Class of 1979: 30th reunion

A small contingent from YSM ’79 assembled on the Harkness Dormitory lawn for the annual alumni clambake to begin our 30th reunion celebration. Cindy Sherman, a gastroenterology specialist, flew in from Minneapolis. Rodian Rathbone, assistant clinical professor at Yale, is director of informatics and instrumentation for Yale-New Haven Hospital laboratories. His wife and fellow classmate, Isabel Rathbone, is assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Yale. Jonathan Holt, co-director of consultation-liaison psychiatry at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, University of Buffalo, enlivened conversations with whimsical quips about life before, during and after Yale. Louise Tashjian, a practitioner for many years in infectious diseases, currently consults in Atlanta on disability issues. She hitched a ride from LaGuardia to New Haven with Jeff Dornbusch, who directs the pediatric intensive care unit at Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque, N.M. I never left Yale and am now a professor of medicine and assistant dean.

After scheduled events spread across the remarkably transformed medical school campus, we convened Saturday at the Omni Hotel for the class dinner. Jeff, Cindy, Jonathan, Louise, Rodian and I were joined by Lloyd Friedman, Yale clinical professor of medicine (pulmonary), who brought along his wife, Kai Yang, M.D. Before dinner we had a spirited discussion concerning the absence of an official Class of ‘79 graduation photo. To partially correct this historical oversight, we lined up for the class photo, a small but representative core of the YSM '79 band of one hundred. After concluding this essential business, food, drink, and conversations flowed late into the evening as our collective memories brought to life classmates present and absent. Not wanting to let go of ties that bind, we lingered well beyond the closing hour, promising ourselves to revive connections with ‘79 classmates well before for our next reunion.

A few other seventy-niners were sighted or heard from but were unable to attend the reunion dinner: Ed Strauss, chief of nuclear medicine at Norwalk Hospital; Lynn Rudich, instructor in pediatrics at Yale; Eddie Reed, director of the Division of Cancer Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Dick Bey, neurologist in Winston-Salem, N.C.; and Jamie Stoller, who wears many hats at the Cleveland Clinic, including director of respiratory therapy.

Forrester (Woody) Lee