid Lovett asked me to pull together this retrospective look for our 65th reunion, I had hoped for a flurry of responses to his plea for updated C.V.'s. Sadly, about two thirds of our medical classmates have already had their reunion with Aesculapius. The remaining 40 have been shy in providing current status reports. I have still managed to come up with some, hopefully, interesting generalizations and specifics. I have combed our earlier five year reunion reports, googled, e-mailed , and read a number of recent obituaries. This report will certainly shortchange a number of humble classmates who led exemplary careers giving thoughtful patient care, during a time of remarkable medical and surgical discovery. Remember that when we were all in medical school, polio was still rampant and the electronics for a cardiac pacemaker entirely filled a laboratory room.
If we had all gone to one medical school we would have constituted only two-thirds of one class. But in fact we scattered to 21 schools. 43 congregated to Columbia, Harvard, Yale and New York Medical
College. Another 17 attended Hopkins, U. of Pennsylvania, and Cornell. The other 14 schools were mainly in the Northeast or Midwest. One trained in Zurich. Where we trained did not seem to predict the eventual nature or discipline of our practice.
Almost to a man, we served in the uniformed Armed Forces, 42 before Yale graduation as NCOs, and
38 after medical school as officers. Only a very few saw actual combat in WW II, Korea, or Vietnam.
Although no one apparently made a career of the military, a couple pursued Public Health careers.
Most who stayed in academia had VA appointments and teaching responsibilities at their affiliated VA hospitals.
82 classmates reported marriages, often during medical school or residency training. Our 50 year reunion book seems to reflect happy outcomes for the most part. Most families raised 3 or 4 children with a group total of 278. One Yale medical school graduate, practicing in Kansas, reported 9 children.
Not many of our children followed us into medicine. However, I should note that Jim Doull, a psychoanalyst and professor in Cleveland , noted that 3 of his 4 children are M.D.s and that they, in turn , have married physicians. Such an option wasn't really open to us Y50's because so few women attended medical school with us. At Penn, for example, there were only 3 women in my class of 140.
The ratio now is about 50/50. Another Yale Medical School graduate, Anthony Piccirillo who practiced in nearby Wallingford, CT, reported that 2 of his children, like himself, saw Yale twice, one a
M.D. and the other a J.D. Those apples stayed close to the tree.

Most of us had completed our training and military service in the early 1960's. If we had all gone into practice in one location, we would have appropriately staffed a small teaching hospital with all subspecialty disciplines represented, so varied had our careers become. In fact, we had widely scattered across the country by the time of our 20 th reunion stock-taking in 1970.
In academia, we had Flexner at Vanderbilt, Rosenkrantz at U.S.C., Liechty at Colorado, Ostrow at
Northwestern, Stein at M.I.T., Couch at Harvard, Timmons at U.N.C., Malkasian at Mayo, Rogers at
Texas, Klatsky at SanFrancisco, Carson at Scripps, Hanway at New York Medical College, Cohen at
Albert Einstein, Ruffolo at Stanford, Doull at Cleveland, Nelson at Penn State, Glew at Washington,
D.C., Hansom at U. Vermont, Tiffany at Minnesota, Anzel at Irving , CA, and Frey at Dartmouth. 20 eventually retired as professors at their medical schools, another 27 became chiefs of their hospital specialty section or group practice. Many of our physician classmates practiced their healing mission in relative national obscurity and humility, but were locally revered and honored.
Some took their medical skills to other countries. Project Hope took Liechty to Equador and
Columbia, Fardelmann to Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Zaire, and Afghanistan, and Hughes to Guatemala.
Ostrow spent 3 years as a visiting professor in Amsterdam. Anzel was the orthopedic consultant to the Surgeon-General U.S Air Force, Europe, at Wiesbaden, Germany.
Four of our undergraduate varsity athletes deserve mention. Dale Liechty, our hard-charging fullback, won teacher of year awards at both Iowa and University of Colorado. He served as president of the
Western Surgical Association and wrote a still popular “Synopsis of Surgery” textbook. Henry “Red”
Stoltman, a undergraduate running star on the championship Yale track team, settled into a successful neurosurgical practice in Boston, after finishing a 2 year U.S.Marine Corps tour and further training at Queen's Square, London. He and his wife, Suzanne, adopted 8 children, all within a 10 year age span of one another, the last air-lifted to the U.S. from Vietnam. All completed college and one is completing a Masters in health science. Lenny Fasano practiced primary care medicine in Harkness
Tower’s shadow and was active in the Yale Football Y Association. Lloyd “Bruz” Hamilton wrestled at
Yale and went on to a long career grappling with problems of primary care and psychiatry. He is still actively running his Health Lifeline Free Clinic for destitute patients in Nyack, N.Y.
We've all had a host of memorable individual professional encounters, some horrific, some uplifting, the burden and reward of patient care. The details of those encounters are sometimes fascinating but belong to the patient, not the physician, and probably are unsuitable for this report. Most have been very modest in reporting or dwelling on their lives as physicians, but I will report now a few that are of general interest.
George Malkasian, Emeritus Professor and Chairman of OBGYN at the Mayo Clinic, gets the prize for providing the thickest C.V. packet, including a 155 item bibliography!! George has had a remarkable career while serving on numerous national and international committees and societies as well as winning “ Teacher of the year” awards from his students. But it is not only mothers and children who are indebted to George for his OBGYN expertise. He also got the smoke out of Minnesota restaurants. For three years he battled the enraged tobacco forces, while writing the basic smoke- free restaurant ordinance that was eventually adopted by the county board and that later became the state model. A grandson just graduated from
University of Minnesota medical school.

Art Klatsky has practiced cardiology for 40 years at Kaiser-Permanente in Oakland, CA. Along the way he has developed an epidemiological research track that keeps him more active in his senior years than most of the rest of us. With over one hundred peer reviewed publications to his credit, he has received a number of awards. Many are related to interest and expertise in the inverse relationship of coronary artery disease to “moderate” alcohol consumption. I doubt if he would accept or rely on his Y50 classmates to define the “moderate” limits. Other research interests included coffee and tea use in Asian American ethnic groups. His 2 children are Yale graduates. Art has run 6 marathons, including NYC and Boston, and climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in
1989 with his wife, Eileen.
Nick Nelson's interest in neonatal research led to positions as Associate Editor of the New
England Journal of Medicine and to the editorial boards of the Journal of Applied Physiology and the American Journal of Physiology. In 1970 he was appointed founding Chairman of pediatrics for Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, PA. He authored the classic textbook in his specialty.
John “Flex” Flexner spent his long and fruitful academic career at Vanderbilt, where he was the
American Cancer Society Professor of Clinical Oncology. He published over 80 medical articles, mostly on leukemia and lymphoma. But he considered his greatest legacy the founding of “Alive
Hospice of Nashville” in 1975.
Ted Steffen trained as an ear surgeon and developed the new techniques of Stapectomy and
Cochlear implant surgery. He was a master sailor, boat- builder, and a 25 year volunteer with the Boy Scouts.
Sam Stein researched cardiac risk factors in Boston and served as Assistant Medical Director at
M.I.T until his death in 1988.
Dick Ruffolo trained as a pathologist, served as a Lt. Commander in the Navy, taught at
Stanford, Dartmouth, Northwestern and NY Medical College. A man of many interests, an avid reader, an accomplished clarinet, guitar and cello player, his free medical advice was cherished by his many friends and relatives.
Joe Roe was another remarkably accomplished pathologist. After impeccable training at Johns
Hopkins and in the Chief Medical Examiner's Office in D.C., was commissioned in the Public
Health Service. He served as Chief of the Reference Services Division of the National Library of
Medicine. He later served as a Virginia medical examiner until moving in 1978 to the remote
Maine-Canadian border at Presque Isle, Maine. He has since proven a capable leader as president of medical staff and as Aroostock County Medical Examiner. He has solved many

medical mysteries, but shares his opinion only in the setting of the courtroom, autopsy room or hospital teaching conference.
George Bostwick followed his father's example and received his second degree from Yale.
George led an inspirational career as a family practitioner in Damariscotta, Maine, where he was elected to the School Board for 20 years and moderated Town Meetings. He later practiced as a geriatrician and nursing home director until retiring at 80 in 2007.
Jim Hanway founded a multi-specialty group practice in Katonah, NY, after serving as a Naval
Medical officer. He was particularly honored by being named “Laureate” of his New York chapter of the American College of Physicians. He made teaching rounds as a Clinical Professor at New York Medical College. His success may also be assessed by the number of degrees his 5 children have attained after all of them graduated from Duke; 7 Master's degrees, a PhD and an extra BS. Time now to pay for the grandchildren!
Martin Vita practiced pediatrics for 37 years in Mt. Kisco, NY.
Burt Cohen pursued an academic career as nephrologist and Professor of Medicine at Albert
Einstein College of Medicine. He directed the Department of Medicine at Bronx-Lebanon
Hospital. Before Yale, Burt watched the Japanese across a broad valley in the northern
Phillipines as a rifleman in a weapon's company. Perhaps Burt’s most interesting badge is his
Elizabethan Club membership as a pre-med!
Dale Fardelmann was a former middle weight Yale boxer and had numerous foreign adventures with the previously mentioned, Project Hope. Dale kept in touch with his far flung Maine urology patients by having a 2000 foot private grass airstrip on his remote down east coastal home and flying his 2-seater, single engine plane to his consultations. Clearly, a classmate who never pulled his punches!
Sandy Greer was honored by his internist colleagues in Washington State by his election as
Governor of the American College of Physicians.
Dick Barry brought his blue chip academic training to his patients' bedside, establishing a group practice in New London, CT. He has noted, with distaste, the current trends towards professional advertising (infra dig).
John Carson, my friend, fellow intern and classmate at Penn., went on to help develop a new medical school at San Diego as a Clinical Professor and Cardiologist. He is a dedicated bibliophile, to the dismay of his wife, Libby, who must negotiate the stacks of books at home.
He has recently garnered attention as a practitioner who still makes house calls (easier to do in southern California than in sub-zero Vermont).

Bill Glew stayed in D.C. and headed the eye service at Washington Hospital Center for over 22 years, training over 150 surgeons in the amazing new procedures to improve and restore vision.
Jim Feeley spent 6 years in the Army, including Vietnam before taking charge of Pathology at his local Bay Area Hospital.
Jim Hewson, a physician’s son, trained in orthopedics and served as section chief at his Beverly,
MA, Hospital.
Brad Blanchard, after 2 years as a medical officer in Korea, became the respected internist in
West Hartford, CT.
Cal Hughes restored the sight of his Hartford patients by innovative corneal-transplant surgery.
He was a world class skier, an avid ocean sailor of his 40 foot Swedish built sloop.
Henry Farrell and I used to trudge up Hillhouse Avenue to partner in afternoon science labs.
After another eleven years of training and military service, he became the premier orthopedic surgeon of Litchfield County, CT. He risked his own bones by riding a huge stallion in the
Litchfield Hunt. Sadly, Harry died in 1980 but his daughter, Stacie, was a running star on the
Yale track team and married a Y83 classmate who now practices pediatrics back in Litchfield.
Don Ostrow went from Harvard to University College, London, to Case-Western University, to
University of Pennsylvania, to Northwestern University where for 17 years he served as a researcher and Professor of Medicine. He expanded his expertise in bilirubin metabolism with 3 years as visiting professor in Amsterdam and ended his distinguished research career as a
Visiting Professor at the University of Washington. He found the atmosphere of American medicine to have deteriorated from a profession to a business. His son, George, is a Y83 graduate.
Jens “Jim” Rosenkrantz reported in 1970 that he was Surgeon-in-Chief at Children's Hospital of
LA and Professor of surgery at USC. He had trained at Harvard Medical School, (leaving Yale in
1949), then Mass General Hospital and Boston Children's Hospital. From 1962-1969 he was an
Associate Professor at University of Colorado Medical Center. Sadly, his brilliant career ended with his death in 1985, but not before publishing some 147 research papers with 67 coauthors, mainly in the field of the surgical correction of congenital cardiac malformations.

Waid Rogers left Yale for three years of active duty as a Naval Officer in the Korean War. He then embarked on a distinguished career as an academic surgeon, ending as a chief of surgery and professor at the University of Texas.
Sid Saltzstein settled in San Diego after training at Hopkins and Barnes Hospital. He was
Professor of Pathology and Chief of Surgical Pathology at University of California, San Diego.
Permit me a brief comment about myself who very happily spent the last 60 years at
Dartmouth pursuing the usual challenges leading to Professor of Medicine. What might really set me apart, however, is the maple syrup operation that Anne and I have run each spring for the past 45 years. Our neighbors, children, and now, grandchildren, join the fun by helping to collect sap from our 100 buckets. We do it the traditional, picturesque way because running lines from my maples would only remind me of the ICU I directed for many years. Our physician son, Tom, Y'77, with his wife, Y80, and his sister, Y80, are celebrating their 35 th Yale reunion.
We are all now scattered in retirement throughout the country from Hawaii to Presque Isle, from Seattle to Sarasota, but most have remained where our professional careers took us. We have moved out of the poor house we occupied as medical students and house staff. We have avoided the hangman's noose and the talk show host. Most were happy to play a role in our challenging, useful, and ancient profession.