Interview with C. Redington Barrett, MD by Norma M.T. Braun, MD

Native New Yorker C. Redington Barrett, (“Rud”) was raised on the Upper Eastside and in Greenwich, CT, graduated from Yale University (1955) and studied medicine at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. Rud spent his entire career at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, retiring in 2005 after serving as Acting Head of Pulmonology. He was also Director of the hospital’s critical care units. He pioneered fiber optic bronchoscopy procedures at St. Luke’s. He was devoted to medical research throughout his career, directing AIDS and breathing studies. He enjoyed teaching medical students and was known to be calm and empathetic with the families of his patients. https://www.eatonfuneralhomes.com/obituary/DrCRedington-BarrettJr

Dr. Norma Braun (neé Wang Mai Tsen) was born in Shanghai, China during the third Japanese invasion, before the World War II. Prior to the war her family was well off and very well educated. Both her grandfather and father spent time in American universities. Norma, however did not attend school until age 10, because of the war. In 1949, she, her mother and siblings relocated to Philadelphia. Norma, who desired to be a doctor from a young age, started medical school at Temple University but transferred to Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons (Class of 1963) after being offered a scholarship. She completed her internship and residency at Bellevue Hospital and began working at St. Luke’s Hospital in 1982, as a cardio-pulmonary fellow under A. Loomis Bell, MD, who ran the cardiopulmonary laboratory. Eventually she narrowed her specialty to pulmonary medicine, and continues to work in that area at St. Luke’s, now Mount Sinai Morningside.