Transcript of interview with Dr. Leonard Kreisler by Barbara Tabach, May 23, 2016

AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. LEONARD KREISLER An Oral History Conducted by Barbara Tabach Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ii ?Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2014 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV ? University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Project Manager: Barbara Tabach Transcriber: Kristin Hicks Interviewers: Barbara Tabach, Claytee D. White Editors and Project Assistants: Maggie Lopes, Stefani Evans iii The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Grant. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank University of Nevada Las Vegas for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader?s understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews with permission of the narrator. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas iv PREFACE Dr. Leonard Kreisler, MD, was born August 3, 1930 in Brooklyn to post World War I European Jewish immigrants. Raised in the smaller community of White Plains, New York, he worked happily by his father?s side. The elder Kreisler was a cabinet maker and carpenter, who Len describes as fiercely independent. Young Len keenly helped his Yiddish language father write his contracts and guided him to increasing his prices. At an early age, Len knew that he would become a medical doctor?little did he know what an amazing life was in his future. It was while attending the University of Vermont, College of v Medicine that Len met his wife Joan. They married in June 1957. Joan became a teacher and later a real estate agent while in Las Vegas. This interview includes stories about his medical education and his thirteen year private medical practice in Peekskill, New York. This was followed by a career in occupational medicine and over seventeen years as the Medical Director at the Nevada Test Site for Reynolds Electric and Engineering Corporation (1973 ? 1990). During that time he was also elected Chief of Staff at University Medical Center (UMC) for two years and helped create the Children?s Miracle Network Telethon and the UMC Foundation. When he recalls moving to Las Vegas, his memories include jogging by Temple Beth Sholom and joining a minyan. He became a congregation vice president. When his career at the Test Site was halted, his medical adventure led him to be a maritime physician for a cruise liner. He also ran twice for Clark County Commissioner against Thalia Dondero. Dr. Kreisler is the author of several books: Death by Any Means (2005); Roll the Dice, Pick a Doc and Hope for the Best (2009); The Codes of Babylon (2010); Shortfall (2011); The Obligated Volunteer (2014) and In Bed Alone, A Caregiver?s Odyssey (2016). vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Dr. Leonard Kreisler May 23, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Barbara Tabach Preface??????????????????????????????????..iv Describes his ancestral roots; mother was from Ukraine and father was from Austria; both immigrating to the United States after World War I. The surname Kreisler was given to his father at Ellis Island. Parents met and married in New York; his Jewish youth. Talks about growing up in White Plains. Mentions his own children and grandchildren.?.??????????1 ? 5 Talks about moving to Las Vegas in 1973: school bussing of his children to Sixth Grade Center; hired to be medical director for the Nevada Atomic Test Site, one of the few Jews in higher position there. Joined Temple Beth Sholom; about being a vice president of the congregation; also chief of staff at UMC; started Children?s Telethon and first foundation.??????.6 ? 8 Recalls medical school experiences; New York?s Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital; mentored by Dr. Norman Molomut; transferred to University of Vermont; goes into the US Army??..9 ? 15 Recalls story about Moe Dalitz, integration of Las Vegas in 1960s; being in private medical practice in Peeksill NY. Explains getting elected Chief of Staff at Southern Nevada Memorial, though was not in private practice at the time; getting name changed to University Medical Center (UMC) and experiences there. Mentions Sunrise Hospital; Children?s Telethon?.16 ? 20 Talks about the Jewish community in 1973 when Las Vegas? population was around 250,000 people; going to minyan at Temple Beth Sholom; growth of the Jewish community today; raising money in the early days; hiring of rabbis; discord; opening of new temples; about Leo Wilner, executive director at Beth Sholom??????????..????????.21 ? 26 Recalls how he came to start his career at the Test Site; first visit to Las Vegas to interview with the contractor there, Reynolds Electric & Engineering [REECo]; how the position differed from private practice; comments on how some people were against the Test Site and safety of the nuclear power industry??????????????????????????...26 ? 33 vii Reflects on the health care services he provided while at the Test Site; the single radiation incident that occurred in his over-17 years there; challenges of going up against politicians and others of differing opinions about use of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear repository; why he was fired from the Test Site in 1990; how they tried to rehire him???????????..33 ? 41 His next steps: answers ad for a Maritime Medical Doctor; experiences on the cruise ship, basis for his book, Roll the Dice, Pick a Doc and Hope for the Best; wife Joan?s health issues become basis for a more recent book, In Bed Alone, A Caregiver?s Odyssey. Talks about Joan?s career from teacher in New York to real estate agent in Las Vegas????????????.42 ? 46 Political thoughts and his run for Clark County Commissioner where he lost to Thalia Dondero; issues he fought for and feelings about ethics?????????????????...47 ? 58 Index..??????????????????????????????????59 - 60 Appendix: election clippings, materials, cruise physician photo??????????..61 ? 64 viii 1 [Today is May 23rd, 2016. This is Barbara Tabach and I am sitting with Dr. Len Kreisler. Dr. Kreisler, I'm going to ask you to spell your name first. Also, thank you very much for participating in this project about the Southern Nevada Jewish heritage. So if you'd spell your name for us, please. Leonard, L-E-O-N-A-R-D. Kreisler, K-R-E-I-S-L-E-R. And I usually like to start with a little bit of family heritage. What do you know about your ancestral roots? Well, that's interesting because my mother came from the Ukraine right after the First World War, and my father came from a part of Austria; it's called Galicia, which I inadvertently found out about approximately three years ago when I was going skiing in Colorado, I stopped outside of Colorado Springs, stayed in a Ramada Inn, and the fellow setting out the breakfast had an accent. And I said, "Where are you from?" He said, "Austria." So I told him my father came from Galicia. And he said, "Wait a minute." He went in the back room. He came out with a book with color photos. He said, "These are the mountains where your father came from." It was like Switzerland; it was gorgeous. My father never talked about his father or his mother or any of that. I think he was traumatized. He came over to the United States before the First World War. He said he was twelve years old and he had a box of carpenter tools because he was an apprentice in a shop where they treated him worse than the Vietnamese refugees. I got that from my mother since he never talked about it. He did self-teach woodworking and became a very skilled craftsman. When he came through Ellis Island, he didn't speak a word of English and fellow travelers told him, "If they ask you anything or say anything, just smile and nod your head in approval." He had a big sign hanging from his neck that said Austria. At the time there was a 2 very famous violinist named Fritz Kreisler, spelled the same way, K-R-E-I-S-L-E-R. As he came through the line an inspector remarked, "Oh, here comes another Fritz Kreisler." My father shook his head in the affirmative. His name from then on was Kreisler. Otherwise it would have been Klinger. I tried to look it up in the annals of Ellis Island, but I couldn?t find him under either name. I know both parents came through there. Then when the war broke out, they asked him to serve in the army, and he said that was not a good idea because he might have to fight against family or countrymen. That was not very likely but it worked to keep him out of the draft. He had been sensitized growing up that you didn't fight for a government unless you're a part of it and he certainly did feel any kinship to Austria. He loved this country from the moment he arrived and he lived the American dream with manual labor and perpetual hope. He met my mother in New York after she came over. His brother-in-law, married to his sister, was a real work of art, good heart, but, man what a conniver. He had a furniture store that sold mainly to the segregated black district of the wealthiest county in southern New York, Westchester County. He lived in White Plains, the County Seat. Uncle Charlie also engaged in small real estate acquisitions and rental properties (slum landlord). He enticed my father to move up to White Plains and he did help him get started; mostly with advice and not money. I was born in Brooklyn, but I grew up in White Plains New York; we moved there at my age of two. It was very country-like with only about 30,000 population. During the Second World War, I had a victory garden. I lived next to a retired farmer and I even raised chickens. As soon as the war was over, they told me, "Get rid of the chickens, they smell to hell and the war is over and we don't need chickens. You can keep your garden." The Jewish community was very clearly divided into the very rich and the hard working, 3 poorer group which was actually rather close-knit. My father was very welcome in the rich areas including the rich Jewish areas of Gedney Way or adjoining Scarsdale, which is still an affluent bedroom community of New York City. They loved him because he could do anything with wood and tools, and he did their remodeling at very reasonable prices. I used to type up his contracts even though I had no training. He would talk to me in Yiddish and English and I?d create a written contract. After a while I suggested raising his estimates and prices and it was accepted. I don?t know exactly how I got the idea that he was worth more than he was charging? However, we were never invited to ?uptown? Jewish social functions and we belonged to the only Jewish (conservative) synagogue in the less expensive section of White Plains, a few blocks from the hospital. The richer Jews were mostly Reform. We lived in a three-family house and the nicest part, downstairs, was rented to an Irish family that was very. We lived on the second floor. My father converted the third floor into another little apartment. When I studied I was in the hall. So the person living upstairs walked by and said hello and I said hello and that was how we were brought up. The first floor had a private entrance. I shared a bedroom with my sister, who had a much harder time integrating since she was Jewish, female and she didn't speak English until she started school even though she was born in the United States. She had a much more difficult time and we were totally different personalities. I was more outdoor-ish and very focused. From the time I can remember I wanted to be a doctor. I think my parents probably had something to do with that. They probably started talking about it from the day I was born. I had no problem. I was going to be a doctor. When were you born? August 3, 1930, coming out of the Depression. My father was fiercely independent. He wouldn't 4 take welfare no matter what. He worked very hard. I can still smell?it sounds odd?but I can still smell the sweat. The basement had table saws and all kinds of carpentry equipment. I can smell the glue that he used to mix, the wood aromas and all that sort of stuff. I loved watching him create things. One of my sons, the youngest one who's an anesthesiologist, must have his genetic makeup because he's as good as my father making things with wood and rebuilding his house in Overland Park, Kansas. My oldest one is a psychiatrist who gave me the most heartburn growing up. I could tell you a lot of things. Both boys went to undergraduate at University of Nevada, Reno, and then they went to the med school there, which at the time, in the mid-eighties, was only five-thousand-dollar-a-year tuition. So I got off like a bandit. It was a very good school; it still is. It only has about fifty in a class and talk of making it larger is ill advised in my opinion. My daughter started at UNLV in hotel management. Then she transferred to University of Massachusetts and she liked it, but when that was all done, she liked the southwest better and she lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. She works in her own consulting business in the food industry. We?ve been very fortunate and proud of all three. I have eight grandchildren. Right now it's very exciting. One graduated in Kansas and is going to University of Kansas. The other one, my daughter's youngest son is six-foot four, left-handed pitcher, and has been accepted at Wichita State. He did get a draft offer from the Toronto Blue Jays, but turned it down to take his scholarship at Wichita and we?re all happy about that. It?ll be interesting to see what offers come in the future. So what's his name in case he gets drafted later on in his career? Alex Segal; A-L-E-X, S-E-G-A-L. The entire draft business of baseball is not for the faint 5 hearted. I never realized the intricacies and pressures placed on the those young kids. That's exciting. Have you always been a baseball fan yourself?growing up in New York? It was either the Dodgers or the Yankees and I leaned toward the Yankees. I played ball on the weekends because I couldn't afford anything else. One day my father was doing remodeling work at a country club and he brought home a tennis racket signed by one of the pros. He proudly handed it to me. I said, "Dad, what am I going to do with it?" He says, "Well, you can play, can't you?" I said, "I never played tennis. It?s a rich man?s sport. We don't belong to a country club. I kept the racket. I think it was from Jack Kramer, who was a well-known tennis player at the time. Golf was out of the question also. Jews weren't allowed on the golf courses or the golf clubs in Westchester County when I grew up. Later on one of my athletic cousins got pretty upset and formed a group of Jews to develop their own country club. When we arrived in Las Vegas in 1973, the Las Vegas Country Club was open to anybody that could afford it. In fact Jews were very much involved with that club. I was sensitized at an early age about being Jewish. When I discuss it with my kids or grandkids, they go, "Come on, Dad, that's not the way it is today." Now, interestingly enough, when we moved to Las Vegas in 1973, my daughter was, I think, in fifth or sixth grade and they had mandatory bussing for integration. On the east coast, we had Jamaican live-ins because I used to travel to Jamaica for holidays in the winter and the kids were brought up with Jamaicans in our house and they did not know about discrimination or racial bias. Kathleen, who was one of them, and Hyacinth, who was the other live-in, were part of the family. When Kay, my daughter, was forcibly bussed to another part of Las Vegas in the integration program, she got very mad. She said, "Why are they doing this? It takes two hours 6 out of my day." Then she'd go, "This is nonsense; I don't want to go to a poor-section school. I've got friends here." So that was ?welcome to the real world? where poorly thought out programs had non-intended consequences. So that was the sixth grade centers that they had. Right. My wife [Joan] taught school in Scarsdale, New York while I did my medical internship at the county hospital and she tried to explain it to our daughter about busing and integration. It was counterproductive, I think. It really didn't integrate. Roy Wilkins, a very well-known black leader way back, once said?and it was right?yes, we've made great strides (which is true of the Jewish community and others) but when times get bad then you know how deep it goes, and that's evident to this day. When [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu, a couple of years back?maybe two or three years back?said, "The only good thing now about destabilizing the Middle East," which President Bush did, "is that they're picking on the Arabs and they're leaving the Jews alone for the time being," This strikes home with me. Even when I came out as medical director for the Test Site, I was one of the few Jews in EG&G, Edgerton, Gemeshausen and Grier, the three MIT professors who started this big high-tech company in Massachusetts. The prime contractor for the Nevada Atomic Test Site was Reynolds Electric, a division of EG&G; I was one of the few Jews high up in the hierarchy and I could smell the ones that resented me having that position. I could just smell it. How could you smell it? Little things they would say or where I was invited, where I was not invited. I'm not paranoid. I'm realistic, at least I think so. It was just pretty obvious to me where I was not really welcome although they wouldn't say anything out loud. 7 So in 1973, what was the Jewish community like then? The Jewish community was interesting. We had only one temple and I lived around the corner from it, Temple Beth Sholom on East Oakey. I asked the administrator, Leo Wilner, a very nice guy, "Is this a good place to live?" This was when I was looking around here in 1969, I believe. He said, "If you make a living, any place is good." I said, "What about the Jewish community?" He said, "We're pretty cohesive and pretty good." It was backed a lot by the gaming people. I was told that they'd walk around with cash in their pocket and if the temple needed anything, they'd just pull out the cash and pay it. When I became first vice president of Temple Beth Sholom, I was given the assignment, because we were on the verge of bankruptcy, literally?we had eight hundred families, as I remember, and only ten percent paid the full dues. They also took in non-Jewish for the day school because they needed the income, which is not true of other Jewish schools, affiliated parochial schools from what I understand across the country. For example, in Overland Park, Kansas, they just had a graduation from the Hyman Brand School. My three grandchildren are there. It's ten thousand dollars a year and they get it because they have an affluent community. But the classes are small up to this year. Now they say the lower classes all of a sudden are ballooning out. And these are all Jews; they don't take non-Jews. So the graduating class this year was only eleven or twelve people, but it was amazing. The students all got outstanding universities. They competed nationally in their national exams and all. They got good education. They got their religious principles, ethics, history and a sense of family. They did not have that here in 1973, and from my perspective, the inclusiveness revolved around socio-economic status. 8 So you came in '73. And then by what year were you vice president at Temple Beth Sholom? I'd have to guess a couple of years later because my wife said, "You'd be good at that even though you haven't done it. You've got time now. You've got a nine-to-five job instead of general practice." That I did for thirteen years in Peekskill (NY) where I was busy twenty hours a day. Now, I did have a private life and I wanted to be involved with the kids and the community as much as possible; especially if I felt I could make a difference. I came out to Nevada and took over as Medical Director for the atomic test program, which I did for eighteen years. I became chief of staff at UMC for two years (1982-83). I changed the name of the hospital to UMC. I brought in the Children?s Miracle Network Telethon. I established the first Foundation they had in fifty-two years and a lot of other things. I made a lot of friends and I made a lot of enemies because some of my colleagues didn't like what was going on, particularly the ones affiliated with the private hospitals. Matter of fact?this is aside from religion?but this is the most cutthroat doctor-on-doctor community I've seen in all the United States. Unfortunately, some of the Jewish doctors are part and parcel of it. They will, for example, promise full partnership to somebody if they come in and work for two years. And they work them hard. Then after two years they extend it, they extend it; they never give them the partnership?things like that or they'll steal patients. They do that all the time. They've even gotten worse in that they advertise, as you know, which was never allowed until 1973, and Vegas was one of the first that did it and a Jewish doctor jumped right in. He even had singing commercials: ?Doctors of Nevada.? Sunrise Hospital gave him free office space across the street in what we called the two flashcubes. They were buildings that were very geometric and looked like flashcubes. I forget 9 the name of the guy, but he had a law degree and an MD degree and he was good at neither. He got into a lot of trouble and eventually left. Let's back up a little bit, about your medical career: you said you were inspired to be a doctor at a young age. This is interesting, too, because I was told over and over again that when I apply to med school, I would be competing in a quota. And they were right; there was a Jewish quota. A quota limiting how many...? I don't know if it was ever written in percentages or numbers, but it was practiced. There was no question about it. Some schools appeared to be a little more liberal than others. And you were going to med school in the forties? No, in the fifties. I graduated White Plains High School in 1948. I went to Allegheny College (1948-1952). It was jokingly called the ?Harvard of the West? by my high school advisor. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. My advisor said, "This is where you want to go." He mentioned there were some limitations, meaning quotas. But he said, "You?ll be in the pre-med program. If you do well at Allegheny, and if the premed committee recommends you after the second year, you're guaranteed getting at least one medical school in Pennsylvania." The four major medical schools in Pennsylvania have a long-standing relationship with Allegheny, namely Hahnemann, University of Pennsylvania, Jefferson and Temple." He said, "So don't worry about it; just get the grades and do well." And he was right, even though I didn't quite believe everything he said. My folks said that there was a quota. Other people said there was a quota. So that unwritten pressure was always on my mind. Well, I graduated. I studied my ass off. I graduated cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa and the whole nine yards. Flower Fifth Avenue, which was in a bad section of New York City, had a 10 habit of taking the top graduates first, before any other med school. So I got accepted to Flower Fifth right off the bat. It required an eight-hundred-dollar deposit, nonrefundable and that was a lot of money and I didn't like spending my father's money if I didn't have to. So I took it, which was stupid because I should've realized that what my high school advisor told me was right; that I would get in other schools. So I did get accepted to, I think, Hahnemann, Jeff, Temple and University of Rochester Medical School. The interview at Rochester was probably the most pleasant I ever had. The dean was a very famous surgeon, Whipple. There's an operation named after him about taking your stomach out, a terrible operation. Dean Whipple and I had a very nice discussion about medicine, about goals and motivations. He said, "Do you have any questions, young man?" And I said, "Yes, how many beds does your hospital (Strong Memorial) have?" He said, "About four hundred beds. Why do you ask?" Being a smartass. I said, ?I was told that the more beds, the more clinical material, so I get a wider education." Well, he just smiled as he looked at me and said, "Son, you can only take care of one patient at a time." That's the kind of school it was; it was warm and it was welcoming. Flower Fifth was a hundred and eighty degrees from that. It had no campus. It was located in a relatively bad area of New York. I had to take a train. I lived in the Bronx, which was not fun. I didn't like the city. I took a crowded subway to school in the morning and I took a crowded subway home. We had a hundred and twenty something students. The first day in anatomy, there were four of us at a table with a cadaver. I remember my cadaver's name from the tag attached to his toe. It was Sam Blarsky from Houston Street, obviously a guy who wasn't from the upper economic strata. He had a lot of stuff wrong with his body related to a very challenging life. 11 Anyway, we were all getting acquainted. We were sitting there. One of my partners?we had one female and three males?one of them was from Staten Island. He was better than me academically. He was summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa and a whole bunch of other stuff. He was a brain, a real brain. We heard a voice coming over the loud speaker. There's a hundred and twenty people in this room with thirty cadavers. We could not see the speaker. "I'm Dr. Hainer. I'm head of the anatomy department and I will be teaching you about the body in front of you. Now, look to your left and look to your right because at the end of the year twenty percent of you will not be here." Now, that is quite a welcoming speech; quite different than what Dean Whipple projected when I went to interview with him up in Rochester, New York. Anyway, after the first exam the highest score was seventy-two and it was my genius partner from Staten Island who got that score. He said, "I quit." I said, "What are you talking about?" He said, "I quit. If I have to work this hard and only get a seventy-two, I'm not going to be happy here." I said, "Well, it's curved; you got the top grade. What difference does it make?" He said, "I don't like it." And he did quit. He quit the next day. Well, I made it through the year, but I was miserable. I had done research up at the Jackson Labs at Bar Harbor, Maine, during the summer, on cancer and genetic research. One of my mentors, Dr. Norman Molomut, who was really ahead of his time because right now in cancer treatment, immunotherapy is the thing with monumental breakthroughs. For example, it started out with melanoma, yielding previously unheard of remissions and five-year cures. He was a PhD immunologist who introduced me to his world. I wish he were alive to see it. Norman and I got to be very good friends. He had a laboratory out in Long Island, Port 12 Washington. I was dropping out of school. Dean Snyder at Flower Fifth said, "We'll hold a place for you. We realize you're under stress, but you're a good student. We want you back if you want to come back." So they did hold a place for me. Well, I went to work for Norman Molomut out in the island. He gave me a job. There was an allergy laboratory in part of the building. So I did allergy extracts, which was interesting and I got paid. But I also did research for him and we published papers. It was during the era of the McCarthy hearings. There was a close friend of Norman?s who was a PhD Jewish professor from New York. Now, all of those guys in the thirties were like Bernie Sanders; they were Socialists/Communists and some even joined the Party. Why? Because Jews were treated as second-class citizens; jobs, education, the whole nine yards. It was the perpetual drive for equality and a better life. McCarthy was off and running on them. Dr. Novakoff was a very successful physiologist and teacher. McCarthy?s people got to him and said, "We want you to write down who you know as members of the Communist Party. "He wouldn't do it. He got fired from his job in New York. Vermont, which was very liberal then and still is liberal, as you know, said, "We'll take you." They gave him a job. Now, Vermont had a class of fifty for each year (rather than over 100) in their state medical school and they didn't lose people. They bent over backwards to have their students graduate. They felt bad if somebody did not go on and graduate once they selected them. And they had a big Jewish population in the University of Vermont College of Medicine. It was interesting to me that they had that many Jews. They offered me a chance to transfer if I wanted it because they had these two extremely rare openings in the second year class. One of them was going to take the year over; the other one dropped out for medical reasons. I interviewed with a dean who came from Cornell Medical in New York City, a neurologist. It was a very nice 13 interview and he was very familiar with Flower Fifth and my unfortunate educational experience there. He said, "We'd be happy to take you if you want to come here. It's an unusual opportunity because we very rarely have an opening. Dr. Novakoff highly recommends you. (That was Norman?s friend.) We know your history and accomplishments and we have no doubt you will do well here.? So I transferred into the second year class at Vermont (1954) and that's where I met my wife; she was an undergraduate and she lived in the women's dorm, which was located somewhat between the two hospitals used for teaching medical students and post graduates One was Catholic and the chief of staff at the Catholic hospital was a Jewish surgeon, born and raised in Burlington, VT. I mean it was that integrated. There was nothing about religion or discrimination. Black students were up there; I don't know how many. But it was a totally different atmosphere. Years later at a reunion in Vermont, a Jewish fellow who grew up in Burlington said, "You know why there were so many Jewish students in the med school?" I said, "No. I knew they were there and I always wondered, how come? From Connecticut, New York and New Jersey primarily.? He explained, "Well, after the Second World War, University of Vermont Medical School was okay, nothing special. Somebody said, 'Well, what you need is some real bright students, some bright Jewish students from New England, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.? ?Whomever he was talking too must have thought that might be a good idea. They started accepting Jewish students, top-of-the-class type of students from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut and they never stopped. Preference was always given to qualified Vermonters, as it should be in a heavily tax-supported state school. Vermont now has over a hundred students 14 in a class and it is a leading medical school with a wide range of educational, clinical and research programs. It was great. To me it was like going to heaven. The second-year students that I met in my class were bitching and moaning, jokingly, most of the time. I told them, "You don't know what you have." I was warmly accepted by my new classmates and I graduated in June 1957. I went on to do my year of rotating internship at a county hospital, Westchester County, New York. They gave up the year of rotating internships and now everyone goes on to a three or more year residency program before going into the ?real world?. That is the Allopathic (MD) program as opposed to the Osteopathic programs (DO). Then I went into the army as a captain to get it out of the way because in those days doctors were eligible for the draft until age thirty-six and I didn't want to start something and then get called out if an emergency arose. That could very well have happened with Vietnam or anything after. Some doctors were called. So I volunteered. I went into the Arm