Curtis, also a professor of music and chair of the Music Department at Union, needed a bassoonist for the College's woodwind quartet.
“I had just started 11th grade, recalls Michael DiPietro '70, M.D. “Every Friday afternoon during my junior and senior years, I would find a ride to campus and rehearse. “
“That evening phone call was a chance happening that turned into a lifelong opportunity for me.”
Opportunity-at Union, in his chosen career and at the University of Michigan, where he practices medicine and plays music-was the subject of a talk recently by DiPietro upon being named the first John F. Holt Collegiate Professor of Radiology at the university's medical school.
A pediatric radiologist there for 23 years, DiPietro is recognized as a pioneer in the use of sonography for the diagnosis of spinal cord anomalies in children. He spoke on “Chance and Opportunity: A Michigan Story,” at his investiture ceremony. Union (which, coincidentally, produced the first president of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Henry Philip Tappan, Class of 1825) is a big part of that story.
Music and Science
It was Professor Curtis who encouraged DiPietro to apply to Union, where he studied science.
With Curtis' recommendation, DiPietro went on to win the Elmer Tidmarsh Scholarship in music. At Union, he also was influenced by John Girdner, professor of psychology, “who taught me how to carefully observe and document behavior in children,” and Carl George, professor of biology, “who taught me how to write lab reports carefully and concisely.”
He traveled to Austria with Fred Klemm, professor of German, on the College's inaugural term abroad in Vienna in 1969, “the first time I had ever been on an airplane,” DiPietro recalled. “That experience broadened my life, and I am forever grateful to Professor Klemm and to Union for providing me with that opportunity.”
DiPietro also enjoyed singing in the Union College Glee Club and Madrigals, led by Professor of Music Hugh Allen Wilson.
Music still a Force
Today, DiPietro lives in Ann Arbor with his wife, librarian and archivist Alice Fishman; their son, Corey, is a graduate student. Co-director of the Musculoskeletal Ultrasound Society, DiPietro has appeared in the Best Doctors in America and has received numerous professional awards and appointments.
Still playing his bassoon, DiPietro is a member of the University of Michigan's Life Sciences Orchestra (LSO), which he helped found five years ago. He is also in his 16th year with the Campus Symphony Orchestra (CSO).
Union reconnection
It was through the CSO that Dr. DiPietro rekindled an old friendship. He and Richard A. Lewis '70, M.D., played together in the Union orchestra in the late 1960s.
“When Rich moved to Michigan to join the faculty at Wayne State University School of Medicine as associate professor of neurology, we were reunited in the CSO-30 years after we had played together at Union,” DiPietro said.
If success can be defined as “loving what you do and doing what you love,” as DiPietro believes, then balancing a life in medicine with a love of music makes him a very successful man, indeed.