WORCESTER MEDICINE
Students Then & Now Medical School: Then and Now
A Conversation Between Alexandra Rabin, University of Massachusetts Medical School Class of 2022, and: Rebecca Kowaloff, DO Touro New York College of Osteopathic Medicine Class of 2011 Harvey Kowaloff, MD Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Class of 1975 Joel Popkin, MD SUNY Downstate Medical Center College of Medicine Class of 1974 Lynn Eckhert, MD SUNY Buffalo School of Medicine Class of 1970 Peter Schneider, MD Harvard Medical School Class of 1959 Certain core tenets of medical training have held true through the generations: the weight of basic science and physiology, the integration of medical students in the clinical system, and the fostering of professional identity. Medical education does not exist in a vacuum, however, and is shaped with the entire educational system by major world events, social and educational movements, and new technologies. Among many examples, our limitless access to the internet and the subsequent ease of conducting research, searching for therapies such as medication doseses, and understanding disease pathology are relatively new privileges for medical students compared to earlier generations. This is just one of countless advances that have reshaped medical education. I spoke with several Worcester-area physicians who graduated medical school between 1959 and 2011 to learn about their medical school experiences and understand the trends that shaped them. Alexandra Rabin: While medical students may sometimes feel we operate in a closed system of studying and clinical work, our education has certainly not existed in a bubble. What was the zeitgeist of your time in medical school? Harvey Kowaloff (’75): Entering medical school in 1971, my class was at the beginning of a transition in American medicine. We saw the first significant increase in women entering medical school and we were one of the first classes to enter medical school who had come of age during the Vietnam and civil rights eras. As a result, there was more social and political consciousness among my classmates than in most medical school classes in the preceding decades.
SEPT / OCT 2021
Lynn Eckhert (’70): The Vietnam War had a major impact on us all. In the evenings, night after night, we saw the carnage of war and we took to the streets and marched in protest. I recall leaving the medical school library to find the campus full of tear gas as police tried to quell an uprising. The male medical students were granted military deferments as a result of their studies and some were conscientious objectors. Female physicians did not have to serve. However, it impacted all of us. As a spouse of a physician assigned to the Indian Health Service, my GME years were spent at three different institutions as he was reassigned. Peter Schneider (’59): I was in medical school 65 years ago, so I may have forgotten much of the zeitgeist. It was a relatively placid period but, importantly, it was the dawning of the space age with the launching of the Russian Sputnik I in 1957. However, my career path was not shaped by external events but by my own long-term interest in science. Perhaps, and somewhat unusual at the time, was that one-third of my class went into psychiatry. Rebecca Kowaloff (’11): I was in the first class of a new osteopathic school opening in Harlem with a mission to increase the number of underserved groups in the medical profession. The fact that we were a new school was a blessing. There was ample room for us to step into leadership roles and establish clubs and such. For instance, I was a student government president in my second year, something not normally in my nature. Being the inaugural class was a curse, however, in that we often felt we had to advocate more than we should have for the support and resources we felt we needed. Alexandra Rabin (’22): It has been a strange and exciting experience to attend medical school in the COVID-19 era. While we are privileged to experience medicine in an unprecedented age, with new innovations like the mRNA vaccine and the treatment of COVID-19 pneumonia, we have also suffered tremendous losses on the personal and global scale. Beyond COVID-19, movements like Black Lives Matter have also contributed to forming a more conscious group of students who are thoughtful about our role in reducing disparities and racism in health care. AR: Did you have any particularly memorable interactions between yourself and a medical school attending? Joel Popkin (’74): I still remember the day as a third-year clerk. We were to meet the chief of medi5
