Brooklyn Transplant

A President Lies in State

John F. Kennedy lying in state, November 24, 1963 On Friday, November 22, 1963, 55 years ago, I was a third-year medical student sitting in a lecture room on the second floor of Freedmen’s Hospital, Washington, D.C. The lecture… Continue Reading →

The Dying Cadaver

The Spring 2018 issue of Rutgers Magazine, the magazine for alumni of the State University of New Jersey (Kate, my wife, is a Rutgers graduate), includes a one-page article, A High-Tech Anatomy Lesson, describing how medical students can be taught… Continue Reading →

November 6, 2018 8

Return to Bratislava

This year I will be making my third trip to Bratislava, capital of the Slovak Republic, once a part of the former Czechoslovakia which was a member of the Eastern Bloc, closely allied to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics… Continue Reading →

July 5, 2018 6

Diahann Carroll, Jaguar motor cars, Hillary and me

In the Random House Unabridged Dictionary the fifteenth, and final, definition for “crush” is: 15. Informal. a. an intense but usually short-lived infatuation. b. the object of such an infatuation. Diahann Carroll Richard Rodgers (1902-1979) and Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960)… Continue Reading →

May 1, 2018 16

Medical Trivia #3: Hadrian’s Earlobe

The Roman Emperor Hadrian (Publius Aelius Hadrianus Augustus) was born in Italica-Hispanica (modern day Seville, Spain) in 76 CE and died at his villa in Baiae, an ancient Roman town on the Gulf of Naples,… Continue Reading →

February 22, 2018 5

Three long steps to Montpelier

Montpelier, the capital of Vermont, is a small, surprisingly vibrant city in the middle of the state, between Burlington and Woodstock. The north branch of the Winooski River runs right under State Street and also under some of the buildings… Continue Reading →

October 16, 2017 12

Thoughts on One More Birthday

Contrary to T.S. Eliot, April is definitely not—at least for me—the cruelest month. To the contrary, April has always meant springtime, sunshine, light rains (“ … April showers bring May flowers …”) and the promise of summer warmth and vacations…. Continue Reading →

April 27, 2017 12

Peter, Paul and Mary

Last week, my wife, Kate, and I went to hear a concert given by Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey. The night of February 17 was miserable because of a ferocious, record-breaking rainstorm and high winds. We started out for… Continue Reading →

February 28, 2017 9

Medical Trivia #2: Cyrano de Bergerac and microscopy

In 1897 the French poet and dramatist, Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand (1868-1918) wrote what would be his most popular work, the romantic play Cyrano de Bergerac. Rostand was born in Marseille and his father was a renowned economist and poet…. Continue Reading →

August 11, 2016 7

Laufer’s Rules with Comments

Igor Laufer (1944-2010) was a distinguished, renowned and beloved gastrointestinal radiologist at the University of Pennsylvania, largely responsible for the development and refinement of double-contrast barium studies of the GI tract. Igor and I first met in the early 1980’s… Continue Reading →

June 18, 2016 1

Musing of a Contemporary Pathologist

Author Brooklyn Transplant