1985 - 20th reunion

Returning members of the Class of 1985 gathered for dinner at the home of pediatrician JoAnne Burger. While the reunion dinner was scheduled for Saturday, Brian Lombardo (ever the eager beaver) got a jump on his classmates by showing up on Friday night. Brian is doing general practice in southern Vermont, having recently returned with his family from an extraordinary sabbatical experience during which he worked at a hospital in Kigali, Rwanda. Saturday’s festivities reunited another dozen or so classmates, including ophthalmologist Kimball Woodward, who is practicing in Middletown, N.Y., and pediatrician Fred Santoro, whose practice is based in East Lyme, Conn. The passage of time has not altered Fred’s trademark laugh. Pediatric endocrinologist Jon Nakamoto has joined Quest Diagnostics. He and his family came in from the West Coast for a week of med school and college reunions. Jonathan Lewin has moved from Cleveland to Baltimore to assume the chairmanship of the Johns Hopkins department of diagnostic imaging, a position only recently vacated by the current director of the NIH. Gail Mattson-Gates is a plastic and reconstructive surgeon in Los Angeles, and she strenuously denies participating in any Hollywood extreme makeovers. Sam Goos is also plying the skin trade as a dermatologist, with a growing multisite practice in the Boston area. The Boston contingent included Guy Fish, who is working in venture capital, and Sue Korrick, who is on the faculty at Harvard and focusing her efforts on occupational medicine and exposure to environmental toxins. Prolific author Bob Klitzman is on the psychiatry and bioethics faculty at Columbia. He has written several books and has participated in television documentaries. Jackie Gutmann, who is a fertility specialist in Philadelphia, blew out of a bar mitzvah before the waiters brought in the flaming desserts and raced to Connecticut in time to join the gathering. JoAnne was very gratified to have her entire anatomy foursome reunited (although the group’s cadaver was otherwise engaged). The group included ent Barb Guillette, who came down from Providence, and rheumatologist Paula Rackoff, who came up from Manhattan. Completing the anatomy quartet was Jeff Lowell, who has acquired a fascinating skill set. In addition to serving on the faculty of Washington University in St. Louis as a liver and kidney transplant surgeon, Jeff has been trained by the St. Louis police as a hostage negotiator and spent time working on disaster planning for the Department of Homeland Security. Harrison Ford has expressed interest in portraying Jeff when filming begins on the movie version of his life. The evening ended with the general agreement that the entire class still looks fabulous, is a lot of fun to be around and should get together more often.

JoAnne Burger