Dr. Klein discusses his early days as an intern/resident in the late 1920s, early 1930s, presenting an interesting picture of what training was like then and then compares it with his residents at the time of this interview (late 1960s), noting the changes in practice. He also relates stories about his Army experiences, the difference surgical services, adding a little on how that has changed over time, and mentions what he knows about the “ileitis story” (Crohn’s disease), and adds some personal information about himself, his schooling, marriages, etc.

Some names mentioned include: Leon Ginzburg, Gordon Oppenheimer, John Garloc, Allan Kark, A.A. Berg.

This interview starts with personal details of Manheim’s family and personal interests and ends with hobbies. The body of the interview discusses his early surgical interests, and how he came to his career in proctology. He spends a good deal of time discussing the issue of fee splitting and doctor’s fees and salaries. He reviews a list of surgeons and gives his impression of them as people and as surgeons, which is often negative. Manheim also elaborates on his opinion of building the medical school, of which he is not in favor, and on his dislike of the anesthesia department, and criticisms of the nursing staff.

Names mentioned: Mark Ravitch; A.A. Berg; A.V Moschcowitz; Howard Lilienthal; Edwin Beer; Eddie Blier; Walter Brickner; John Gerster; Abraham O. Wilensky; Isadore Friesner; Robert Turell; Abraham Hyman; Ralph Colp.

In this interview, Dr. Vogel describes the origins, and developments of the Department of Hematology, including establishment of a blood bank, increase in number of blood transfusions, start of bone marrow harvesting, changes in personnel, and the expansion of the department. He mentions several significant personalities including Dr. Eli Moschcowitz, Dr. Nathan Rosenthal, Dr. Lowell Erb, Dr. Louis Wasserman.

Kark discusses his life and training (originally from South Africa); his work in South African hospitals and the University of Natal medical school; his arrival at Mount Sinai as Director of the Dept. of Surgery; his impressions of the program; affiliations with Greenpoint Hospital and the City Hospital Center at Elmhurst and the reasons for them; his contributions; planning of space in Annenberg; why he resigned; his opinion of Drs. George James, Solomon Berson, Kermit Osserman, John Garlock, Ralph Colp, Leon Ginzburg and Samuel Klein; his opinion of the residency training program. (Interview starts on August 16, 1973 and is continued on August 21, 1973.)

This catalog record includes a video recording made by Dr. Anagnostopoulos, a digital copy of the transcript of that talk and a digital copy of his curriculum vitae and a digital collection of documents regarding the start of the Cardiothoracic Surgery Service. Dr. Constantine Anagnostopoulos dictates reminiscences from his career, focusing on the start of the full-time academic cardiothoracic surgery program at the former St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center of Columbia University in 1992, (AKA Mount Sinai Morningside). Materials include the recording, a transcript of the recording, a copy of Dr. Anagnostopoulos' curriculum vitae and a PDF scrapbook of documents, put together by Dr. Anagnostopoulos, relating to the start of the cardiothoracic program and its continued success.

During this interview with Dr. Shahrivar, he touches on his childhood, his love of basketball and being on the State team, his medical training in Iran, and moving to the U.S. to continue in rotating internship between pediatric, medicine, and surgery. He describes how his interests in obstetrics quickly moved to neonatology when he was drawn to premature babies that didn’t do well. He relates his experiences working in neonatology and the development of the field, including the establishment of board examinations, setting up a fellowship program at St. Luke’s, community response to focusing the NICU program at the former Roosevelt Hospital. He touches on being a consultant Department of Health of the State and the City of New York, and becoming involved with alcohol addiction, fetal alcohol syndrome and drug addiction. Significant names or topics mentioned include: Drs. Lucy Swift, Stuart Shelton Stevenson, Judy Frank, Tom Moore, Stanley James, Dick Berman, Waldo E. Nelson, Doris Wethers, and Bob Neuwirth; field day activities, St. Luke’s Alumni Association.

Dr. Sami Hashim discusses his education and career development, his research on lipid metabolism and its derivatives, the ketogenic diet, the development of MCT (Medium Chain Triglycerides) which today has in many nutritional and medicinal applications and his collaboration with Dr. Theodore VanItallie which produced cholestyramine, the first cholesterol lowering medication. Dr. Hashim remarks on his family life and children, his hobbies, and his acquaintances with the Royal family in Kuwait and meeting the former President of Algeria, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, Nobel Laureate Linus Pawling, IRA member Bobby Sands, and Arctic Explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson.

This interview is with Jane Lattes, wife of the late surgeon, Dr. Conrad Lattes, who relates stories about Conrad’s birth in Torino, Italy, and how he came to the U.S. with his father, Raffaele Lattes, who became head of surgical pathology for many years at Columbia, in either 1940 or 1941. She adds some additional information on Raffaele, and how his family were physicians going many years back. She then continues to tell the story of how she and Conrad met at Swarthmore College, how he choose a medical specialty and his early days at a physician and how his career progressed at St. Luke’s. She adds some facts about their children and her current life and husband.

Nephrologist Dr. Stanley Cortell relates stories of his life and career, his early years, his educational goals, changes in clinical focus, and his career at St. Luke's Hospital.

Dr. Barrett relates details of his early years, educational choices and his career as former Chief of the Pulmonary Division at at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center.

Dr. Kanick relates stories of her life from childhood in the South to educational and training choices at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons to her work at St. Luke's Hospital Center, mentioning her involvement, as the first woman president of the hospital's Medical Board, in the merger of St. Luke's and Roosevelt Hospitals in 1979.

In this interview, Dr. Hassan Khouli discusses his childhood in Syria, and immigration to the U.S. circa 1998 to continue to study medicine and develop his skills through several fellowships, which eventually brought him to Mount Sinai St. Luke’s. He discusses the various stages of study and the development of his interest in critical care and simulation medicine, as well as working at St. Luke’s, and more personal topics such as his family and hobbies.

At the time of this interview, Dr. Xavier Pi-Sunyer was a Professor of Medicine at Columbia University and Co-Director of the Nutritional Obesity Research Center. Dr. Pi-Sunyer discusses his formative years in Spain, France, Mexico, and finally the US. He highlights his internship/residency at the former St. Luke’s Hospital; introduction to endocrinology at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, England, continued training in public health at Harvard University and his return to St. Luke’s, via Nigeria and Boston, where he became acquainted with Dr. Theodore Van Itallie. Dr. Van Itallie drew him back to New York to help establish the Endocrine Division and research laboratories for nutrition and metabolic research where the team carried out various grant-funded research projects. The most significant the discovery out of which is the hormone leptin. Dr. Pi-Sunyer also provides information on his own family, hobbies and interests, and comments on the mergers of St. Luke’s with Roosevelt Hospital and later the Continuum Health Partners.

In this oral history interview, native New Yorker George Dermksian touches on his childhood background, college and medical training and continued training under Dr. John Keating at St. Luke’s Hospital. That was a time of significant changes in the hospital training program and the healthcare insurance industry and he has some interesting observations about both. He also provides some interesting background details on everyday life at the hospital, and about how he came to choose cardiology as a specialty.

Dr. Lawrence Scharer, a pulmonary specialist, discuss his life and career with Dr. Norma Braun. He describes his upbringing in the Bronx, his education at Columbia University and the College of Physicians and Surgeons and his career at Roosevelt Hospital (now Mount Sinai West). He also touches on his family life, and his time as a Captain in the Army Medical Corps, stationed in Seoul, S. Korea.

Dr. Ennio Gallozzi, an anesthesiologist who was born, raised, and trained in Rome, Italy, discusses his life, and how he came to study in the US and continue training at St. Luke’s as a resident in anesthesiology, eventually spending 44 years at the hospital. He mentions life growing up under Mussolini, and the devastation WWII wrought on Rome, and includes stories about colleagues and family life.

In this interview, Dr. Thayaparan relates information about her childhood family and schooling in Sri Lanka, the stories of Dr. Tom Dooley, a medical volunteer in Africa, that were the inspiration for her to be a doctor, her reasons for immigrating to the U.S. and the development of her career here, and what led her focus on pathology. She also mentions information about her own family and dealing with childcare issues while working at the Hospital, and some of her post-retirement activities.

In this interview, Bronx native Robert Della Rocca talks about his youth and educational experiences, his time serving in the Vietnam War, which interrupted his medical training, his various training experiences in oculoplastic and orbital surgery afterwards, and his experiences working at St. Luke’s Hospital (now Mount Sinai Morningside) as well as New York Eye and Ear Infirmary. He highlights his family habit of volunteering, with his nursing-trained wife accompanying him as he operated in 15 countries through Latin America, the Dominion Republic, and the Middle East and training over 90 international fellows in his sub-specialty of reconstructive surgery in some of those places in over 22 years of volunteering. Dr. Della Rocca mentions his children, several of whom are following in his medical and volunteering footsteps, and his grandchildren, and touches on the reasons he is so fond of St. Luke’s Hospital.