Alumni Experiences Beyond the Classroom

Jorge Casas-Ganem, MD ’98
After my third year of medical school, I spent a year in Madrid, Spain, and Bologna, Italy, learning different approaches to limb-salvage surgery for musculoskeletal tumors. At the time, many of these techniques were not being performed in the U.S. This experience helped open my mind to very different approaches to sarcoma surgery.

Jose Rigau, MD ’75
A one-month elective in the history of medicine with Stanley J. Reiser to research and write on the introduction of smallpox vaccine in Puerto Rico in 1803 and 1804 prepared me to work with Francisco Guerra and archives in Spain, to investigate the history of medicine throughout my career as an epidemiologist, and to “recycle” myself as a historian after retirement. Fabulous yield for an elective!

Robert DuPont, MD ’63
In 1960, I took a year between second and third years to drive a Land Rover though seventeen countries in Africa on the adventure of a lifetime. I spent some weeks at medical schools in Dakar, Ibadan, and Kampala, but most of the time I was on my own in African cities and villages living with Africans. On my Land Rover I printed “American Student Friendship Tour of Africa.”

On my return I showed my slides in Vanderbilt Hall. A Radcliffe coed date of another HMS student asked me questions in preparation for joining the Peace Corps. Five months later, she and I married. In 1965, when I applied to NIH for my two years of service during the Vietnam War, the person making the selections gave me an extra look when he read about my adventure in Africa, as I learned later. Results of my African adventure? A wife, a career, and a lifetime of stories.

Rachel Hitt, MD ’99 
We had our first child at the end of third year. It wasn’t common at that time to be pregnant while in medical school. I remember writing down the timing of my contractions during class. A couple of hours later I was delivering our son at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where I had just completed my OB-GYN rotation. Ironically, I was born there while my dad was an intern. I then took a research year during my son’s first year of life to study centenarians. I felt the support from HMS as a new mom.

Barry Zitin, MD ’73
From 1969 to 1973, my years at HMS and the height of the war in Vietnam, there was no taking time off before or during medical school due to the risk of getting drafted. We did take one “day off,” I believe in 1970 or 1971, when HMS students and faculty staged a one-day strike and war protest. Harvey Goldman and other faculty members chartered a plane from Boston to Washington, D.C., where we met with senator Ted Kennedy and others to protest the escalation of the war.

Ken Gifford-Jones, MD ’50
I did research on fish for the Department of Lands and Forests in the province of Ontario, Canada.

Edward Walkley, MD ’70
I did not take time off. The Vietnam War and draft precluded that.

Jose Giron, MD ’75
I spent one year while at HMS doing research in the lab of Samuel Latt, studying histones.

Benjamin Rix Brooks, MD ’70
In the mid-1960s, I got the OK from the secretary to Dean Joseph Gardella to apply for the first Life Insurance Medical Fellowship at Harvard Medical School. I’d seen it advertised on the back page of the Annals of Internal Medicine to pay for post-sophomore research training in neurovirology. This led to an MD with a thesis. These scholarships later became competitive for the MD and PhD programs, and I am sure that had I not ambled into Countway Library and come across the ad that day, perhaps a different life track might have occurred.

James MacDonald, MD ’96
I spent six years between Harvard College and HMS and am forever grateful I did so. The bulk of that time (three years) was devoted to my service in the Peace Corps. I was stationed in Swaziland, in southern Africa. This experience was easily the most formative in my life. I also spent time traveling through Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, as well as teaching in an American private school and lifeguarding. These “gap” years changed me profoundly.

Bliss Chang, MD ’20
I spent a year conducting research in Germany as a Fulbright Scholar. Learning new research techniques to bring back to the U.S. was awesome, but immersing myself in another country and culture was life-changing. There were so many moments that changed the way I view the world. For example, seeing huge shifts in personality when a local spoke in German rather than in English reminded me that one must always humbly put oneself in others’ shoes.

Bruce Lyman, MD ’72
I was one of at least twenty members of the HMS Class of 1971 who took time off during medical school. The school actually encouraged us to do that after our second year, in order to facilitate a curriculum change that was to begin the following year. I spent the year in the lab of Simon Karpatkin at NYU, doing research on the physiology of “young” platelets. The experience awakened an interest in hematology and undoubtedly influenced the trajectory of my career.

Robert Young, MD ’61
After graduating from college, I spent a year in Australia on a Fulbright Scholarship learning the fundamentals of neurophysiology with Sir John Eccles, a Nobel laureate. My forty-year academic life in neurology was largely devoted to clinical neurophysiology and associated disorders of the motor system.

Michael Rasminsky, MD ’64
I spent the year between university and medical school ostensibly working in a lab but actually writing the music for a so-called folk opera that went up at the University of Toronto. My next musical venture was writing the music and some of the lyrics for our second-year show. This was the definitive review offered the morning after the show by the Vanderbilt Hall caretaker: “I have seen many of these shows in my time — yours was not the best, but it was certainly the dirtiest.” High praise indeed.

Robin Yuan, MD ’78
I spent time traveling to foreign countries, including my first trip to China in 1975, during the latter stage of the Cultural Revolution, to visit relatives.

John Paul McHugh, MD ’95
After college, I taught sophomores in New York City, seeing in each of them the potential to set their own path. My mother had taught home economics and loved seeing her former students, including some who went on to become famous chefs, remember her classes. On the wards I saw residents teaching students and doctors teaching patients. I loved teaching young adults and I've served for decades as an OB-GYN. Later in my career, I found that passion in lifestyle medicine by empowering people with the knowledge to add life to their years.

Jose Morales, MD ’94
I took an extra year to earn an MPH degree from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Esteban Mezey, MD ’62
I did not take time off during my years as an HMS student. However, I did do research on a hemophilia project at HMS during the summer between my first and second years. This was extremely influential in my career in academic medicine.

Petros Giannikopoulos, MD ’06
During my time at HMS I took an extra year between my second and third years to pursue laboratory research through the support of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Tamara Fountain, MD ’88
I actually stepped out of medicine for two years after my ophthalmology residency. I had two young babies at the time, so I was able to hone my pediatric and conflict resolution skills as a full-time mom. I saw no patients, did no surgery, and in retrospect, fretted more than I needed to about how I would reenter clinical medicine. When I finally did get back in the medicine saddle, as they say, it was like riding a bicycle — albeit with a super strong helmet and padding since I was a little wobbly at first. Every now and again, an astute credentialer will ask about the work gap. At first, I thought I was being judged, but they just wanted to make sure I hadn't been incarcerated or institutionalized.

Linda Leum, MD ’87
I spent a year in Papua New Guinea as a parasitologist.

Peter Liebert, MD ’61
I spent time taking a class in the Russian language.

Robert Duerr, MD ’88
My HMS roommate and I spent three months traveling and studying medicine in East Africa. To this day, that was the greatest trip of my life!

Richard Peinert, MD ’73
I didn’t take any time off, but had I done so, I would not be writing this, as my dad would have killed me! If you had a Depression-era, WWII-vet father who never got to college — in spite of being the Milton High School valedictorian — you didn’t dare take time off. I feel differently now. Take a few years off, think about what you really want to do with your life, and you might become the next Paul Farmer or George Q. Daley.

Stephen Smith, MD ’63
During the summer between my second and third years, I had a short-term job in Germany and had the opportunity to tour in Germany, Switzerland, France, and Spain. This broadening experience was, in retrospect, very valuable! 

Morris Fisher, MD ’68
I spent time on research and graduate education, the latter in biological engineering at MIT. I would recommend serious research experience for all HMS students. Understanding how research is actually done is important for evaluating literature that will affect one throughout a professional career.

Martin Prince, MD ’85
During my time at HMS, I completed a PhD in the HST program, and it has been an amazing boost to my radiology career.

Felipe Jain, MD ’06
After I graduated from college, I couldn’t find a job in my area of interest: meditation research. So I became a volunteer at Harvard’s Mind/Body Medical Institute (now known as the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine). My dad was angry that his honors Ivy League graduate had used his degree to . . . become a volunteer. Eventually, they took pity on me and hired me full-time. Now, as I run my own NIH-funded lab in meditation research, I have a story to tell that encourages undergrads and research assistants who are trying to make their own way.

Michael Kochis, MD ’20
I took an extra year during medical school to pursue a master’s degree in education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This opportunity came about through the generous support of the Harvard Center for Public Leadership’s Zuckerman Fellowship. Both programs were an excellent complement to my HMS education in providing an additional skill set geared toward a career in medical education.

Wendie Grader-Beck, MD ’97
I completed a year of international clerkships in Cameroon, Guatemala, and Bolivia.

Gregory Juarez, MD ’92
I completed an MPH in epidemiology prior to medical school. It really helped me to contribute to research during and after medical school.

Simeon Taylor, MD ’73, PhD ’74
I took a leave of absence after the second year of medical school to work in the laboratory of Robert Jungas, investigating molecular mechanisms of insulin action. This was a great educational experience for me. Although Harvard did not have a formal MD-PhD program at the time, I did decide to extend my time in the laboratory for a total of three years, which enabled me to obtain a PhD. I returned to medical school and obtained an MD two years later. I am still doing diabetes research 50 years later.

Lily Conrad, MD ’80
I travelled.

Nicholas Cataldo, MD ’81
I was in one of the early classes of the HST program. For my thesis, I took a year between third and fourth years to work in an endocrinology lab doing pituitary cell-culture studies. I found a group of inspiring, personable folks in that lab at Massachusetts General Hospital who solidified my interest in endocrinology and reproduction. It was a welcome respite from the stressful experiences of the third-year clerkships, and a decision I’d make again with the added maturity of the years since.

Mary Flowers, MD ’78
I spent time visiting museums.

Harvey Clermont, MD ’65
I spent time with family.

Joseph Burnett, MD ’58
I spent time doing medical research.

Marguerite Barnett, MD ’79
LOL, what is this time off of which you speak?

Brian Lewis, MD ’69
I spent the summer after my second year of medical school in Colombia doing a survey of nutrition in a rural area in a program sponsored by the Harvard School of Public Health. The levels of poverty and U.S. entitlement were eye opening.

Michael Quinones, MD ’86
I took vacations with my wife and kids!

Claire Broome, MD ’75
I spent the year between college and HMS in Colombia, supported by a fellowship designed to encourage the experience of another culture. Working with rural communities and in urban invasion barrios — as a student, not a professional, and in Spanish — gave me unexpected perspectives that I have tried to preserve during my subsequent career in public health.

Jan Polissar, MD ’61
After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, I took a year to make up some premed requirements and worked at Cal’s Donner Lab. I also took a biochemistry course and began to appreciate the complexity of the human body.

Robert Colvin, MD ’68
No time off, but I spent a memorable month in Haiti at the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer.

Images: Courtesy of Robert DuPont, James MacDonald, Robin Yuan, Tamara Fountain, Steve Smith, Wendie Grader-Beck, and Brian Lewis