Temple University School of Podiatric Medicine - Achilles Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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For most of us. our first real exposure to PCPM came during our interview. In comparison with the physical plant of the other podiatry colleges. PCPM left us slightly in awe. Is this what the growing podiatry profession was going to be like' Well, then, I'm coming here' And I suppose that for about all. it was out prime choice among the five schools. Besides, if you were choosing podiatry. San Francisco wa% a 2000 mile longxhot; and Chicago. Ohio, and New York just don't seem to be up to par The interview itself was slightly less auspicious though There were liberally sprinkled questions of childbearing to the female applicants, marihuana smoking, and Dr Davidheiser asking Dave Laurence who wrote his undergraduate amatomy text? However, it was still the place to come to. After all, how often would we run across those burdensome interview people? Sometime in the early fall we finally arrived 116 of us strong. Some had bought Cunningham's already, some had fresh wedding bands, some had golden brown tans, and all had expectations. Abruzzo had a sigh of relief his roommate had just given him his acceptance letter, four months later. We came for orientation day. a later afternoon affair where we met each other over wine and cheese. It was held on the sixth floor in the board room. A few familiar faces from our interviews were spotted, but all were really strangers. We quickly discovered though Louis Stearns was the guy with the briefcase, and Maffei was the commuter from Trenton j la black shirt and white tie. It was a fairly social time, allowing for the usual anxious curiosities. Any women in the class? Who. where that one? Who's the dean? Where did you ay the physiology piofessor was? Nicely buzzed we were when we were suddenly led to the student lounge for dinner. Everyone tiied their PCPM hardest to make us feel at home. All the faiulty leaders spoke to us. espousng expectations, ideals, and work ethics. Dr. Harford. Professor Emeritus of Anatomy, who was a legend in everyone's life, told us not to read a newspaper for four years as there was no lime for it. Dr Rockett told us that in order to reach heaven (clinic), we’d have to suffer thru two years of hell (basic science) And, Di Davidheiser greeted us with a reading assignment for our forthcoming first class in Gross Anatomy. For a treat, he was the first to rekindle our summer drenched competitive spirits by iving us the option of getting the best cadavers for dissection, if only we would help him transport them the next a.m Yes PCPM had begun On opening day we arrived an hour early amidst smirks of those once, twice, and thrice removed. There were no welcoming bands, nor a band leader for that matter as President Bates was away. We were greeted for our first registration by Dr. Larry Sarton, newly appointed Dean of Students He read the President s speech to us. In between his giggling, we heard that we, the best podiatry students in the world were in the best podiatry school in the world with the finest faculty in a podiatry school in the world, and well, you get the picture. However, (giggle) a certain percentage of us. as good as we were, would be eliminated by lune it just happens. And. in case most of us had forgotten, as our president did throughout his welcome, we were continuously addressed by Sartov as Ladies and Gentlemen.-' But who was paying attention, after all. we who had stayed all of our dragons for many year - were now told of an impending plague Gross Anatomy was our first giant course, and it wa% taught by none other that Dr Roger the Dodger’ Davidheiser Once a week he lectured via slides from Grant's Atlas The triangles of the neck, chambers of the heart, and inguinal layers were our three horsemen but our quarterback was relationships. Gentlemen know those relationships! And we tried, in our dissection of the human cadaver, a beginning medical student's most aspicious event Do we cover the face? Who's going to make the first cut? Not me! Who's has one eye? Which one is the Chinese guy with mold all over him? Some were good specimens. Some were not. One was named Lucky 1 Who can forget Berkey the I lack , or Bruce Cohen with the sexual humor, or Dr Heiser as Steig fondly called him deciding on the sex of draped cadaver by shoving his hand up the crotch We saw smoker's lung, smelled formalin, dissected in detail the place where 'Dr. Heiser said you do your duty. tried to get Dr. Conway for our practicals, but sadly never had time for the hand The course ended graciously with skull splitting, upper torso disarticulation, and the dragging of remains to the freezer. Histology was taught by Dr Frank Conway with the disarticulated lips He always had trouble saying SYNCTIOTROPHOBLAST5 and thus was open game for class mockery including the grand debut of Steve Wcinreb. Weinreb was a combination of Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, and the Philadelphia Zoo. Conway responded by simplifying everything thru Joe there was Joe Kupfcr and there was Joe Purkinje Unfortunately, Histology was made more difficult thru out first class note taking experience We suffered thru verbatim mimeos from the little understood, and never appreciated Hal Histo Glatzer and his typist wife Bonnie. We will always regret having chosen to receive 57 pages of one paragraph versus outlined notes . But it sold alot of highliters Remember the tests? In lab practcals. we had to move around the room every minute guessing slides and hoping that someone didn't move the pointer. Battey finished the two hour final in 15 minutes with Birnbaum and Bauman right behind. We were always told not to study from more detailed texts like Bloom and Fawcett. Last and least are the memories of our cumbersome Embryology lectures In a final attempt by the administration to guve us an eight hour class day. we were hit with Biophysics. It was an introductory experimental course taught by an introductory experimental teachcr-studcn named Marvin Jacoby Like Conway, we also mumbled, but to a different projector This mass of relevancy offered us problems such as the velocity of a ball dropped from a three-stody building by a guy with a 3 day post-op bumonectomy However, the grades ranged from 90-100 which bought the course partial grace from the front of the room. Dr. Heiser taught us another course. Neuroanatomy, in the spring of our first year We learned of things as the MLF. and the Circle of Willis. Peffer became out note laker and upon the class' attainment of successful test grades - we elected him 2nd year president it seemed intelligent enough. Remember those falsies falx cerebri, etc Introduction to Podiatry was raught by the Washington commuters Shapiro and Lyons every Wednesday. Shapiro will always be remembered for making our first day an explosive one He spent the whole two hours trying to announce and denounce our professional anxieties Who can forget Larry Levinson hollering at him from the back of the class, telling him in so many words Physician, heal thyself. Lyons was OK: at least he brought his assistant occasionally to keep out eyes up front We had quizze-- on prehistoric feet and they gave us our first introduction to prehistoric clinic The course a la supreme, however, was Lower Extremity Anatomy, taught by Raymond Di Primio whom everyone called The Dipper He was out of South Philly to replace his mentor and even Krause's mentor - the British Bastion Sr G. Elmer Harford In the Harfordian tradition we had Monday forward to weekends. Who can forget Little John Orlando. D.P.M., our Proctor who never seemed to stand up' Like Lord Harford before him. the Dipper was not a vacillating man He was full of pride, cigars, and his own syntax. We were treated to the most happiest man you've ever seen, youse guys better make at least 50,000 a year , a little cortisone will solve everything Yes, he never looked better, especially when ribbing Rudman or Laurance He put us in assigned seats, taught us about the fabclla. and never mentioned the important extensor sling mechanism. Anyone remember his shouting Issacson get outa here while pointing at Isseroff? Who can forget Abramson singing I shot the Dipper ? Laboratory was the crux of the course, however. We did out first foot surgery there. Remember Livingston and G. Elmer? Remember spending 20 hours looking for cutaneous nerves of the foot? If in trouble use Louie's crazy glue - make your own saphenous ners’e. Remember how Yudkoff s cadaver was held together by butter but he always seemed to be working so hard? Yes, in lab we had assigned floor, no fabclla, a prominent extensor wing mechanism. David Bartos. partial practicals with impractical grading, no grade breakdown, and greasy Cunningham manuals. But for all those who didn t take the first Kern interview - name all the muscles which insert into the base of the proximal phalanx of the 5th toe' Biomechanics was (aught by Dr. Alan Whitney, also known as The Whit and A.K.W ' His greatest gifts as a teachei were the art of illustration, the appreciation of basic foot mechanics, and Whitneyisms. No one could forget Yeah I like it but I wouldn't use it on a patient Remember the cardinal axes and planes, and mesomorphs? He once tried to deceive us by giving the same test with the same question order but in alternating colors A hell of a guy and he always kept one step ahead Donohue is still trying for an A with his center of gravity project Physiology might be out most remembered first year class. It was taught by Dr Howard Pitkow, fondly known as nothing else. He was a classmate of Zion in High School except Zion made progress. Howie stayed and taught there until PCPM heard of him He was women's friend. He recommended DES for preventing miscarriages, ignorant that it caused ovarian cancer we learned about Shetland ponies and Shire horses while studying the female reproductive system and were taught that polycystic ovaries were found only in women, cows, and pigs. Over that trying year Pitkow lost 75 pounds and gained 75 turquoise rings. He was always upset over attendance yet he continued to read verbatim from his notes. Remember the choice between notes from Roth or Patterson? Who can forget Steve Rudman and Physiology? All thru the year they exchanged ugly jokes. During the final he squirted Howie 6

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with a water pistol and set him into St. Vitus' Dance. Howie then chased him around the entire 3rd floor Rudman was even in an elevator alone with Carl Marbach God help the building! In dog laboratory with Mad Dog Weiner we learned how to slowly kill and perform tracheostomies. The surgeons came out of u» Louie even did a defibrillation in a cardiac arrest. But. maybe the classic memory of all was ill fated Livingston's famous remark after another acud dog death amidst all the bustle C'cst la vie. Biochemistry was full of EM pathways and hexose monophosphate shunts. Our professor was Dr Marilyn Renton whose dramatic appeal was overstated throughout the year simply overstated throughout the year simply because she always kept her long lab coat buttoned The big questions became what did she wear underneath that coat and, who was she dating (Neal Yudkoff?) Who will ever forget Espcr writing I HATE BIOCHEMISTRY in the matching portion of our midterm Our first year will never be forgotten, neither by us, nor those around us. We fought with the faculty, the administration, the staff, and even the President-in-waiting - Bill Bowman. We weren't allowed to fight with the Board of Trustees. We fought with the vending machines, the bookstore, the librarian, P.P.S.A., our spouses, but mostly with each other Who can forget mummy-like John Yubas, always meditating with his worry beads, suddenly exploding at poor Hal Glatzer with tons of expletives? It wa always the back of the room vs the front of the room And then there were the geographical coteries: Ferry Ave. Grp. A (Arena, Smith. E Cohen. Berkey, Novick, Peffer. Davis. Kramer) . Cooper River Plaza Boys (Hamberg. W’einthal. Yudkoff) Northeast Gang (Goldman. Laver, Subic). R. Cohen, Greenberg. Isseroff. D Ziegler. Widom) Ferry Aven Grp. B (Rudman, Eisenberg, Levy. Battey, Weinreb. Poster. Kelley. Esper. also Lawrence) and the Center City Crew (Collins. Donohue. Gordon. Walter. Murray. Pectinelli, Schuster. Abramson. Spector). Elections were fun We learned much about each other that day Chet The Polish Prince waxed on, and on, about invaluable experience as a Navy man and loan officer. Finally, we voted Donohue, Rudman. and Weinreb in that ordet, and they became our triumvarate - President, V.P.. and P.P.S.A representatives. Through them we battled bitterly, especially against our archfiend Gibley. Our major accomplishment was the adoption of trimesters We were so well liked by everybody that year the other classes decided to show their affection be delegating us as a sacrificial class to remain on grades. This was to the mock chagrin of the front of the room. We looked forward to the day when we would be upperclassmen. In the mean while, it was getting harder and harder to emulate those above us then - 'The Gumps laughing and sitting in the lounge with pot bellies and girlie magazines. First year memories there are plenty of them: the St Vitus Dance with Louis Stearns and the Iliotibial Band Sartor's famous 7.00 a m coffee meetings to air gripes plus one explosion by D. Laurence Jefferson Library which was 'The Study Place , especially before finals where at 3:00 a.m you could find Eisenberg. Donohue, or Starrett having a breakfast recess across the street Ray Esper. who when he got mad got his Ya Ya's” out the Sterling Harford Anatomical Society, A point of paranoia for the 13 of the class who didn’t have to worry about failing, and didn't want to worry about being average .. the Wives' Club who received an introduction to Bill Starrett Doc Watson's Pub. our best watering hole, especially on a Wednesday or Friday Remember when Bruce Cohen showed the films Deep Throat, and W.C Fields' The Dentist Casey's in the afternoon after tests for rounds of beer and sandwiches bothering Helene Fuhrmeister the school parking lot - one of the nicest things in our first year and famous roommates: Yuas and Jani. Battey and Eisenberg. Leona and family. Slcig and Huntress. Rudman and Levy and E Cohen and who put exlax in the peanut butter. Smith and Weinreb. Berkey and Cockroaches. Louis and Mother, Moglia and Pruzansky, and Maffei and Weights In out first PCPM summer there was no clinic, mote mairiages. summer school, Di Pnmio picking up a hithhiker in O R. green’s named Jani, and our first class grades and ranking. We ended up our first year with 103. Microbiology, taught by Dr. Carl Abramson, has to be the course most remembered in our 2nd year We had a running battle for o months starting with term papers and seating, and never really ending. Among fomites, Mycobacterium Battey, and RNA coated viruses, we did it all. We spent more hours in Micro than any other school in Philadelphia where we would have 30 pages of Parasitology notes, the Ohio school had but one. Twice as much time was spent in laboratory looking at fungi than studying mechanics of the foot. Gibley and the Curriculum Committee heard our case and turned us away In response to our feelings and our inalibity to cope Abramson retaliated with the famous A sham deserves a shaft . Who can forget the other classics as Closttidia are found in the vagina and other deep wounds. and to Larry. Atopia may be inherited, but Micro sure isn't!'' Who can forget Bohdan Terleckyj mumbling a lecture or Emil Bishata mumbling everything Dave Axler - a real bright spot the film by Gary Igor' Fischman with broken eggs in his hand our first trimester final which was composed of a case history Jay Satz and the Swine flu and our famous Abramson rabbit tceshits which prompted the All feces look alike” remakr, and were worn to our final In March, 1976 we thought we washed our hands in Micro unaware of what was to come. Pathomechanics was taught most of the lime by Dr. Schoenhaus and part of the time by nobody as he usually came very late When he did come, we were treated to stories of him speeding over the Ben Franklin Bridge at midnight doing a D C on thest day of his residency and performing tibial osteotomies. Remember our choice of study material? It was cither Sgarlato's comedy of errors, or handout notes with idyllic tales of Big Bird and farting Our Monday quizzes were canceled if the Eagles won we had many quizzes that year. We ll never forget the gait cycle but what was a Gait Study Center? Good ol A.K. Whitney taught us Podiatric Orthopedics where even he wasn't sure of the test answers. It was a woefully scanty course, but he tried his hardest. We were lectured to about MOrton and the influence of the forefoot on the rearfoot and we made UMO's and VMO's from his doorway into a box on top of a shelf? Dr Sidney Arden also known as Jack Benny' and Sidney Sominex taught Pathology. His wa' probably the first class to suffer Friday afternoon disease. Wednesday lab sessions were no better, though taught by some of Phil adelphia's top pathologists. It was an easy grade until he was told that we had the old test Sid will always be remembered for his good course, the Frankford Hospital Exterships. and his inspiring of the best of Weinrcb's imitations. Onycitopathy was with Dr. Charles Krause. We were probably the 60th class in a row to be taught how to spell BUROW’S solution Remember receiving our test answers by mail Clinical Podiatry came to is via Kidawa and the P M (Practice injections, and even clinical lab with Wendy Bloom Remember Arme Karpo retting us that the PH of skin is 7.5? However, in the spring we received our reward one hour week to watch the Gumps work away at C C O R Protocol was taught by Florence Connerton - not exactly Wendy Bloom's archetype With the help of some upperclassmen, and Claudia whose assets to the school will never really be known, we learned how to scrub, gown, and glove X 3. Flo taught us FECKIES the three types of local anesthetic toxicity and how to save a choking doctor who can t eat steak properly For Introduction to Surgery, the school hired Dr. Silverman and his residents from Metropolitan Hospital After being told of his son's persecution as a D.O.. we were finally taught afout shock, burns, and G I tubes Remember getting the final exam ahead of time? Dr. Tuddenham from Pennsylvania Hospital taught Radiology. Fondly referred to as Turd in Hand , he never could comprehend how many years of school we had The highlights were receiving Pass-Fail marks due to a syllabus error, and hearing the guest lecturer talk about breasts. Pharmacology was given by Len Jacob, and Ara Der Marderosian. Remember the classic fights with Espei the question on the Caine family Jacob's stubbornness over changing grades the National Board questions? In lab we learned chemical warfare, and even tested Nair on rabbit skin Unfortunately, we never even learned how to give an l.M. injection. In Podiatric Pharmacology we were exposed to prescription writing, and the ubiquitous detail man through Dr. Brittner • a part-time podiatrist Roentgenology was with Leon Kehr who should have switched assignments with Tuddenham Who can forget filum or those tests of development of 12 year old girls we ll always remember Albright's Syndrome. Dr. Green was to be the new Surgery Department Chairman replacing Guido La Porta. He taught us Introduction to Podiatric Surgery. The smoothie from Atlanta, a real mild mannered Clark Kent he was until we got to clinic. He spent three weeks telling us rules for the next two years. Basic Neurology was with Marvin Rigor Mordes. A podiatry school dropout, he was on his way to John Hopkins, he said He was probably traveling 8