New York Medical College - Fleuroscope Yearbook (Valhalla, NY)

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wouldnit failed to cannulate the carotids, but did suc- ceed in transecting them fif they found theml. To make fudge - or rather, simply, to fudge - this we learned in Biochemistry. And if you didn't know how to pipette - well - then you had to know how to make the most delectable fudge. Amazing how it was that some few never came to the lab and yet still handed in their results. A. C. Gilbert sets at home? We loved the little woman who doled out glass equipment. Turn on the charm and you got it free in exchange for what you had broken. The lab fee refund at yearis end was new-found money. Sperm mobility studies occupied the interest of our teacher. Give all to science! Some did and were paid well for it. Bidding the self of anxiety, increasing manis knowl- edge of himself and making a profit-what could be better - so long as you had warm arm pits. Entering the second year of our confinement we were a bit more heady - but quite wary of the trials to come. One perpetual exam for more than thirty weeks caused malaise. Pathology, Pharmacology, Microbiology, et al., took turns humiliating us. Frivolity - yes, frivolity - those parties at the Plaza be- came too rowdy - the neighbors complained at the noise -we were acting like the people up the street. And so parental rules, those revolting things we thought we had gotten away from when we graduated from college, were imposed. The party had to be registered - size was limited. The asmallv courses in the second semester were in- describable. They were there - we attended - took notes -and in the months between second and third terms forgot almost everything we had once crammed into our pea-sized brains for final exams. Oh, yes -you passed them -even if you flunked them. Strange? If you pass the big courses, you pass the small courses, if you donit pass the abigv courses, then you flunk the Ksmallv courses. Simple. And if you flunked them, might as well go to Law School-or, even better-join the Navy- see the world. The second year- it passed and most of us did too. A summer ahead to study for the boards. Our school historically doesnit stand well in the first part of the boards. So we were told by those who went before us. But since when did history affect our class -we were unlike all others - unique - special. We would study diligently and improve the record. Yet the warm sunny days came - we traveled - swam - roared and cavorted - and study seemed to be an occupation which did not at all fit in with the general tone of the time. And so - we frantically crammed for the few weeks prior to the boards when fear precluded frivolity. After taking them we never did learn exactly where we stood among the ranks. Two days after the boards we began the third year, and since we had exhausted our supply of study energy, we were rather lax in picking up the pace of learning once again. Sluggish, flabby and confronted by a torrent of lectures, we began the second half of our medical education. The clinical years had begun and we went to clinics observing, palpating, percussing and ausculating. Sig- moidoscopy, laryngoscopy, gastroscopy, fundoscopy and many other -oscopies became well known to us. In the second year we had a small taste of ward work in physi- cal diagnosis, but now we were exposed more - the awk- ward feeling carrying that little black bag still stiff and crammed with the tangible tools of the trade - approach- ing the patient. Hi, I'm Dr .... 'i flf they believe that, they'll believe anythingl. A white coat, a black bag, and mostly a desire to know and help the patient seemed to be the keys to establishing the needed relationship. And there were exams which came almost as regularly as the proverbial twenty-eight day cycle. Lectures never ceased - notes taken were prolific in multicolors, yellow, blue, red, green - felt-tipped pens were the thing, Xerox, Inc. flourished. Changes had been made in the year. Supposedly things were better, We were a class on the brink of changes. After we went through, departments fell and new ones replaced them. The year ended as another began, the fourth and final - and again changes were made. Now we had only one month of elective -this made things more unified and whole, a sort of grand universal symmetry which we failed to recognize. This, yes this, was the pleasure domei' decreed in ages past by our forerunners. The year to end all years - a student intern, but neither a student nor an intern- rather, something in between-indescribable. At times it meant great power was in our hands, at times exhilara- tion, achievement and a sense of well-being were pos- sible - but our position in no-manis land made us vul- nerable-to be used and abused-as special nurses, practicals and nurses aids, and as objects subjected to the hostility of some nurses who were not willing to voice their complaints to the Residents - You tell that . . . We were to learn by doing, truly progressive educa- tion. And in many instances it worked. In any system, however, faults are bound to exist. How could anyone speak of an experience such as ours and have only good or only bad to say of it? This is unreal. But the more sensitive, the more idealistic among us felt all the let- downs more acutely, and became more disgusted when visions of what was supposed to be vanished in the light or, rather, the haze of reality. We have become older - we have aged and matured too. There is no one among us who will say he has learned nothing. And, of course, when sitting down to evaluate the experience, it will be inevitable to find mixed reactions. What can be said with a sincere tongue is: there are those who loved it-there are those who did not love it so well-but, there are those who will never know what they missed. John H. Mensher

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SENIOR CLASS Companionship iving for four years -prolonged gestation-only now being born. A growing process -maturing, hopefully - but aging just the same. About to emerge - multifaced - enigmatic expressions mir- ror the uncertainty of the future. The protected, mother-warmed, structured environment sheltering the fertilized and developing embryo has all but fallen away. Here now stands the product - virtually naked - sup- posedly germ-free but certainly germinal, quite suscepti- ble to the whims of the new life - ready to be tested by those who have long since made the journey into being. He contemplates his past, his years of growth and de- velopment - shivers at the thought of prior trials - smiles over the triumphs - failures displease but strengthen him. He holds out his ideals as a spearhead. The noblest profession - he is only now beginning to wonder at its abounding greatness -the power he will wield - the awe he will engender - but always aware of his basic finiteness in the infinite universe - how he must atune himself to nature to work with it, to heal, and, when necssary, to grapple with it when destruction is its aim. Responsibility - a fellow being will entrust him with life -incredible challenge - to meet, to decipher the un- known, to assemble the jigsaw of a thousand varied shapes, no two alike, to arrive at the answer - this is the goal. The success, hopefully, will outweigh the failure. The frustration not impede him. There is no room for the Pyrrhic victory here. But amid this serious contemplation the frivolous past President ...,..,,.... ...... F rancis X. Walsh Vice-President ..,.,.. .,..,.... N icholas R. Breyan Senator ............ .,.......... C . Gene Cayten Senator ......... ...... S tephen H. Marcus Secretary ......... ......,... K aren G. Koster Treasurer ..,,.... .......,,. A lan S. Feit is there - orgiastic possibly -mindless and, by contrast, carefree. Here, poised on the brink of being four years within, the womb beckon to be remembered. The first day we were still floating free, but we were not long in receiving the dictum -never get behind in your yord-the work of burrowing into the enriched medium - to latch onto extract nutrient knowledge and to grow. With an avid appetite of our own we eagerly accepted what was fed us. We saluted a whale of a source of knowledge and called him a good guy. We marvelled at the master of blunt dissection and felt honored if he,d measure the various dimensions of our hands. In spite of the early warnings by the powers that be, we were soon behind in our work. VVho could forget those long awaited, highly feared shot-gunv quizzes in neuroanatomy which never were given. Was he too busy? Did he think we were too smart or lamentably, too dull to merit the quiz? Or, did this quiz exist at all? Was it all a hoax designed to instill fear into the timid soul of the unknowing? A dead body-by some cavalierly treated-named and defamed-bits and pieces preserved for posterity. For some it was the first encounter with the opposite sex in the altogether.', Soon it became an object- de- humanized. This helped the strong empathizers in the group. Operating on a live patient, albeit a dog, gave Mr. Amory fits but delighted us. Those who would excel in vascular surgery were quickly selected, and those who

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vdgzfzztzsl ,A fb. ', 'fm ffilwglm 'Qu I never use that greasy kid's stuff. Dr. E. Morse congratulated by Dr. S. Rini after successfully delivering a 534 pound fecal impaction with Piper forceps. , Ji. ...md 14 W.. f-1 The Dump Truck. Hirsute, hairsuit Goldberg. The Mose attempts to speculate Why is this man sleeping? Now thatfs what we call radical surgery!