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Avrum Katcher MD FAAP
(Autobiography) "My mother had a tough time when I was born. Year: 1925. There were no Apgar scores then. But apparently I did not breathe spontaneously, and would have had a very low score. Mashing the chest, and dipping the newborn in alternating hot and cold water were the methods of the day at Jefferson in Philadelphia. I survived the treatment, as well as the basic condition, and did well later. I got along well in school, and went to Penn State because it was the cheapest college around, being a state school. I did well there.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, I never had any vocational plans other than medicine. This was just as well, because after being turned down for entry into every medical school in Philadelphia (except Womens) while I was in my 4th semester at Penn State, I sent off an application for no logical reason (other than my draft number was very close and I had just taken my physical) to Hopkins in Baltimore. The committee at college which provided recommendations to medical schools gave me a low average, although I had good scores in most subjects except math, which has never been a strong point for me. To my astonishment they called me for an interview with three faculty chiefs, and a little less than a week later, received a letter, "We are pleased to inform you...." I did not finish reading that for almost a week. Result, was not called up. So I entered after my 6th semester and graduated in 1948 at the age of 23. I never did graduate from college. Medical education in Baltimore was...well, not exactly a lark, but certainly filled with all sorts of interesting things. 70 in my class, including 7 women. Hopkins had been financed strongly by a women's group, with the understanding that a minimum of 10% of the entering class (7) would be women. To my knowledge for many years they did not admit any more at one time. Hopkins did not give grades. Instead, each year, at the end of the year, all the faculty who had seen a given student turned in a written report on that student, but without a grade. No information was given to the students, so you went along, worked hard, and hoped you were doing OK. When graduation came close, the reports were all combined, and the students ranked. In our class one student was told, a couple of days prior to graduation, that he would not graduate, and would not receive a degree of medicine, because his work was not satisfactory. In keeping with the system, that was the first he heard of this.
My first postgraduate year was in general medicine at Mt Sinai, New York. Three months medicine, three surgery, and six one month programs, such as neurology, pediatrics, OB, etc. During this time I became satisfied surgical specialties were not for me. Thought about internal medicine, psychiatry or pediatrics. Felt no strong pull to psychiatry or internal medicine, so pediatrics was it, and I enjoyed children anyway. Applied and was accepted at Hopkins. But towards the end of the first year in pediatrics, I was called in to the office, and told, with what seemed to be genuine regret, that they had too many applicants who had just been discharged from the armed services, and they felt they had to give them priority. This I could understand. In addition, a highly respected chief of service at Hopkins, Horace Hodes, had just gone up to Mt. Sinai to be the chief of pediatrics there. So called, New York, and Mt Sinai said they would be happy to have me return in Pediatrics. Three years there. Got on well with Dr. Hodes. He offered me a job in what was then known as "salt and water" because I had managed a research project during my stay. But at that point Korea was active, and I had not seen service, so I was taken in to the Army rather than Navy or Air Force. Dr. Hodes told me when I had finished my service, he'd be happy to have me come back, and he could get me an excellent job at the Rockefeller Institute with a well known researcher in my field of interest. This was rather kind of him. Particularly over a run-in I had had with an attending at Mt. Sinai in my second year there. It was the custom, when an attending made rounds on the floor, that the senior resident on duty went with him (no hers there) and wrote on the chart for him the comments that he made. We were stenographers. One Sunday the attending on duty was looking at an infant who had puzzled everyone with respiratory distress. Most of us felt there was evidence of a cardiac problem. But this particular attending insisted it had to be pulmonary, and dictated for me to write a paragraph about this. When he was finished, I took back the chart, but while he was looking at the next patient, I wrote a note of my own, supporting my point of view. he was furious, and the next day I was called up to Dr. Hodes' office. In effect, I waved the stars and stripes in the air, freedom of speech and all that, and the boss told me in the future to keep my mouth shut and call him if there was a controversy, and that was the end of the matter.
It was only a month after entering the Army that I realized I did not want to do research any more, but to be a doctor who took care of children. Was in Korea for a year and a half. Mostly doing sick call behind the front line. Learned a great deal even though did not see many children. In one place, we were stationed along side of a hill. On the next valley to the North was the 25th Division, and on the other side of the hill which sheltered that group there was the Chinese and North Korean armies. To the south of us was a little valley, and beyond it another hill where were several bunkers which, at an earlier stage of the fighting had held artillery. But at this time there was nothing there, and only a good deal of barb wire mixed with land mines separated us. My unit consisted had a couple of warrant officers who coached me what to do. One period of time in the springtime, I noted that our platoon's men were often not there very much. I kept wondering about this, and asked the chief warrant officer, "How come?" He fudged a while; I insisted; finally the truth came out. The men had gone south to Seoul, and brought back a number of women, and put them up in the bunkers, with good food and comfortable beds. No doubt the real reason was obvious, but it never occurred to me until I pointed out to my chief warrant officer that if we had an inspection, and this came out, whose neck did they think would be at risk." (Click here for more of Av Katcher's autobiography.)
Av Katcher directing SFSM Executive Committee as Chairperson.
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