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MedicalAlumni
M A G A Z I N E
spring 2009
volume 50 | no 1
Taking Care
of the Man
on the Moon
Also Inside:
Research Ramps Up
Pathways to Discovery
UCSF’s Olympian
Class Notes

MedicalAlumni
M A G A Z I N E
Inside
departments
1 editorials 15 president’s letter 16 class notes
Spring 2009: Volume 50, Number 1
Editor-in-Chief: Gordon Fung, MD ’79, MPH, PhD
Managing Editor: Anne Kavanagh
Contributing Editors: Gary Bernard, Mark Boone,
Debra Holcomb, Jean Murray
Writers: Jody Duncan, Robin Hindery, Anne
Kavanagh, Kate Volkman, Tina Vu
Photographers: Noah Berger, Susan Merrell, NASA,
Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
Editorial AssistanT: Michelle Pardo
DesignER: Laura Myers Design
Administrative Council 2008–2009
OFFICERS
Lawrence Lustig, MD ’91, President; Lawrence Hill,
MD ’67, President-Elect; TBD, Vice President (Northern
California); H. John Blossom, MD ’70, Vice President
(Central California); Ronald P. Karlsberg, MD ’73,
Vice President (Southern California); Donna Hoghooghi,
MD ’98, Secretary/Treasurer
COUNCILORS AT LARGE
Robert J. Albo, MD ’59; Kenneth M. Bermudez, MD ’92;
Caley Castelein, MD ’98; Neal H. Cohen, MD ’71;
Timothy J. Crowley, MD ’80; Ruth Goldstein, MD ’79;
Uri Ladabaum, MD ’91; Tomas Magana, MD ’95;
Mary Eleanor Margaretten, MD ’03; Gary Mizono, MD;
Willis Navarro, MD ’90; Harlan B. Watkins, MD ’63;
Jane Phillips, MD, President, Association of the
Clinical Faculty; Albert Hall, MD ’52, Councilor Emeritus;
Robert C. Lim, MD ’60, Councilor Emeritus
PAST PRESIDENTS
Gordon L. Fung, MD ’79; David N. Schindler, MD ’66;
Judith A. Luce, MD ’74; John Fletcher, MD ’57
HOUSESTAFF REPRESENTATIVE
TBD
STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE
Daniel Orjuela, MS5
EX-OFFICIO
J. Michael Bishop, MD, Chancellor
Sam Hawgood, MB, BS, Interim Dean,
UCSF School of Medicine
UCSF School of Medicine
Medical Alumni Association
UCSF Box 0248
San Francisco, CA 94143-0248
Tel: 415/476-1591
Toll free: 866/904-2400
Fax: 415/476-3264
Email: maa@support.ucsf.edu
Website: www.ucsfalumni.org
© 2009 UCSF School of Medicine, MAA. All rights reserved.
features
2 Iraqi Boy Deafened by War Undergoes
Surgery at UCSF
Many unite to bring 3-year-old to U.S. and back to the world of sound.
3 From Family Practice to Astronaut Doctor
How alumnus Charles Berry, MD ’47, helped launch man into space.
9 The New Scientific Method
Efficiency is the name of the game at the Clinical & Translational Science Institute.
11 Gems at the General
Do you know which famous artists have paintings hanging at San Francisco
General Hospital
12 Promoting Careers of Greatness for Troubled Times
Pathways to Discovery Program aims to help graduates contribute to health
in a big way.
14 Split Decision
A gold medal and medical school keep Benjamin Wildman-Tobriner, Class of 2012,
in the fast lane.
15 Make a Difference with Your Used Textbooks
How to donate much-needed materials to physicians in the war zone.
ON THE COVER: Astronaut next to lunar rover during one of the Apollo
missions to the moon. What role did medicine and a UCSF-trained doctor play
in putting him there See story, page 3.
Contact us! Your letters are welcome. Write to: UCSF Medical Alumni
Magazine, Letters to the Editor, UCSF Box 0248, San Francisco, CA
94143-0248. You may also email your letter to: maa@support.ucsf.edu.
Please type “Letter to the Editor” in your subject field.

Editorials
Meet the New Editor
As the new editor of the Medical Alumni Magazine, I would
like to thank the Medical Alumni Association (MAA)
Executive Committee for their confidence in me to
continue the outstanding tradition of Dr. Kenneth Fye. His
visionary leadership, with his thoughtful and provocative
editorials, made this magazine the pride of the MAA and the talk
of the Alumni Association of UCSF. I am pleased that Ken has
agreed to continue writing opinion pieces.
For those of you who do not know me, I am immediate
past president of the MAA and current vice president of the
Alumni Association of UCSF. I’m also a full-time faculty clinical
cardiologist at UCSF School of
Medicine and director of Cardiac
Services and the ECG Laboratory/
Non-Invasive Laboratory at
UCSF Medical Center. For the
University, I am vice chair of the
Committee on Human Research,
Mount Zion Committee, and
director of clinical faculty affairs
for the Department of Medicine.
My research interests include
preventive heart disease and
reducing health disparities in
heart and vascular disease in the
Asian American population.
From a personal standpoint,
I am a third-generation
San Franciscan and the fifth
Fung family alumnus of UCSF.
My father, sister and brother are
alumni of the School of Medicine
(’42, ’74 and ’78) and my older
sister is an alumna of the School
of Pharmacy (’71). My sister is
also past president of the MAA.
My wife, Peggy, is a second-generation Californian and a happy
homemaker and gourmet cook. We have three children: Kelly,
a first-year medical student at Drexel University College of
Medicine; Everett, a personal fitness trainer at UCSF Millberry
Union; and Jana, suites manager at the Oracle arena.
As a lifelong member of the community served by UCSF
and a member of the UCSF family for my entire post-graduate life
and career, I believe that I bring unique experience to
this position as editor. I look forward to informing you of the
activities, accomplishments, directions and challenges of the
school from the perspective of an insider. If I communicate
or opine on anything worthy of comment or censorship,
I hope you will let me know in a letter to the editor or email to
gordon.fung@ucsf.edu.
I look forward to this opportunity to serve the MAA and the
School of Medicine.
Gordon Fung, MD ’79, MPH, PhD
gordon.fung@ucsf.edu
Gordon Fung
Advice for
President Obama
Please join me in
welcoming our new
editor-in-chief, Dr.
Gordon Fung. I am especially
grateful to him for giving me
the opportunity to continue
writing editorials.
On November 4, 2008,
the world was witness to a
watershed event in the history
of our nation. One hundred
and forty-six years after the
signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, a
brilliant and charismatic man of African American
descent was elected president of the United
States. Among the problems that our new president
must confront is the potential disintegration
of the American medical system. Unfortunately,
the road facing him is beset with overwhelming
obstacles that must be addressed with alarmingly
diminishing resources. Given the enormity of the
challenges and the reality of resources available,
President Obama will not be able to solve, or even
approach, all of the nation’s problems with equal
vigor. Clearly, his first priorities must be the
economy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Not far down the list of immediate concerns are
the environment, education and energy problems.
At some point, however, he will have to grapple
with health issues, and even those must be
prioritized. As physicians and citizens it is our
responsibility to help with this prioritization. It is
clear that our new president is nothing if not facile
with the tools of the electronic age. Therefore,
with the appropriate use of emails we can make
our views known to him.
What should President Obama do first
Clearly, different physicians will have different
priorities, and there are no absolutes. However,
if I were advising the president I would urge him
to extend and strengthen those programs on the
verge of floundering because of lack of support,
such as Medicare and the National Institutes of
Health (NIH). The care of our aging population
will clearly require more resources than are now
being expended, and the NIH is the cornerstone
of our nation’s health research establishment.
These institutions are critical to the health of
our medical system, and increasing support of
both Medicare and the NIH is feasible, politically
and economically.
Next I would suggest he establish a national
system of perinatal care. Such a system would
continued on next page
medical alumni magazine | 1

continued from previous page
NEWS
reap clear and immediate benefits
with regard to maternal and neonatal
health that would actually save
tax dollars.
Then I would recommend he
initiate a program of universal health
care for children, perhaps under
the age of 16, with emphasis on
preventive medicine efforts which
might include vaccinations, diet,
exercise, birth control, and education
on drug and tobacco abuse.
Lastly, although politically
controversial, I would suggest the
president consider limiting Medicare
access to certain expensive
technologies in select populations.
For instance, as a society can we
afford unlimited access to heartlung
transplantations
Unfortunately, the real crisis in
medical care in the U.S. is our lack
of universal coverage. Forty percent
of working Americans have no
health coverage at all. The solution
will require the cooperation of local,
state and national governmental
agencies and every component of
the private sector, including the
health and insurance industries and
the American industrial complex at
large. Although significant economic
resources would be required, one
could argue that an efficient single
party payer system would eventually
save money. At some point the
president will have to consider a
single payer option.
These are simply observations
and opinions, and there will clearly
be conflicting views. We now have
an opportunity to advocate for our
views and for change, and, as
physicians and citizens, we should
take advantage of this opportunity.
I know that some of you may
be a bit surprised that I have written
this editorial, having retired as editor.
All I can say is that chemotherapy
sometimes works, rumors of my
passing are somewhat premature,
and I hope to regale you with even
more editorials in the future!
Kenneth H. Fye, MD ’68
2 | spring 2009
Iraqi Boy Deafened by War
Undergoes Surgery at UCSF
By Robin Hindery
Ghazwan Al-Nadawi hasn’t
heard his elder son speak in
more than a year-and-a-half,
since the day a missile attack in their
native Baquba, Iraq, robbed the
3-year-old of his hearing and
abruptly halted his nascent speech
development.
But thanks to cochlear implant
surgery performed in January by
UCSF ear disorder specialist
Lawrence Lustig, MD ’91, the young
boy, Mustafa Ghazwan, will soon
be making up for lost time.
“He had started saying a few
words [before his hearing loss], like
‘mama’ and ‘baba,’ but since then,
we have used signs with our hands
to communicate,” Al-Nadawi said
through an interpreter.
Mustafa Ghazwan and his father,
Ghazwan Al-Nadawi
A cochlear implant is an electronic device that converts sound into an
electric impulse to stimulate the auditory nerve. It does not restore normal
hearing, but can provide more access to speech information than a hearing
aid can, according to the UCSF Douglas Grant Cochlear Implant Center,
where Lustig serves as director. A month after Mustafa’s surgery, after his
swelling had subsided, UCSF cochlear implant audiologist Colleen Polite,
AuD, activated the device, returning the child to the world of sound.
Mustafa’s hearing was destroyed in June 2007, when a U.S. explosive
device hit the building next door to where he lives with his parents and
younger brother. The story of his condition eventually made its way to
Cole Miller, founding director of No More Victims, which obtains medical
sponsorships for Iraqi children injured in the war.
Lustig and his team agreed to donate their medical services to perform
the surgery, and Dan Lowenstein, MD, professor and vice chair of UCSF’s
Neurology department and a leader of the Iraq Action Group at UCSF,
secured a donated implant device from a private company.
No More Victims then teamed up with Ruth Group, a Marin County-based
coalition of peace activists, and the Tiburon, Calif.-based Westminster
Presbyterian Church to raise $32,000 to cover travel and medical expenses
and other costs related to the family’s care during their stay. Mustafa and
Al-Nadawi arrived in San Francisco on Dec. 31, 2008.
Amy Skewes-Cox, the Ruth Group member who first contacted No
More Victims, said the coming together of the previously unassociated
organizations was the result of “the Internet combined with compassion.”
Mustafa and Al-Nadawi, a professor at Baghdad University, will remain in
San Francisco for roughly six months of follow-up care, including intensive
hearing and speech therapy, which will be covered by donations from
Westminster Church. The father and son are staying at the Ronald McDonald
House in San Francisco free of charge.
After Mustafa’s surgery, an emotional Al-Nadawi said through an
interpreter, “Today is the second day for Mustafa to be born again. After the
(bomb), my son died. Now he is alive again.” He said to Lustig, “Whatever I
say will not be enough. You are No. 1 in the whole world. You are my hero.”

COVER STORY: ALUMNI PROFILE
From Family Practice
to Astronaut Doctor
By Jody Duncan
An auspicious-looking letter
arrived for Charles Berry one
summer day in San Antonio,
Texas. Opening it, he found
a set of cryptic orders
instructing him to travel to
Wright-Patterson Air Force
Base dressed in civilian
clothes, where he would be
met and told what to do next.
Upon arrival at Wright-
Patterson, Berry was escorted
to a small cottage at the back
of the base. There was a man
sitting inside, also dressed in
civilian clothes. A couple more
men entered and Berry broke
the silence. “So what did you
bring me here to do” he asked.
“You’re here to help us select
astronauts,” was the reply.
“Okay…” Berry said. “What’s
an astronaut”
Charles Berry, MD ’47, at the Johnson Space
Center in Houston, Texas, in the early 1990s
Background: Apollo 11 begins its flight to the moon on July 16, 1969.
medical alumni magazine | 3

COVER STORY: ALUMNI PROFILE
T
he
son of a butcher from Rogers,
Ark., Berry wasn’t born with
a silver spoon in his mouth.
Nor was he born with the NASA
Exceptional Service Medal around
his neck. Nor the award from the
president of Lebanon, nor the one
from the Nicaraguan Air Force. He
wasn’t born with the Gold Medal of
the Czechoslovakian Academy, or
any of the dozens of other awards he
has accrued over his lifetime.
What he was born with was a
proclivity for tonsillitis.
Like most great stories, Berry’s is
peppered with moments of serendipity.
He simply seemed to be in the right
place at the right time. And it didn’t
hurt that he was good at what he
was doing.
It was the tonsillitis that set him
on the path of medicine. The frequent
visits to the family doctor left an
indelible impression on the young
boy, and he knew before they left
Arkansas, when Berry was only 7,
that he wanted to be a physician.
The family moved to Indio, Calif.,
where Berry grew up working with
his father at the meat market in the
summers. He did well in school,
played a little tennis, and fell in love
with a girl named Addella Nance,
whom he would marry many years
down the road. It wasn’t until Berry
reached high school and was making
plans to enter a pre-medicine program
at UC Berkeley that he learned of
his father’s discarded ambitions of
being a doctor. The cost of a medical
education had forced Berry’s father to
abandon this dream. He tried to
convince his son to do the same, but
Berry had decided long before that he
was going to become a physician.
Duty Calls
In September 1941, Berry matriculated
as a pre-med student at UC Berkeley.
Three months later the Japanese
bombed Pearl Harbor and altered the
course of his life.
Everyone over the age of 18 was
given a draft number and a choice –
enlist now and the military would let
you finish college, or decline and take
your chances with the draft. Berry
chose the Navy V-12 program and
hoped they would let him continue his
pursuit of a medical degree. As luck
would have it, they did. He was
assigned to finish his undergraduate
work there in Berkeley. What’s more,
two years later the Navy called the
70 pre-med students into the mess
hall and announced, “We’ve decided
Early Days – Berry caring for a patient on an
Air Force rescue mission in Panama, 1950s
Uncle Sam came knocking
again. This time it was a
letter that read something
to the tune of, “We paid for
your medical education;
wouldn’t you like to return
the favor”
which of you are going to go to
medical school.” They read off seven
names – Berry’s was one of them.
He stayed right where he was and
attended the UCSF School of
Medicine, which in those days began
at UC Berkeley.
Before his senior year of medical
school, the Navy inexplicably
discharged him with no further
obligation. After graduating in 1947,
Berry returned to Indio, now married
to his childhood sweetheart, Addella,
who had completed nursing school at
UCSF. He went into general practice
with a man named Ralph Pawley.
Berry loved his work and loved
being back home, but it wasn’t long
before the Korean War broke out
and Uncle Sam came knocking again.
This time it was a letter that read
something to the tune of, “We paid
for your medical education; wouldn’t
you like to return the favor” Berry
felt that he did owe his country some
service. Against the advice of those
around him, he enlisted in the Air
Force, thinking he’d put in his three
years and come straight back to Indio.
Besides, he’d always had an interest
in flying.
While waiting to be shipped off
to Korea, a friend of Pawley’s in
Washington told Berry about a training
course starting up in Texas in a new
field called aviation medicine (later
called aerospace medicine). Berry
quickly applied and instead of heading
for the North Pacific, he flew to
San Antonio as one of 25 members of
the first class of the United States Air
Force School of Aviation Medicine.
Shortly after arrival, Berry soon
discovered that this was not just a new
training course. The head of the
school, General Otis Benson Jr., was
working with the American Board of
Preventive Medicine to have aviation
medicine made a specialty, and Berry
was part of the pilot group. Their
second year in the program was to be
a public health residency at Johns
Hopkins Medical Institutions. However,
Hopkins only wanted those students
who had graduated in the top half of
their medical school and who were in
the top half of the aviation medicine
school. This cut 25 down to seven,
and again, Berry was one of the seven.
Berry convinced the general to let
him get some experience in the field
before his residency at Hopkins. The
Air Force sent him to Panama, where
he set about distinguishing himself on
air rescue missions and helping
numerous Central and South American
countries develop an aviation medicine
program for their air forces. He
enjoyed this time so much that he
managed to stretch his one year
abroad into three.
Berry finally came back but instead
of Hopkins, finished his training at the
Harvard School of Public Health. He
studied under Ross McFarland,
regarded as the father of human
factors engineering – applying what is
known about human capabilities and
4 | spring 2009

limitations to the design of products,
processes, systems and work
environments. Aviation medicine had
become a bona fide specialty, and
Berry returned to San Antonio in 1956,
soon to be chief of the Department of
Flight Medicine at the Air Force school.
Some of the experiments he was
involved with – sending military pilots
up to the edge of our atmosphere to
see how their bodies would respond to
altitude – had attracted the attention of
President Eisenhower’s men.
The Soviet launching of the first
man-made satellite into space, Sputnik
1, in October 1957, had lit a fire under
Washington. Exactly one year later, the
National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) was created.
The Cold War space race gauntlet had
officially been thrown down, and the
Sputnik 1 “crisis” had given America
a technological inferiority complex.
Space Race
It was then that Berry received his
orders to assist in selecting a handful
of volunteer test pilots who would
eventually ride a military rocket out
of our atmosphere into the inky
unknown. “I was in an amazing place
for the rest of that time,” he recalls.
Along with a handful of other
doctors from around the country,
Berry set about the task of coming
up with ways to test the bodies of
these men to try to determine which
of them could best withstand the
rigors of space travel. The difficulty
was that they didn’t really know what
the rigors of space travel were. They
tried things like a centrifuge, heat and
cold exposure, sensory deprivation –
a lot of trial and error and a lot of
tests that were ultimately thrown out
because they didn’t prove all that
useful in the end.
The volunteer pilots were eventually
whittled down and at a press
conference in Washington, DC, on
April 9, 1959, the seven astronauts
The Soviet launching of the first man-made satellite
into space, Sputnik 1, in October 1957, had lit a fire
under Washington.
The Right Stuff – (from left) Berry with astronaut John Glenn and Johnson Space Center
Deputy Director Jim Elms and Director Robert Gilruth, celebrating the last Project Gemini
flight, 1966
of Project Mercury were announced
to the world: Scott Carpenter,
Gordon Cooper Jr., John Glenn Jr.,
Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Walter Schirra Jr.,
Alan Shepard Jr. and Donald “Deke”
Slayton.
The primary goal of the Mercury
program was simply to prove to the
public what NASA already believed –
that man could actually survive a
spaceflight. From a medical perspective,
this is done not by shooting
someone into space and hoping for
the best, but by presenting data that
shows he would survive. Convincing
the scientific community at large
without the data to back it up was
one of the biggest thorns in NASA’s
side in those early days. President
Eisenhower’s scientific advisory council
was clamoring that they hadn’t even
decided if man would ever be able to
travel into space.
To prove man’s capability, Berry and
his colleagues needed a way to
monitor an astronaut in flight at a time
before hospitals had ever heard of
remote patient-monitoring.
Building on technology that the
military had developed for relaying data
back to the ground from passing
planes, Berry’s group helped to
develop physiological-monitoring
devices that could relay the astro-
Berry with astronauts Jim Lovell and Frank
Borman, crew of the Gemini VII flight, 1965
medical alumni magazine | 5

Astronauts Bill Anders (left) and
Deke Slayton with Berry (right)
at Mission Control Center during
the Gemini II program, 1966
From left: NASA’s first flight director
Christopher Kraft, astronauts Ed White
and Deke Slayton, Berry, astronauts
James McDivitt and Alan Shepard
Background:
A Mercury rocket at the
1965 Goodwill Tour – Berry and
Johnson Space Center;
astronaut Pete Conrad visiting the
commemorative
Oba of Benin (center) in Nigeria
postage stamps of
NASA’s Mercury, Gemini
and Apollo missions
6 | spring 2009

nauts’ vital signs back to Earth in real
time. This technology paved the way
for the nurse today who sits at a desk
remotely monitoring the health of a
patient down the hall.
In early 1961, on the eve of Alan
Shepard’s attempt to become the
first American in space, President
Kennedy’s scientific advisory council
was still skeptical. They reluctantly
came around on the grounds that it
was such a short trip – straight up and
straight back down. At worst, he’d be
back on the ground and in Berry’s
care in 15 minutes. “Kennedy said,
‘Let’s launch,’ ” recalls Berry, and on
May 5, 1961, Shepard shot into history
at a speed of 5,100 miles per hour.
NASA went on to send five more
manned rockets into space under
Project Mercury. After Shepard’s
flight, President Kennedy gave them
the goal of landing a man on the
moon within the decade. “This after
one 15-minute suborbital flight,”
recalls Berry, still sounding a little
exasperated at the notion.
Project Gemini came next, building
on Mercury’s achievements, with
great discussion about how long man
could stay in space. Berry was able
to amass data twice as fast now that
they were sending men up two at a
time. Despite the evidence pointing
toward man’s capability of staying
longer and going farther into space,
the American Medical Association
was still “horrified at the idea that I
was going to be monitoring a ‘patient’
in orbit and not be at his bedside,”
Berry laughs.
Gemini brought successful
exercises in spacecraft rendezvous
and docking procedures, and an
abundance of evidence of man’s
resilience with nearly 1,000 hours
logged in space. Berry and astronauts
Pete Conrad and Gordon Cooper were
sent on a goodwill tour of the world by
President Johnson after their eight-day
flight in August 1965. Gemini also
marked the first American spacewalk
when on June 3 of that year, Edward
H. White II left the confines of his craft
to drift in space for 23 minutes.
To the Moon
The crowning moment of NASA’s early
days was undoubtedly Project Apollo –
the first human exploration of the
moon. Only the building of the Panama
Canal rivaled the size of the Apollo
program as the largest nonmilitary
technological endeavor ever
undertaken by the United States.
A major hurdle for Berry and his
team leading up to Apollo was the
insistence by those outside of NASA
that a quarantine be developed.
Despite Berry’s belief that no
imaginable organism could survive in
the lunar environment, the National
Academy of Sciences argued that
NASA didn’t have the data to prove it.
The decision ultimately fell on
President Johnson, who decided
that he couldn’t be responsible for
bringing a lunar plague to the Earth.
A quarantine procedure had to be
developed for organisms that, as far
as Berry knew, didn’t even exist.
A total of 12 astronauts walked on
the moon during the Apollo program’s
six lunar landings. The events of
the Apollo 13 mission in April 1970
gained significant public attention
when astronauts and ground crews
had to frantically improvise to abort
the mission and bring the crew
home safely after an oxygen tank
exploded midway through their
journey to the moon.
But the most memorable of all the
Apollo missions is the one that will
forever be linked to the famous
phrase, “That’s one small step for
man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Neil Armstrong spoke these iconic
words on July 20, 1969, when the
Apollo 11 mission saw him and
Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. fulfill the
challenge President Kennedy had laid
Despite the evidence pointing toward man’s capability of staying longer and going
farther into space, the American Medical Association was still “horrified at the idea that I
was going to be monitoring a ‘patient’ in orbit and not be at his bedside,” Berry laughs.
medical alumni magazine | 7

out in 1961. “That was a particularly
wonderful time,” says Berry. “Short of
my wedding day, I don’t think there is
anything that could possibly equal the
feeling I had monitoring the crew from
the control center when they actually
landed on the moon.”
Berry continued to work with NASA
through the completion of the Skylab
program in 1974. All told, he played a
part in sending 42 individuals into space
and safely bringing them home again
over the course of 30 manned missions
in a span of 16 years. He eventually
started his own business as an
international consultant in preventive
and aerospace medicine with his son,
Michael. The younger Berry followed
in his father’s footsteps, even working
at NASA during the early days of the
shuttle program after finishing his
residency in aerospace medicine.
Now semi-retired and a widower –
he and Addella enjoyed nearly 62 happy
years together – the 85-year-old pioneer
still teaches a few classes of residents
and is working on an autobiography.
“I’ve had some amazing experiences,”
he says. He’s traveled the world, shared
the company of kings and presidents,
but ever the physician at heart, Berry
concludes, “One of the things I feel
best about was the opportunity to prove
that indeed man did have the physical
ability to go into space and not only
survive, but perform while there. We
placed the ladder so that those who
came after us could climb it into space
knowing it was safe.”
Berry at the surgeon’s console
in Mission Control Center at
Johnson Space Center monitoring
the crew on the moon
“Short of my wedding day,
I don’t think there is
anything that could
possibly equal the feeling
I had monitoring the crew
from the control center
when they actually landed
on the moon.”
– Charles Berry, MD ’47
8 | spring 2009

Research
The New Scientific Method
By Tina Vu
T
he idea isn’t exactly foreign:
Make a process efficient and you
will reduce the cost and time to
complete it. Efficiency can mean the
bottom line for many companies, and
streamlining work is one of the major
practices of businesses worldwide.
The same, however, cannot be said for
research. Ask any scientist and you
will learn that the investigative path
is often mired by funding proposals
and paperwork, that administrative
procedure is as much a part of the
process as lab procedure.
But research is starting to catch on
to the idea of efficiency. As scientists
race to bring basic science findings
to the bedside, an increasing amount
of funding and development is going
toward organizations – like UCSF’s
Clinical & Translational Science
Institute (CTSI) – meant to support
these endeavors.
One of CTSI’s program directors,
Maninder (Mini) Kahlon, PhD, says
the idea is this: “Health is advanced
because new novel therapies are
introduced. New novel therapies are
introduced because you have a richer,
more comprehensive environment
to support the research necessary to
get the therapies to a place where
they can be put into the market.”
Except CTSI, based at China Basin
in San Francisco, operates out of
a few offices, not a bench in sight.
In fact, much of the institute’s work
happens not through experiments
in a lab but through its Virtual Home,
an online portal where researcher
resources reside.
“People think CTSI is a stable
of racehorse researchers, and it’s
not. It’s about helping all of our
researchers excel and be able to
do what they do better because
we’re giving them tools and the infrastructure
to do it with,” says CTSI
Executive Director Susan Autry, MBA.
CTSI was born from the National
Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Clinical and
Translational Science Award (CTSA).
NIH developed CTSAs as part of its
roadmap to more quickly bring
research results into clinical settings.
The 38 academic health centers that
hold the awards compose the CTSA
Consortium, a national alliance
whose members share findings
to develop the new research
discipline across the country.
The consortium began in
2006 with 12 members –
UCSF was among the first –
and has plans to grow to
approximately 60 institutions
by 2012.
CTSI’s Four Goals
UCSF’s award, received in
October 2006, totals more than
$115 million over five years. The four
goals of CTSI are to:
l Integrate existing training
programs to increase the number
and quality of programs and provide
trainees from diverse disciplines with
the knowledge, skills and motivation
to make significant contributions to
clinical and translational research.
l Improve infrastructure to foster
the design and conduct of a diverse
spectrum of high quality, original
clinical investigation and translational
research.
l Enhance career development of
faculty and trainees involved in clinical
investigation and translational research
and change the academic culture
to appropriately reward original,
multidisciplinary, collaborative work.
l Create a “virtual home” for clinical
and translational researchers by
fostering communication, collaboration
and original ideas, and catalyzing the
successful conduct of clinical investigation
and translational research.
“The main goal,” says Kahlon,
“is we want investigators to focus on
their research and not be hampered
by administrative processes.”
Although just two years into the
award, CTSI has developed a number
of programs and resources – many of
which reside on its Virtual Home
website (ctsi.ucsf.edu). The one
receiving the most positive feedback
is the online research core search.
Researchers are able to easily and
“It’s a new model
for many academics,
but it’s tried and
tested in industry.”
– CTSI Director of Planning, Evaluation
and Tracking Zeanid Breyer, MBA
quickly determine what cores exist,
where they exist and what resources
each provides – a near impossibility
prior to CTSI, according to Autry
and Kahlon.
A resource CTSI plans to launch in
2009 is an online system through which
faculty, their specialties and relevant
research could be easily and eloquently
searched. Some of the more powerful
features of this sort of expertise mining
system, though, depend on having a
University-based faculty directory,
which is under development by the
campus. Autry hopes that a robust
expertise mining tool tapping into the
faculty directory and other sources of
information will be created during the
next two years of this five-year award.
She says, “This will truly transform the
researchers’ capabilities in finding
resources and expertise to advance
their work and will strongly support the
renewal of our NIH award.”
continued on next page
medical alumni magazine | 9

continued from previous page
Time with faculty with expertise in
Biostatistics, Research Ethics and
Design (BREAD) can be scheduled
through Virtual Home. Ellen Weber,
MD, professor of clinical emergency
medicine, used BREAD consultation
services to obtain statistical help
analyzing data sets regarding
emergency department triage and the
treatment of pneumonia. She says
she’s worked with the consultants
for two decades, although the movement
of everything online and the
increasingly comprehensive service
has made things easier. “You go
and ask for statistical help and very
often they’ll step back and help you
design the study in a way that’s
practical and feasible and increases
the power of the study,” Weber says.
Consultants are also available
to help navigate questions about
meeting award regulatory and compliance
requirements.
Funds for scientists to directly work
in clinical and translational research
are offered through CTSI’s Strategic
Opportunities Support (SOS).
Through its experience with SOS,
CTSI catalyzed the formation of the
Resource Allocation Program (RAP).
This program consolidates intramural
grant opportunities from several
organizations into one application,
streamlining the submittal and
review processes, reducing the
administration of the grants and
elevating reviewer status. Before RAP,
“If you wanted to know what funds
were available from the University,
you’d be really hard-pressed to find a
simple answer,” says Kahlon. Autry
hopes to grow to a campus-wide
model in which all intramural funding
could be assessed through RAP.
She notes the beauty of the system
is that the funding agencies can still
choose whom they will fund but now
have a uniform review system that is
efficient in supporting the process.
In fostering a passion for research
and to improve the bench-to-bedside
pipeline, CTSI offers training for those
new to clinical research. The institute
helped facilitate the development of
the School of Medicine’s Pathways
to Discovery Program as well (see
page 12).
Support for junior faculty and lessexperienced
researchers lies at the
core of many of the CTSI programs.
“If they don’t get that, they’re not going
to advance and they’re going to go to
industry or some other institution,” says
Autry. CTSI worked with the University
to create promotion criteria that
recognize collaborative work and not
just first and last authors – the
traditional method of identifying the
main contributors to a paper. The new
“The main goal is we want
investigators to focus on their
research and not be hampered
by administrative processes.”
—CTSI Program Director Maninder (Mini) Kahlon, PhD
criteria encourage investigators to
engage in the multidisciplinary
research that will hasten lab advances
into clinics and the community.
Testing the System
“One of our big goals is to really break
down silos and bring groups together
as need be. That takes a long time,”
says Kahlon. “For awhile you’re having
conversations and there’s no tangible
output. At the same time we want to
set up a culture of efficiency – we want
and need to show that as an institute
we deliver. Sometimes the fastest way
to deliver actually means not thinking
about anybody else, to just do. But if
you step back and think what is the
long-term, best thing for the University,
you have to spend time bringing
people together.”
Another challenge CTSI faces is
shifting the culture in the way things are
done. All programs that receive funding
from CTSI are required to use a SMART
(specific, measurable, achievable,
realistic and timely) goals approach, a
method rooted in project management.
Smart goals set the course of action,
defining deliverables and measures
of success. “When you’re starting out,
you impose a little bit more rigor in
the planning process, and then ensure
the accountability later on. It’s a new
model for many academics, but it’s
tried and tested in industry,” says CTSI
Director of Planning, Evaluation and
Tracking Zeanid Breyer, MBA. “Through
this approach, programs know exactly
what they need to accomplish and how
their activities contribute to the four
CTSI goals.”
Despite its growing pains, in many
ways CTSI is a perfect fit with UCSF.
NIH’s CTSA arrived just as UCSF
leadership determined its own strategic
direction would focus heavily on clinical
and translational research. More than
200 faculty members convened to
identify research needs and possible
solutions for the CTSA proposal,
which Kahlon credits for reception of
the institute’s work. “Right from the
conception, it’s been a framework
for tapping into the brilliance and the
collaborative spirit of our faculty
members,” says Kahlon. “Because of
the structure, it allowed the right
people to come together and for them
to come up with the best ideas.”
As executive director and one of the
six board members leading CTSI,
Autry brings understanding of both
the business side of biotechnology and
the researcher’s administrative pain.
A biophysicist with roots in cancer
research, Autry came to UCSF in April
2007 from UC Santa Barbara’s Institute
for Collaborative Biotechnologies.
After nearly 20 years at UC, she is
intimate with the system’s benefits
and challenges – including geography.
UCSF’s clinical research is spread out
over nine sites in the Bay Area, she
notes, “but it’s not just geographic
challenges. Our IT system, our
accounting system – there are lots of
challenges in the UCSF infrastructure.
Faculty know that, but if you’re one
individual, you wonder, ‘Well, what can
I do about that There’s nothing I can
do about research protocol approval
times. That’s a large machine.’ But
when you have a mechanism for
people to get involved…” Autry pauses.
“It’s like we’re the vehicle for change.”
For more information, visit ctsi.ucsf.edu.
10 | spring 2009

art @ UCSF
Gems at
the General
By Kate Volkman
The main lobby of a public hospital is not the most
likely place for paintings by famous artists, but that’s
exactly what you’ll find at San Francisco General
Hospital (SFGH). There, in a remote corner of the
dark lobby, hiding behind Plexiglas, are a painting
by Diego Rivera and a painting by Frida Kahlo.
The Rivera painting, dated 1926 and titled
“La Tortillera” (The Tortilla Maker), features a
Mexican woman making a tortilla while a girl grinds
corn. The Kahlo painting, dated 1931 and titled
“Portrait of Dr. Leo Eloesser,” features the SFGH
doctor who treated Kahlo for serious injuries that
she suffered from an accident.
In 1925, the 18-year-old Kahlo was in her native
Mexico City traveling on a bus when it collided with
a trolley. She was impaled by a steel handrail,
which went into her hip and came out the other side,
fracturing her spine and pelvis. It was during her
long recovery that Kahlo began to paint. She married
Diego Rivera in 1929.
Rivera first met Eloesser in 1926 and introduced him
to Kahlo when the couple traveled to San Francisco
in 1930. Eloesser was a pioneer in the field of thoracic
surgery and served at SFGH. Not only did Kahlo look
to him for medical advice, she and Rivera became
good friends with this doctor who worked among the
poor and indigent.
Kahlo painted Eloesser’s portrait at his home on
Leavenworth Street. It depicts the doctor standing
beside a model sailing ship named Los Tres Amigos,
(The Three Friends). A small Rivera drawing hangs
in the background. Rivera later gave Eloesser
“La Tortillera.”
In the 1960s and ’70s the paintings were donated
to UCSF with the provision that they be hung at
SFGH. Eloesser wrote, “To some it may recall my
almost 40 years at the old ‘City & County’ whose
patients, doctors, students, nurses and help, from
the kitchen to the roof, had become so indivisible
a part of me.”
“Portrait of Dr. Leo Eloesser,” by Frida Kahlo, 1931
“La Tortillera” (The Tortilla Maker), by Diego Rivera, 1926
medical alumni magazine | 11

education
Promoting Careers of
Greatness for Troubled Times
By Anne Kavanagh
Karen Finch’s odyssey began in
an impoverished clinic on the
fringe of Quito, Ecuador.
Joyce Viloria’s path started when she
came to the U.S. from the Philippines
at age 5. Eric Meinhardt’s journey
was inspired by his parents and
Brian Berger’s grew from fighting
fires and other volunteer efforts.
Though these medical students
from the Class of 2009 each took
a different route, they arrived at
the same place: the Pathways to
Discovery Program at UCSF.
Launched last fall, the program aims
to “increase the number of UCSF
graduates whose careers incorporate
a passion for inquiry, innovation
and discovery,” says Director Josh
Adler, MD.
Pathways to Discovery is an
enhanced version of the school’s
Area of Concentration program that
started in 2006. It offers students –
and now residents and fellows –
in-depth training and education that
push past the routine practice of
health care. “We want to help our
graduates make a contribution to
health that goes beyond the care of
individual patients,” says Adler.
Participants engage in a rigorous
course of study in one of several
areas: clinical and
translational research;
global health;
health and
society;
12 | spring 2009
health professions education; and
molecular medicine. They also
receive intense faculty mentoring and
complete a project designed to
produce a lasting legacy. “We hope
it’s the beginning of many,” says Adler.
Given the complex challenges
enveloping health care today, there is
a growing call for innovative physicians
with big-picture vision. “In many
ways our system is failing,” says Adler.
“There’s a need for new leaders.”
Daniel Dohan, PhD, director of
the Health and Society pathway,
concurs. “We’re starting to understand
that health disparities are bad for
everybody,” he says. “We hope to
help our students channel their talents
not just on clinical practice but on
the broader society.”
For Carrie Chen, MD, director of the
Health Professions Education pathway,
the program is an opportunity to push
the envelope with how doctors are
educated. “At the university level,
people aren’t trained to design
curriculum or to teach. It’s just
assumed experts are great teachers,”
she says. “We’re asking, ‘How can we
educate health professionals in the
best, most effective way’ We want
our students to become innovators
and leaders in this area.”
Faculty mentoring plays a key role
in developing leadership and other
skills. “Students are learning things
that are as far from rote as you can
imagine,” explains Dohan. Mentors
guide students in the steps and
strategies needed to complete their
legacy projects and pursue successful
careers. “There’s a huge difference
between knowing what to do and how
to do it,” adds Adler. “We don’t want
great ideas that can’t get done.”
Although the Pathways program is
elective, about 40 percent of medical
students have participated the past
three years and more than 30
residents and fellows are enrolled this
year. The program is also available to
professional and graduate students
from the UCSF schools of dentistry,
nursing and pharmacy. While other
universities offer similar concentration
programs, the inter-professional and
longitudinal focus of Pathways to
Discovery makes it the most robust.
“Our goal is not to take away from
clinical education. A strong foundation
in clinical medicine is crucial,” says
Adler. “But we don’t just want to
teach students and say ‘good luck.’
We can do more than that. We can
give them the tools to succeed
We don’t just want to teach
students and say ‘good luck.’
We can do more than that.
We’re starting to understand
that health disparities are bad for everybody.
in making a major
contribution to health
and health care.”
We hope to help our students channel their talents
not just on clinical practice but on the broader society.
We want to help our In many ways our system is failing.
graduates make a contribution
There’s a need for new leaders.
to health that goes beyond the care of individual patients.

Karen Finch
Global Health
Brian Berger
Health and Society
The PATH: Berger got a big
taste of public service after
college as an AmeriCorps
NCCC (National Civilian
Community Corps) volunteer.
Long intrigued by
health policy, his interest
intensified when he took
two years off from UCSF to
pursue a master’s in public
administration at Harvard.
Out of 250 students, only
three were physicians-intraining.
“We were in high
demand when health policy
questions came up,” he
says. “It proved to me
there was a role for health
professionals to be trained
in a more well-rounded way.
The vision for the Pathways
program is exactly right.”
Project and Plans:
He’s working on a paper
describing databases useful
for people conducting
health services research
in emergency medicine.
“The ER is where the rubber
meets the road for a lot of
health policy issues,” he
says. He plans to practice
emergency medicine and
work in the policy arena.
“I would like to see a
much more equitable and
integrated health care
system. The big question,
and the fun part, is how
to get there.”
The PATH: While at
UCLA, the Spanish
literature major traveled
to Ecuador to volunteer
in medical clinics. A law
there required women
to have written consent
from their husband to
obtain birth control. “I
was really moved seeing
the obstacles the women
faced and how they
were treated,” she says.
The experience sparked
her passion for women’s
and global health.
Project and Plans:
Finch spent five months
in Beijing working
on a pilot study looking
at factors leading
to smoking in young
migrant women. Tom
Novotny, MD, director
of International Programs
at the UCSF School of
Medicine, served as her
mentor. “Working with
Dr. Novotny was an
incredible experience,”
she says. “He is so
knowledgeable in his
field.” Finch plans to
become a psychiatrist
and continue weaving
her fascination with other
cultures into her career.
While conducting research
in Beijing, Karen Finch
(center) recruited Chinese
medical students to help
with surveys.
Eric Meinhardt
Health Professions
Education
The PATH: The Los Angeles
native developed a deep respect
for teaching from his parents.
His dad taught high school and
his mom elementary school.
Meinhardt tutored throughout
high school and college and
taught high school physiology
before starting UCSF. Now he
instructs small groups of firstyear
medical students. “You
need people who are passionate
and excited about teaching to
make it effective,” he says.
Project and Plans:
Meinhardt revised web-based
learning modules for an elective
course in dermatology. “I gained
a lot from the experience and
had the opportunity to work
with many faculty committed
to education,” he says. He’s
applying for residency in
dermatology and plans to pursue
a career as a medical school
professor and clinical instructor.
“I really like that I’m going to help
future generations of doctors to
be more effective,” he says.
Joyce Viloria
Health and Society
The PATH: Viloria grew
up in an immigrant family
plagued by chronic illness.
“I saw how my parents
struggled to get medical
care,” she says. “That
inspired me more than
anything to become a
doctor and work with the
underserved.”
Project and Plans:
Viloria is evaluating San
Francisco Medical Respite, a
city- and county-run facility
that cares for homeless
people who need a place to
recuperate after being
released from the hospital.
She is looking at whether
the services offered are
effective in keeping people
from returning to the ER and
helping them find housing. “I
want to become a physicianleader
working in community
health,” says Viloria. “The
Pathways program was the
best way to gain those skills
and to get hooked up with
the right people.”
medical alumni magazine | 13

student spotlight
Split
Decision
“I’m running out of adjectives to describe
just how cool the Olympics are.”
— first-year medical student and Olympic gold medalist
Ben Wildman-Tobriner
By Tina Vu
Benjamin Wildman-Tobriner shoots with a
Nikon D80. The first-year medical
student may be an amateur, but his
photos, brilliant in color and perspective,
capture images even the most credentialed
photojournalists couldn’t get – eye-level
poolside at the 2008 Summer Olympics in
Beijing. But then there are only a handful of
people who can say they were members of the
U.S. Olympic swim team, and even fewer who,
like Wildman-Tobriner, can lay claim to a gold
medal in the 100m freestyle relay.
“It was definitely a unique experience,” says
Wildman-Tobriner, who held the world record in
his leg of the preliminary swim for a day – until
his teammate outswam his time in the final.
With only a few weeks between the games and
his first day of medical school, he says, “I’m still
not sure I’ve processed it entirely.”
There was Beijing itself with its architecture
and density. There was explaining swimming
technique to U.S. Olympic basketball team
members and NBA-players Carmelo Anthony
and Dwyane Wade. There was winning gold.
“The Olympics are the Olympics, right”
Wildman-Tobriner asks. “It’s 10,000 athletes
from all over the world. It just really is special
and unlike anything else I’ve ever been to … I’m
running out of adjectives to describe just how
cool the Olympics are.”
Back in the states and finishing up his first
quarter of medical school, Wildman-Tobriner
is adjusting. His once-daily swims have trickled
to only a handful of times in the pool, but he’s
enjoying his studies and finds UCSF a dynamic
environment. “The Olympics were a fantastic
experience, and clearly I want to have that
again,” says the Stanford graduate and Rhodes
finalist. “The question is if it will be feasible to
maintain the level of academics and still train at
the level necessary. It can be done, but it
certainly is not easy.”
However Wildman-Tobriner decides athletics
and academics will meet up, the picture should
be bright, focused and with an incredible view.
From left: Ben Wildman-Tobriner, Nathan Adrian,
Cullen Jones and Matt Grevers (bottom) celebrate
winning the Men’s 4 x 100m Freestyle Relay Heat 1 at
the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. The United States
finished the race in first place in a time of 3:12.23 and
set a new world record.
14 | spring 2009

Your MEDICAL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
“Yes, we can.”
We’ve all heard these inspiring words from our new president when
addressing the significant financial challenges facing our country.
We here at UCSF are not immune to these turbulent waters. It is a
natural inclination, as we squirm every time our monthly 401(k)
statement arrives, to withdraw from our social and philanthropic
responsibilities. Yet, it is precisely the
social bonds, like those the Medical
Alumni Association (MAA) fosters, that
keep us tethered during such times.
Likewise, now more than ever the
MAA needs your support.
In keeping with the “new economy,” we
at the MAA have been striving to keep
costs in check while attempting to expand
the services available to you. As part of
an ongoing reorganization of the MAA Board, we have made a
number of important changes, including:
n Expanding the MAA Board to include a committee of
representatives from each graduating class.
n Adding to the number of sites where regional MAA delegates
represent our alumni. Currently we have representatives from
the California Central Valley and the greater Los Angeles basin.
We hope to add delegates from the Pacific Northwest (Seattle and
Portland) as well as select areas of the Midwest (Chicago) and
East (Washington, DC/Baltimore; Boston and New York).
n Rewriting the bylaws of the MAA to reflect its current makeup
and future directions for inclusivity.
We hope that these changes will lead to more alumni participation
in the MAA, so that all alumni will feel adequately represented by
our association. We encourage you to contact us with suggestions
on class and regional representatives. Yes, we can make a stronger
MAA – but only with your support. We welcome your ideas,
participation and feedback.
Larry Lustig, MD ’91
MAA President
To join the MAA, visit www.ucsfalumni.org
To contact the MAA, email maa@support.ucsf.edu
Make a
Difference
With Your Used Textbooks
Physicians in war-torn Iraq and
Afghanistan are in need of medical
texts, journals and reference
materials to rebuild their medical libraries
and restore their medical education
systems. To support this effort, the
Alumni Association of UCSF has
partnered with UCLA’s Operation Medical
Libraries program. With the help of the
U.S. military medical and nurse corps,
Operation Medical Libraries is spreading
much-needed materials to medical
professionals in these countries.
What: Books covering the basics of
anatomy, physiology and pharmacology
are in demand. Medical and technical
dictionaries, as well as dentistry,
pharmacy and nursing texts dated 2000
and forward, and journals and reference
materials published after 2004.
When: Books and journals accepted
through May 31, 2009.
Where: Drop off at the UCSF Faculty
Alumni House, located at 745 Parnassus
Ave., Monday – Friday between 8 a.m.
and 5 p.m.
To ship books directly to a point of
contact in Iraq or Afghanistan, go to the
Operation Medical Libraries website at
opmedlibs.medalumni.ucla.edu, scroll
down to “Become a Project Participant/
Donor” and click on “POC List.”
medical alumni magazine | 15

ClassNotes
What’s new Your classmates want to know what’s new in your life. New job New kid Share your
information at www.ucsfalumni.org; mail it to Alumni Services, UCSF Box 0248, San Francisco, CA 94143-0248;
or email your news and high-resolution photo to alumni@support.ucsf.edu. For best print quality, your photo
resolution should be 300 pixels per inch or larger.
19 5 0 s
n Miriam Gould, MD ’50, spends
her retirement with her daughters,
grandchildren and extended family and
enjoys reading, traveling and the rich
variety of cultural opportunities offered
in San Francisco. She creates a multipurpose
quilt, soft blocks and soft ball
called Little Gym, which she distributes to
foster placement agencies, homeless
families and shelters for battered women
with children.
n Ephraim Friedman, MD ’54,
studied the causes of age-related macular
degeneration throughout his medical
career and developed a vascular model
which suggests that the disease results
from decreased circulation caused by
progressive stiffening of tissues in the eye.
His latest paper was published in the
September 2008 issue of the American
Journal of Ophthalmology. He and his
wife, Dagmar Benioff Friedman, reside in
Beverly Farms, Mass., and summer in
Northern Maine. They have four children
and eight grandchildren.
n Murray B. Gardner, MD ’54, enjoys
teaching and research
activities at the
Center for Comparative
Medicine at UC Davis.
He and his wife,
Alice, live on an island
in the Sacramento
River Delta.
n Ruth Hase Matsuura, MD ’54, fully
retired from private solo pediatrics in
December 2005.
She has six
children, all of
whom have
settled in Hilo,
Hawaii, 22
grandchildren
and one great-grandchild. She writes,
“We enjoy annual ski trips and other
celebrations together.”
16 | spring 2009
n Donald B. McKean, MD ’54, lives in
Carmel Meadows, Calif., with his wife, Els.
He keeps busy caring for his wife, with
his family (including four grandchildren),
walking the dog at the beach, feeding
the hummingbirds, learning his Mac OS X
and with Grand Rounds at Community
Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula twice
a month.
n Harry L. Roth, MD ’54, writes,
“Since I have retired
from private practice,
I have done locum
tenens for friends and
a dermatology group.
I try to work 30 to 40
days a year. Seeing
patients without the administrative grief is
a pleasure. I have made a point of taking
off at least two months a year for travel
abroad and travel to see my four children
and grandchildren.”
n Richard W. Akin, MD ’59, makes
daily post-anesthetic
rounds and runs the
acute pain service
in a large group of
anesthesiologists and
certified registered
nurse anesthetists in
Schenectady, N.Y. He has been married
for 44 years and has three sons and
three granddaughters.
n Robert J. Albo, MD ’59, retired from
active practice of general and oncologic
surgery in 2006. He has completed 13
volumes of magic with more than 10,000
original drawings and photographs, with
two more volumes in preparation. He and
his wife, Margie, have been happily
married for 52 years.
n Allan H. Galbreath, MD ’59, retired
from a solo family practice in Sacramento.
He writes, “I miss my patients, but I see
or hear from them daily.”
n Michael T. Gyepes, MD ’59,
published three novels under the pen
name Michael T.G.
Yepes and is writing
a fourth. His books,
Hotel Transylvania,
Child of Europe and
An Outsider Among
the Thespians, are
available at Amazon.com. He practices
pediatric radiology part time at Children’s
Hospital of Los Angeles.
n Norman C. Headley, MD ’59,
married Gwen Henderson in 2007. He
writes, “I am doing well and am in
good health.”
n Philip Morrissey, MD ’59, retired
from private practice after 39 years in San
Francisco in November 2005. He writes
that he has been staying busy ever since.
n Karen B. Nelson, MD ’59, retired in
1997 and lives in Baltimore, within an hour
of her five children. She spends her time
with her grandchildren, and volunteering
for her church and for political campaigns.
She writes, “My husband and I spent five
days at the end of October in Dayton,
Ohio, with a community organizing group
doing voter turnout and working for
complete vote counts.”
n Janet W. Peterson, MD ’59, and her
husband, Herb (above), have 17 grandchildren
ranging in age from 8 months to
23 years.
n Dale Leo Tipton, MD ’59, is a clinical
professor in the
Department of
Otolaryngology/Head
and Neck Surgery at
UCSF. He has two
daughters and five
grandchildren.

19 6 0 s
n Jacqueline Grey Etemad,
MD ’64, continues to supervise trainees
in child and adolescent psychiatry as
a clinical professor of psychiatry at
UCSF and works part time as a peer
reviewer for the TRICARE military
insurance program (formerly known as
CHAMPUS). She also enjoys time with
her grandchildren ages 9 and 6 and
their four goats and llama. She and her
husband, Michael, (below) celebrated
their 50th wedding anniversary in
August 2006.
n Theodore R. Schrock, MD ’64,
retired from UCSF as associate dean
for clinical services in the School of
Medicine and chief medical officer at
UCSF Medical Center in 2004. He and
his wife, Barbara, moved to Montana,
where they established an Arabian horse
breeding operation in the mountains of
the Madison Valley.
n Paul S. Abdallah, MD ’69, flunked
retirement and returned to clinic work part
time in the Seattle area. He writes, “This is
so much less stress and keeps my skills
up and me out of trouble. I spent 33 plus
years practicing internal medicine and had
a rewarding career.”
n Janet H. Roth, MD ’69, practices
psychiatry and
psychoanalysis in
Berkeley, Calif. She
writes, “When I’m not
working, I love spending
time in Seattle with my
two daughters, their
husbands and my four grandchildren. I
also enjoy reading, walking with friends
and traveling with my husband. We
particularly enjoyed our most recent trip
to Africa.”
n William C. Southworth, MD ’69,
writes, “I am currently in good health,
living in Ashland Ore., with my original
wife, Darlene (above).”
n Clair Steven Weenig, MD ’69,
and his wife, Joan Strathdee, celebrated
their 40th wedding
anniversary in 2008.
He spends his
retirement golfing,
skiing and visiting their
two grandchildren.
19 70 s
n Terence G. Klingele, MD ’70,
climbed California’s
Mt. Whitney in May
2008 to celebrate his
70th birthday. He is
the senior partner of a
10-doctor eye practice
located on the east
side of the St. Louis metro area and
carries a full surgical load.
n David M. Allen, MD ’74, is semiretired
from his position as
the director of residency
training at the University
of Tennessee. He and
his wife, Harriet, have
two grown daughters,
Angela and Paula.
n M. Christina Benson, MD ’74,
certified in psychoanalysis, has an adult
psychiatry solo practice in Los Angeles.
She and her husband, Ken Wells, MD
’74, have two grown sons, Matt
and Michael.
n David R. Minor, MD ’74, is the senior
member of a three-person oncology
group and director of inpatient oncology
at California Pacific Medical Center in San
Francisco. He specializes in melanoma
and kidney cancer and coauthored
several papers on ipilimumab, a new
immunotherapy drug for melanoma.
n Stuart F. Quan, MD ’74, serves
on the faculty at Harvard Medical School
in the Division of Sleep Medicine,
where he leads the sleep and health
education public outreach program
(http://understandingsleep.org/).
Additionally, he is the editor-in-chief of
the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine;
a member of the advisory board for the
National Center on Sleep Disorders
Research; chair of the sleep medicine
examination committee for the American
Board of Internal Medicine; and the sleep
medicine representative on the residency
review committee for internal medicine
of the ACGME. He and his wife of 37
years, Diana, have two sons, Jason and
Jeremy (below).
n William J. Schwartz, MD ’74, is a
professor of neurology at the University of
Massachusetts Medical School. He has
been attending on the neurology inpatient
and outpatient services, teaching
residents and medical students and
conducting a research program that
focuses on the neural regulation of
circadian rhythms in mammals.
n Yoram Sorokin, MD ’74, celebrated
his 40th wedding anniversary in August
2008. He continues to be active in clinical
care, teaching and research at Wayne
State University School of Medicine/
Detroit Medical Center.
n Kenneth B. Wells, MD ’74,
continues an academic career leading a
center on mental health policy and health
services outcomes research. Additionally,
he is co-director of the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation’s Clinical Scholar
Program at UCLA, where he oversees the
community engagement curriculum. He
and Chris Benson, MD ’74, have been
married for 35 years.
n Frederick W. Bialy, MD ’79,
completed his second re-certification in
emergency medicine in November 2007.
He and his wife, Toby Blomé, enjoy
Scandinavian music and dance and both
play the Swedish nyckelharpa.
medical alumni magazine | 17

alumni Q&A
Class Notes 1970s | continued
Toni Martin, MD ’77 “weak” and unsuitable to be a doctor.
When I returned, the women students
Internist and were as comfortable as the men and
author, Martin’s all the students were treated with
most recent respect. I felt it was important to
published work record that this change was not a
is called When happy accident, but a goal that we
the Personal Was women (and many men) consciously
Political: Five worked toward.
Women Doctors
Q: How do you think being a
Look Back
female medical student in
Q: Why did you go into medicine San Francisco (versus the East n Terry T. Gerritsen, MD ’79,
in the first place
Coast, for example) shaped
published The Keepsake
A: My first decision was that I wanted your experience
in September 2008,
to have a career. I was the middle A: I came to UCSF from Harvard, her 12th crime thriller
child in a family of five girls, so Pride where the undergraduate ratio of men under the pen name
and Prejudice and the Women’s to women was still 4:1 because (we Tess Gerritsen. She and
Movement spoke directly to me. I took were told) Harvard was in the business her husband, Jacob,
“Rocks for Jocks” in college for my of training leaders, which meant men. live in Maine.
required science course and ended I am sure that we women had an
up majoring in geology. I liked geology, easier time at UCSF than we would
but those were very political times. have had in many East Coast schools.
As a black woman, I felt I could be Many of my classmates and I chose
more useful as a doctor.
UCSF partly because we knew the
Bay Area was a liberal political island.
Q: When in your life did you The movie Milk takes place during the
start writing
time I was in training.
A: I have written since childhood.
Both of my parents were editors. My
Q: In what way did women
father was the editor of The Chicago change medicine
Daily Defender, the black newspaper A: Women of my generation, unhappy
in Chicago. I didn’t feel compelled to with doctors who treated us like
seek publication until I became a children, were strong advocates for
doctor, though. When I published my a more collaborative style of practice.
first book, in the early ’80s, physicians We advocated formal mentoring
were increasingly diverse, but the programs in training, because we
voice of “the doctor” in print was were left out of the informal mentoring.
almost always a traditional specialist In research, female doctors have
in academic practice on the East brought attention to diseases that
Coast, whose experience was
affect women and made sure that
presumed to be universal. Most women are included in clinical trials.
doctors aren’t in that group.
Just by our numbers, we broadened
the public perception of “a doctor”
Q: Why did you decide to write so that female students today aren’t
this book
considered masculine for choosing
A: The idea for the book came when medicine. Women doctors still face
I returned to UCSF after 20 years to challenges but much has changed for
be a small-group leader in the course the better.
Foundations of Patient Care. The
kinder, gentler teaching amazed me.
Q: What’s the best part of being
When I was a student, we all lived in a published author
fear that a professor would suddenly A: Having readers tell me that they
lash out at us but we women,
enjoy my work. With this book, it has
especially, felt on probation. We been especially gratifying to have
worried that if we showed any emotion women doctors thank me for telling
or hesitation we would be labeled their story.
n Donna Ferriero, MD ’79, is the vice
dean for academic affairs for the School
of Medicine and chief of the Division of
Child Neurology at UCSF. Her husband,
Thomas Rando, is a scientist and
neurologist at Stanford. Her daughter,
Sarah, teaches art to American college
students abroad on the Island of Paros,
Greece, and their son, Matthew, is a
super-senior at UC San Diego studying
mechanical engineering.
n Michael A. Kaiser, MD ’79, is the
chief medical officer for Louisiana’s public
hospital system, the fifth largest public
hospital system in the country. Since
Hurricane Katrina, he has been busy
with the rebuilding of inpatient and
outpatient services in New Orleans
and is overseeing the planning for a new
academic medical center in downtown
New Orleans, which is scheduled to open
in 2013. Meanwhile medical services are
provided in a partially restored interim
hospital, clinic services in an old Lord &
Taylor, and other services are scattered
in leased space across the city.
n Eleanor G. Levin, MD ’79, runs the
local echo lab, the
regional lipid clinics and
cardiac rehab programs
at Kaiser Permanente
Northern California.
Additionally she serves
as a clinical professor at
Stanford, practices cardiology, and
conducts research in cardiovascular
prevention for Kaiser Permanente.
n Karen A. Ratliff, MD ’79, lives in
Kaua’i, Hawaii, with her husband, David
Armstrong (below). She is a family doctor

who does locum work along with working
with native communities. She writes,
“This works out well for us since we’re
travel/culture junkies anyway. I can work
as much or as little as I like, so we can
continue our world travels, which we
enjoy tremendously.”
n Gerald E. Van Wieren, MD ’79,
and his wife, Suzanne
Van Wieren, have a
primary care internal
medicine office. They
received the 2008
Michigan Governor’s
Award for diabetes care.
1980s
n Kerry Lynn Blacker, MD ’84, works
in the Department of
Dermatology at Kaiser
San Francisco and
remains on the clinical
faculty at UCSF. She
and her husband,
John, have two
children, Ryan (15)
and Madeline (12).
n Moira A. Cunningham, MD ’84, is a
primary care physician and chief of a
small internal medicine practice in Boston.
She and her husband, Lew Pepper, have
three kids, Hannah (23), Zach (19) and Zoe
(16). She loves to travel and has visited
Peru, London, Costa Rica, Paris, Ireland,
Italy, Ghana and Berlin.
n Huong Thi Duong, MD ’84, writes,
“2009 marks my 22nd year with the same
internal medicine group. My oldest patient
will soon celebrate his 102nd birthday.
It is challenging, yet rewarding, being the
primary care physician for many families,
some spanning three generations.”
She and Paul A. Beck, MD ’84, have
one daughter, Laura, a high school
sophomore, and will celebrate their 24th
wedding anniversary this year.
n Lynne Flaherty, MD ’84, works
part time in an ER in a
small city in Eastern
Washington. She
writes, “In 2005, I
learned to scuba dive,
and I’m now a certified
cave diver. It’s the most
wonderful thing I’ve ever learned to do.”
n Daniel J. Highkin, MD ’84, is a
primary care internist at The Vancouver
Clinic in Vancouver, Wash. He and his
wife, Margaret Klute, have three children,
Sean, Brian and Emily (above).
n Fay R. Kagan, MD ’84, works as a
child psychiatrist, conducting evaluations
and medication treatment, at a non-profit
clinic in the San Fernando Valley.
n Kathleen A. Kennedy, MD ’84,
specializes in maternal and fetal medicine
at Kaiser in Portland, Ore., and has three
children ages 18, 16 and 12.
n Lorna McFarland, MD ’84, is one
of eight doctors with Columbia Pediatrics
in Long Beach, Calif. She writes,
“Long Beach is a wonderfully diverse
community and so I get to use all the
great teaching we had about culture and
communication in the effective practice
of medicine. These skills are critical
when trying to motivate families to improve
their nutrition and lifestyle, which is my
special interest.”
n Susan E. Schaefer, MD ’84, is an
ob-gyn with the Palo Alto Foundation
Medical Group, Santa Cruz Division.
She and her husband, Colin, and their
twin daughters, Hallie and Mollie, live in
Santa Cruz.
n Laurel Gail Coleman, MD ’89, lives
in Maine with her
husband, Steve, and their
children. She works part
time in geriatrics at a
consultation clinic at
Maine Medical Center
and for hospice.
Additionally, she opened BayWrap (www.
thebaywrap.com), a restaurant in Augusta,
Maine, in 2006.
n Mark N. Lobato, MD ’89, continues
his work with the Center for Disease
Control in the field of tuberculosis.
n Candice McCoy, MD ’89, lives in
Seattle with her husband, Peter, and
their two daughters. She founded
Phase Plus Consulting in 2008, which
provides strategic clinical development
consulting to the biotechnology and
pharmaceutical industry.
n Joseph A. Scott, MD ’89, practices
academic emergency medicine in Miami
and supervises visiting residents training
at Jackson Memorial Hospital. He is active
with the National Disaster Medical System
federal disaster
response
teams, which
has resulted in
hurricane
deployments
(including
Katrina) and
providing
emergency
care during the
inauguration.
He writes,
“My wife Tina directs a non-profit clinic for
uninsured kids. Erica (11), Brooke (6) and
Lauren (3) keep us busy with homework,
piano lessons, 5k races, an endless string
of birthday parties, and the looming fear
that I will soon have teenage boys
knocking on my door.”
1990s
n Robert Aaronson, Resident ’92,
executive director of the Tucson Hospitals
Medical Education Program, received the
2008 Laureate Award from the American
College of Physicians, Arizona chapter.
The award honors one recipient annually
who demonstrates a commitment to
excellence in medical care, education and
research, and service to their community,
their region and the college. He and his
wife, Bonnie, have three children and will
celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary
in May 2009.
n Nicole Hartnett Kehoe, MD ’97,
and her husband, Brian, are
thrilled to announce the birth
of their son, Aidan Joseph,
on Nov. 1, 2008. Nicole
practices family medicine at
a community health center serving mostly
migrant farm workers and new immigrants
in Santa Paula, Calif.
medical alumni magazine | 19

IN MEMORIAM
Class Notes 1990s | continued
2000s
ALUMNI
Felix R. Rossi Jr., MD ’37
20 | spring 2009
Edward Shapiro, MD ’37
Harry Weinstein, MD ’37
Ariah Schwartz, MD ’43
Stanley Diamond, MD ’44
Joan E. Hodgman, MD ’46
Jeffrey H. Englehart Jr., MD ’49
Joseph L. Izenstark, MD ’51
Robert L. Marvin, MD ’51
n Mark J. Richman, MD ’97, married
James A. Mattison Jr., MD ’51
Virginia (Ginny) Huang at the Biltmore
Charles F. Anderson, MD ’52
Estate in Asheville, N.C., in July 2006.
He practices and teaches emergency
Morton J. Thoshinsky, MD ’52
medicine and internal medicine for the
Morton A. Rosenblum, MD ’54
Los Angeles County Department of
Gene T. Yore, MD ’54
Health Services and is a clinical expert
Ronald N. Kornblum, MD ’59
for the county clinical resource management
Thomas R. Powers, MD ’59
program, which improves inpatient
Seymour Weissbart, MD ’61
and outpatient care for patients with
Peter W. Brill, MD ’63
chronic diseases. Additionally, he is
Robert B. Dunn, MD ’65
president of the board of directors of
Herbert A. Sigmond, MD ’67
a local non-profit organization, Activities
David H. Ralston, MD ’69
for Retarded Children.
Jerald J. Tantillo, MD ’69
n Sangtae Park, MD ’98, is chief of
Steven A. Leibel, MD ’72
urology at
Ronald V. Keech, MD ’74
Mount Sinai
Sanford M. Henry III, MD ’86
Hospital and
Ursula C. Guidry, MD ’92
has a faculty
appointment at
the University of
faculty, housestaff
Chicago. As an
Janos Balog
active member of the American Urological
Chauncey G. Behrens
Association, he has been invited to
Paul F. Birnbaum
speak in Switzerland, Korea and Shanghai.
Howard M. Blankfeld
He writes, “UCSF medical school and
Marvin H. Bloom
residency prepared me very well for an
Harry J. Buncke Jr.
awesome career.”
Ira G. Davidoff
n Riva R. Graeme, MD ’99, practices
Harvey Z. Klein
preventive medicine and counsels patients
Donald G. Langsley
on lifestyle, diet and exercise as a staff
Sanford H. Lazar
physician and the medical director for the
Harry Lee
Cooper Wellness Program at the Cooper
Amos H. Lieberman
Aerobics Center in Dallas. She and her
husband, Brian, have two boys.
Thomas P. Mathews
Brian McGivern
n Keith D. Lee, MD ’99, specializes in
Jon R. Polansky
urology with a
Charles A. Rowe
sub-specialty in
minimally
Merle A. Sande
invasive surgery
Philip T. Wilson
(endourology,
Richard D. Wolfe
laparoscopy,
Sheldon Wolff
robotics). He
Seymour Zoger
sees patients at the Palo Alto Medical
Clinic and performs surgeries at Stanford,
Lucile Packard and Sequoia hospitals.
He and his wife have two boys.
20 | spring 2009
n David J. Hayes, MD ’02, is an
ophthalmologist in private practice in the
Willamette Valley, southwest of Portland,
Ore. He and his wife of 15 years, Juliana,
have two kids, Max (11) and Zoe (7).
n Shelby Leuin, MD ’04, writes, “I am
in my final
year of ENT
residency at the
Massachusetts
Eye and Ear
Infirmary. I will
be heading to
Colorado in July 2009 for a one-year
fellowship in pediatric ENT.”
n Adam C. Levine, MD ’04, is
completing his
residency in emergency
medicine at Brigham
and Women’s Hospital /
Massachusetts General
Hospital in Boston
and has accepted a
faculty post at Brown
Medical School / Rhode Island Hospital,
which begins in July 2009.
n Miranda D. Lu, MD ’04, lives in
Seattle with her husband, Henry Lu,
and their daughter, Madelyn. She is
a part-time faculty member at Swedish
Family Medicine Residency–First Hill
in Seattle.
n Tushar Ranchod, MD ’04, is a
vitreoretinal surgery fellow at Associated
Retinal Consultants / William Beaumont
Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich.
n Albert Blumberg, Resident, a
radiation oncologist at St. Joseph Medical
Center in Towson, Md., was selected
as one of Baltimore Magazine’s 2008
“Top Doctors.”
Send us
your class note
today...
> Online: www.ucsfalumni.org
> Email: alumni@support.ucsf.edu
> Mail: Alumni Services, UCSF Box 0248,
San Francisco, CA 94143-0248

In Learning…
A simulated arm on which students can practice arterial
punctures, $428
Replacement “artery” tubing, $15
Hearing, “that didn’t hurt at all!” from a pediatric
patient: Priceless.
In Patient Care…
Opportunity for students in the Program in Medical
Education for the Underserved (PRIME-US) to work
with children of incarcerated parents, $500
Day trips for PRIME-US students to learn about living
conditions in underserved communities, $100
Making a difference in our community: Priceless.
In Progress…
Breast self-exam form, $100
Rhythm generator, $500
Giving students a strong foundation in physical
examination skills: Priceless.
Thomas C. Merigan, MD ’58,
has taken up a new hobby,
bird photography.
His photos can be viewed at
www.pbase.com/merigan/
profile and www.flickr.com/
photos/merigan. He is
enjoying semi-retirement with
his wife, Joan M. Merigan,
. . . the impact of your gift MD is ’58, who priceless.
is concentrating
on her piano in retirement.
Thank you for your support of
UCSF School of Medicine.
To learn about programs at the School of Medicine,
please call (415) 476-6341 or email meded@support.ucsf.edu.

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UCSF School of Medicine
Medical Alumni Association
UCSF Box 0248
San Francisco, CA 94143-0248
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Plus 4-hour CME course —
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For more information about the
CME course and Reunion details,
go to www.ucsfalumni.org
or email maa@support.ucsf.edu.
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