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

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bought the Triple Crown, and getting to class early in order to be assured of a seat would no longer be a concern. Part Two 1. Bugs and Drugs Our final summer of freedom a fleeting memory, we returned to PCPM stunned to learn that Hollick had become Sella Turcica and thet Ed Fallon had eloped to NYCPM with Victoria Brightman. We had heard tales of horror concerning Micro, but nothing we had encountered had prepared us for the Ax Man, Bo!, SoliDziarski, and Crazy Carl. Bo More Detail Terlickiyjij opened the festivities by thrilling us with tales of cell walls, conjugation, sex pilus, and gram negative rods of lust. Bo's dynamic lectures often whipped the class into such a frenzy that the women would scream Bo! Bo! Bo! and throw intimate articles of clothing in his direction, evoking memories of the Beatles' initial appearances on Ed Sullivan. We all liked Dr. Dziarski a lot on those rare days that we were able to tune into his frequency. Dr. Axler organized a well taught course, notable for its incredible volume of material and impossibly difficult immuno logy questions. Dr. Abramson, our savior, taught us that a worm on a stick was not a popsicle, that we should avoid wading in the Nile River or risk growing huge balls, and that creeping eruptions are not necessarily synonymous with a rocket in your pocket. We all bravely risked horrible diseases each time we set foot in the Micro Lab. It didn’t help that some of us showed up for lab barely ambulatory: Look at you, you can t even pipette. Wednesdays at 8 am we finally began to learn Physiology. Lenny the Punk, Britt, Pugie and Der would remain our nemesis for an entire year. At final count we were responsible for 563 drugs and every possible interaction among them. Lenny believed in academic Russian roulette; 11 questions covering 300 pages of notes. He constantly regaled us with tales of life-saving derring-do; reminding us that he saved SK F on countless occasions, as well as an occasional diabetic on an airplane. Everything we injected in Pharm Lab died; Dr. Pithkow would have been proud of us. Pugie used advanced cardiac life support in a futile attempt to resuscitate the little creatures. Many of us became convinced that every man, woman and child we injected would meet a similar fate. Of course, the pharmacists in the class already knew better from their extensive personal knowledge of every drug known to man: Honest guys, my eyes always look like this after I’ve been up all night studying. It was left to Der to elucidate the wonders of Ortho Novum, which we already knew was a derivative of the secretions of the pineal gland from NOVO. £ ftoacar wrc | Cut it out you guys.” 2. If a pathologist lectures and there's no one there to hear it, does he really make a sound? Pathological Zen was brought to us by the tag-team of Sid, Seo and K. We were taught scores of rare, disgusting disorders, none more frightening than that which afflicted our classmate Bernbach each afternoon Marcolepsy . The course was very thorough; vve were required to either read all of the textbook or look at old exams an houi before the test. King Harold held court semiweekly. The diminutive, bearded always stylishly attired Showinoff was feared for his random assaults on the intelligence and integrity of his students, as well as his infamous matching exams: 1. Horse shit and splinters 2. Dave Shit-tino 3. Conte's hat 4. Electro-stimulation weight loss 5. Doctor Love A. Rohadur rigids B. Wise ass C. No nookie D. Fraud E. Future Resident We were honored to be taught whatever; by the namesake of our library, Dr. Charles Krausz. He showed us an astounding collection of rare slides of proud flesh dating back to the War of 1812. Holy shit1 We almost forgot The Second Christmas Party, held at Di-Pintos. An open bar was all the excuse we needed to establish new blood alcohol records. We all got shit-faced and did things we ll regret for a long time. 3. Stuck inside the Fishbowl with the Toes U. Blues again . . . The doldrums of winter were upon us. Our calendars were filled with seemingly endless array of tests and quizzes. This depressing tedium was occasionally interrupted by Dr. Weissman, who taught us all about shadow gazing and he even taught us a few more games: Find the Fracture” and Guess the Angle. Spring was heralded in with a myriad of new courses, the names of which I doubt if anybody remembers. Nevertheless, our schedules were quite full for those dwindling few who chose to attend clsas. Most of us chose to fill our time with other diversions. 0 OW nau I'll be up on the roof. It's not easy 10

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attempting to cram 2 weeks worth of material from 4 courses in one night, we would henceforth have to cram one month's worth of material from one course in one night. We were lulled into a false sense of security by the absence of exams until after the New Year Things would get very ugly soon, but all we cared about was the First Christmas Party. The party was held at the London Victory Club, later torched by its owners in a vicious insurance scam. We all got ripped, and Bernie stripped - even removing his famous anatomy T-shirt for the first time in many months. 3. The Year of the Rat, and the Turtle, and the Frog, and the dog . . . You're travelling thru another di mension, a sight and sound, but of Lower Extremity Anatomy. There's a signpost up ahead, your next stop. The Hirsch Zone. If some of us thought that Judy Rae was twisted, we were all stunned by Bruce The Billygoat Hirsch. We started LEA with osteology; he continued to bone us for six months. We learned that the oblique groove on the ventral-medial-lateral surface of the plantar aspect of the 3rd cuneiform had a nutrient foramen which ossified in the 3rd month (IU). Having mastered osteology in only 10 short weeks, wre were left with 10 whole days to learn muscles, ligaments, arteries, nerves and all that other good stuff. REMEMBER THE RULES: 1. Must pass thru a metal detector to get into the exam. 2. All women are subject to strip searches at the whim of the proctor. 3. If you stand up, you will be hot. 4. If your signature does not match that on your application, you will be relegated to the Class of 1°S6. Fortunately, we had Dr. Raymond 'Father Guido DePtimio to tailor the skeletons with strips of cloth and question our Sicilian clsssmates. When we weren't studying Lower, we were slaughtering animals fot Dr. Pithkow. We were assured that they felt no pain, but they sure yelled a lot Turtles did sit-ups, frogs did clonus and dogs died. But their sacrifice was not in vain, for we learned that: 1. physiograph ink is indeed indelible . . . 2. their hearts were pumps . . . 3. none of them had Addison's 4. ... so we didn't give them thyroid. Dr. Pithkow taught us the importance of studying old tests during the Super Bowl. He was kind enough to illustrate the importance of the hypothalamus in maintaining homeostasis by gaining 50 lbs. in one term and dropping it like one of his bad questions the next. Philosophic physiology was taught by Dr. Bob Just put down the right answer Davis. We learned that by using the rooster comb assay we could determine whether or not all pro-basketball players wearing glasses were always pregnant. And so we have that . . . The highlight of Biochemistry was actually learning how we metabolized all the alcohol we drank after each exam. The blonde bombshell of Biochemistry, Barbie Fenton, titillated us with tales of fatty acids. She whipped us into submission with her endless essays. No matter how much he drank at our keg parties. Dr. Burke never turned into a raving lunatic, unlike many of his cohorts. Dr. Burke taught us with humor, humanity and respect... we appreciate it so much that we re not going to make fun of his miserable golfing performances. Gib Astral Plane' Hice saw to it that we memorized a lot of definitions. We re still not sure why, but we do know that the Axis of Pronation is parallel to the San Andreas Fault. The California Kid had a twisted way of looking at things, but he was always willing to take extra time and effort explaining that he didn t learn biomechanics at Haight-As-bury - so we all liked Dr. Hice. 4. Can you really change the pH of the ocean by pissing in it? You re looking at a Mr. Robert O'Leary, a man down on his luck. He is about to take a Lower Exam that he has taken before and somehow knows he will take again, a Lower Exam to be taken in The Hirsch Zone. 3rd term commenced with our descent into the bowels of the school. Yes, we were returning to the scene of previous crimes, the Anatomy Lab. The doors opened; 3 students went into anaphylactic shock, 2 contracted testicular cancer, and dozens were overcome by the noxious fumes. And that was the good news. The bad news was that: 1. We were to spend 11 weeks thoroughly dissecting the thigh, and 2 days to learn the 26 bones, 53 joints, 87 intrinsic muscles and countless ligaments of the foot. 2. We finally learned why they had warned us to be careful when we hacked the cadavers in half. 3. I had an arm that Hirsch was trying to pass off as a leg, but he couldn t fool me. No longer concerned about maintaining a high average on our weekly quizzes, we were delighted to score above the high 50 s. As horrible as the weekly bludgeonings in the quizzes were, nothing could compare with the stench of fear which permeated the air as we lined up like lambs being led to slaughter for the LOWER PRACTICAL. Chained doors, armed guards, and savage attack dogs were used to thwart attempts at tunneling into the lab from the housing complex the night before the exam. The key to doing well on practicals was realizing that if it looked like a piece of string it was a nerve: if it looked like a twig it was an artery; and if it looked like a two-week old piece of roast beef it was a muscle. No matter how much we studied, we all got 79's, but we learned Lower,damn it, and we have B.E. to thank for that. No description of our first year would be complete without mentioning Dr. Mike Third Degree Burns, who quietly took more prisoners than Hirsch, Pithkow and Barbie combined. When the final casualty list was totaled, several of us had 9

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training to defend my 'Best Tan championship. Still others were preparing for those dreaded clinical exams. There were three hurdles to cross before we would be allowed into the clinic. Most of us had no problem with the slide exam. Even the written exam was not too bad. But many of us met our match during the practical exam. Cowering like frighteded children, we were humbled by the neurological questions of Dr. Lemont or by Dr. Master's infant scaphoid pad. Nevertheless, we picked ourselves up, licked our wounds and eventually passed. Part Three 1. In the summer, in the city . . . The third year officially began in the summer of '83. Our extensive training in Clinical Podiatry was going to be put to the test at last. Armed with our black bags and white coats, we marched to the clinic with an air of naive self-confidence, assured that we could easily handle any corn or callous, or even the most grotesque fungal nail we encountered. After all, we had meticulously carved through mounds of wax with our scalpels; surely human skin would be no different. The patients soon became our innocent victims; the scalpel became a vis-cious. uncontrollable weapon For many of us, our experiences that summer enabled us to perform our first skin-to-bone procedures and also prepared us for future emergency room rotations. Honestly, Dr. Masters, I’ve been trying to stop the bleeding, but direct pressure isn't working. Should- I try a tourniquet? We all gathered together in August to take our National Board Exams, Part I. While some of us spent hours upon hours preparing for these exams, (namely those students who were stupid enough to apply to the N.V. school in the first place), the majority of us felt that as stu- dents from the Pennsylvania College, we could score above the national average without even studying. After all, PCPM was the Harvard of the Podiatry schools. As prepared as we thought we were, we had to admit that Biochemistry and General Anatomy did tax our brains, but ever so slightly. We laughed it off (Ha. Ha), assured that if they taxed our brains, they totally destroyed the brains of our fellow podiatry students from the other schools. Of course, we all passed and, once again, PCPM proved itself as the mecca of podi-atric education. 2. Is it too late to transfer?' W'e entered the fall term believing that the hardest years of our podiatiic education were over. We only had classes for half a day and these were to be graded Pass Fail. There was no way that we could ever fail a course now. no matter how hard we tried. However, our confidence was about to be shattered, ruthlessly and without any warning, by none other than Harvey. (You wouldn't think that a man with this name could do such a thing now, would you?) Yes, Harvey taught Podiatric Pathology on Fr iday afternoons (and on Monday evenings, when he felt like it or on Wednesday mornings if Friday oi Monday happened to be a Jewish holiday). His lectures were excellent, yet there appeared to be a communication gap between what was taught and what we were actually tested on. After our first exam, we learned a new word - photomicrograph. Definition: a cheap, obscure imitation of a histological specimen. Harvey was big on criteria. By the end of the term, we all knew the criteria for flunking Podiatric Pathology: a. A member of Sterling-Hartford Anatomical Honor Society b. Memorize the Primer of Rheumatology c. Know the notes cold d. Know the course, conduction velocity, and medical significance of Lemont's nerve. Some of us not meeting the above criteria were still confused as to why we failed; others knew the real reason. A I know why I failed. I never gave him a lozenger. Not even Harvey could keep us down We may have been discouraged, but we were not about to give it ail up at this point in time. We felt secure in knowing that we could always turn to Dr. Ferguson for encouragement and advice. We were grateful for her horse s . . . sense As if we hadn't been abused enough, images of Judy Rae flashed before our eyes with the mere mention of the word Neurology. What would Dr. Bhatt have in store for us? We soon learned that if we ever wished to have a nerve named after us, we had to take sides and, above all. we had to study old exams. I'm sorry I'm late Dr. Bhatt, but I was just reviewing these old exams. Oh well, so Gray's Anatomy would never feature D’Angelantonio's nerve, but hey, did we really want to memorize yet another nerve - let alone spell this one? For those of us who had had little sleep the night before. Tuesday afternoons provided ample opportunity to catch up on a few hours of nap time. Jim McKay Witkowski was the next best thing to Dalmane. Why, even Jerry was caught nodding his head a few times. It was amazing how much he could cram into two hours of lecture - and even more amazing how much we could cram into our heads the night before the test. By the time the final rolled around at the end of the second term, we had six-hundred pages of notes to contend with and rumors were rampant. 3. Is this chick for real? I know you have the Derm final, Ferg. I'm going to talk to Dr. Bates about you.' Lest we forget, it seemed that the days of skipping classes were over (for those of us who couldn t figure out a way to beat the system anyway). Our days were n