When classmate DON ROBERTS died on May 15, 2020, in Pocatello, Idaho, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a tribute written in his remembrance had a hard time finding a home.* However, searches led to our discovery that HMS allows each class a HMS Listserve website, a computer linkage in a private room, and we reached out.
The Class of 1963 responded enthusiastically with stories of themselves, anecdotes, and remembrances—so enthusiastically, indeed, that we have compiled these stories into a book. The class's diversity, at least of thought, shines through, with appropriate swaths of humor and optimism, great memories of HMS days, our awesome faculty, and awe-inspiring stories of our later journeys, both medical and personal.
We were children during World War II, students during the Freedom Marches. We were new doctors who served in Vietnam (where BION PHILIPSON was the first of our class to die) or elsewhere, or in the "yellow berets" of NIH, CDC, PHS, or Berry Plan, the experiences transforming many of our careers. We graduated before Medicare and Medicaid and before Roe v. Wade. We saw poliomyelitis, smallpox and measles disappear but AIDS and SARS-CoV2 came on the scene. Molecular biology, big data, and electronic medical records began to dominate our lives. Our stories reflect all of these events. They keep us humble.
