A doctor in the house

Abstract

I became chairman of the pathology department at Vanderbilt the second time the dean asked (Fig. 1). Here is the story of how that came about. In 1962, after serving in the Army, I joined Bill Shelly in surgical pathology at Johns Hopkins at a salary of $12,000 a year. We had a wonderful time using the first double-headed microscopes for sign-out. The house staff was superb, and many have gone on to outstanding careers. In January 1968, I signed on at the University of Tennessee in Memphis to run surgical pathology, but that position was not meant to be. Not long after I got there, I became very ill with hepatitis and was flown directly to Johns Hopkins for treatment. Then, the chairman who had hired me was fired and was contemplating legal action against the State of Tennessee, the governor, and the University. Then, Stan Eversole in Mountain View, CA, offered me a position in private practice, and I accepted. The night I left Memphis was the night that Martin Luther King, Jr, was assassinated, and the riots followed me as I drove across the country. Each city I passed through was torn by riots the day after I left it. It was like being followed by a slow-burning fire. Shortly after I began private practice, two residents from the University of Tennessee joined me. Things went well, but after a couple of years I discovered that private practice didn’t suit me. The two residents had left, and I found I missed the daily involvement with them. In 1971, Dr John Shapiro at Vanderbilt offered me a position to run surgical pathology, so I returned to Tennessee. Before I got there,