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

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In September of ’75, the Class of 79 entered PCPM with high hopes and 1457 days to go. The first two days were spent in orientation. Orientation, from the sixth floor’s viewpoint was easy - just photograph us, number us, and lecture to us. For us, things were more difficult. We had dialects of English ranging from Bostonian to Ghanese to contend with and sometimes we needed interpreters to talk to each other. The feeling we received from orientation however did not need any interpretation. It was obvious orientation was the calm before four wild and crazy years at PCPM. Our first day of class began as every first day of class had since kindergarten -except here we wore white jackets over our new clothes and would be sent to CAPS instead of the principal if we misbehaved. Dr. Turnquist would proceed with a high pitched presentation of anatomy as seen by Woodburne. It took Stan’s Notes, Stan’s numerous clarifications and about half a dozen other anatomy books to give us a fighting chance with Dr. Turnquist’s fill-in tests. Histology introduced us to binocular microscopes and Dr. Conway. Dr. Conway in turn introduced us to learning obscure italicized words in Leeson and Leeson, and flunking practicals. We do owe Dr. Conway thanks for diagnosing our malady as undergraduate amnesia and for holding his slide conferences in the dark.

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For those of us new to Philadelphia, Dr. DiPri-mio. introduced the Philadelphia pretzel, hoa-gey cheese steaks, t-shirt with suspenders and cigar, and the os innominatum. (I thought this was a South Philly restaurant for three months). I asked myself if it was worth all the lower studying when Dipper’s daughter was asked if she wanted to be a Podiatrist when she grew up and she replied No, I’d rather be a real doctor”. It was probably the 8 o'clock Monday morning quizzes that swayed her decision. First year Biomechanics was deferred by Dr. A.K.W. until after we recieved our notes. Although it is difficult to recall exactly what we learned in Biomechanics. At least Dr. Whitney was kind enough to give us half credit for wrong answers on true-false tests. (Do you remember studying from the old true-false exam that had a question: Internal tibial torsion may or may not be a transverse plane deformity?) Although school consumed the vast majority of our time first year it did not consume it all. Some people woke up early on weekends that spring to play softball at Cooper River. Others have fond memories of staying up late one evening for a memorable bachelor party at the Futura. There were a number of good parties- the best of which (at Ferry Station) celebrated the end of that hectic first year! Second year came with the promise of clinically orientation, relevant courses, and fragged on and on with micro.