Posted on Jun 12, 2007

Charles Gibson, ABC News anchor, was recently interviewed on Northeast Public Radio about his upcoming Commencement speech at Union. Northeast Public Radio is a member of National Public Radio serving parts of seven northeastern states. These include New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.

Listen to the interview.

Posted on Jun 12, 2007

A LEADING HERNIA SURGEON TURNS TO WRITING

Dr. Ira Rutkow ’70 was a focused pre-med student at Union who never took a history class. That’s an unusual start for an accomplished surgeon who became a nationally known writer and medical historian.

In a history class, Rutkow might have learned about 19^th-century pioneers in American medicine, the same people he would discover in his second career as an author on subjects ranging from Civil War surgery to former President James A. Garfield.

Instead, it was decades later, through his historical research, that the surgeon-turned-author discovered dozens of kindred spirits. They were doctors who found success and fulfillment in medicine and, in most cases, a calling in another field. And to the delight of Rutkow, many of those pioneers turned out to be Union alumni.

Rutkow was awarded the Founders Medal during the Founders Day convocation at Memorial Chapel in February. After receiving the medal, he delivered a speech and slide show dealing with Union alumni from the 1800s who helped make critical advances in American medicine. [See story]

“You will see the impact that this little college in Schenectady, New York had on American medicine,” Rutkow said.

Rutkow showed that Union has long been and continues to be at the forefront of American medicine. Across generations, Union’s medical pioneers share a curiosity, an entrepreneurial spirit and a drive that takes them deep into their own medical field and often into other areas. In the pages that follow we offer a sampling, but by no means an exhaustive list, of some of Union’s contemporary pioneers and leaders in medicine. They are just a few of the hundreds of alumni who are medical doctors. We asked each to tell us about the importance of their Union roots.  

Maybe Dr. Kathy Magliatio, a cardiothoracic surgeon in California, summarized it best in saying: “Union made me a whole person. Union produces well-rounded individuals who can attain their goals but also change their career and not be afraid to take risks.”

From surgeon to author

While at Union, Rutkow and a group of fellow students would frequently move from room to room to find available late-night study space.

He was a member of Phi Epsilon Pi. The year he graduated, his fraternity sent 10 members to medical school, four to dental school, five to law school and one to a doctoral degree in science.

He recalls professors like Willard Roth, chairman of Biology, and then director of the pre-med program; Fred Klemm, professor of German, who in 1969 led the inaugural term abroad to Vienna that included Rutkow; and Malcolm Willison, of Sociology, who taught a composition class that cultivated Rutkow’s interest in writing.

“When you are a teacher, you don’t appreciate your influence,” Rutkow said. “I didn’t keep in contact with all of them, but they were important in how I led my life.”

Rutkow also recalls some of the concerts he attended at Union: The Four Tops, B.B. King and Wilson Pickett, who partied at his fraternity after his show in Memorial Fieldhouse. He also recalls that his circle of friends, though engaged by current events, was not overly involved in Vietnam-era protests. “Mostly, we were a group of guys who studied.”

After Union, Rutkow went on to earn his medical degree from St. Louis University, and a master’s degree and doctorate in public health from Johns Hopkins University as well as completing an internship and residency in general surgery.

Rutkow started practice as a surgeon in 1982, and two years later, well aware of the economics of specializing in one surgical procedure, launched The Hernia Center in the New York City metropolitan area. The center’s memorable phone number, 1-800 HERNIAS, and an aggressive advertising campaign that included a huge canary yellow billboard visible to planes landing at Newark International Airport helped the center succeed. By 1987, he was spending about $125,000 per year on advertising and running five satellite offices in one of the most successful practices in the metropolitan area.

His tactics initially drew the ire of the State Board of Medical Examiners and the Monmouth County Medical Society, both of which threatened to pull his license. The board later apologized for their too-hasty actions.

“I was so far ahead of the curve, the members of the board couldn’t keep up with my socioeconomic understanding of where American medicine was headed,” he said. “Today, doctor advertising and super specialization is an accepted medical fact of life.”

Eventually, Rutkow would centralize all functions in a Freehold, N.J. hernia hospital and soon patent the mesh plug hernia repair technique that would become the gold standard for hernia repair.

Though he was a successful surgeon, his true passion was writing. Even as his practice was developing, he was careful to limit his surgeries to two days per week, leaving him ample blocks of time to write. Over a four-year period in the mid-1980s, he researched and wrote the opening volume of his The History of Surgery in the United States.

Finally, in 2003, after about 10,000 hernia repairs, four books, six edited surgical texts and numerous journal articles, he sold his practice and his building.

“I’ve always felt that you should go out at the top of your game,” he said. And he has no regrets: “When you’re done with something, you’re done.”

It was on to writing full time.

On writing

Unlike his surgical practice, which Rutkow could compartmentalize, the surgeon-author found that writing required enormous blocks of time, only about 10 percent of which is actual writing. The other 90 percent is “thinking time,” he said.

Besides time, he said, writing requires two things: “A passion for telling the story and the discipline to put your rear end in the writer’s chair.”

Given the effort he puts into the craft, it’s not surprising that among his favorite part of the process is seeing page proofs as a book is taking final shape. As for the finished product, the best praise, he said, comes from readers who say his book reads like a novel while also providing educational value.

“That’s the ultimate compliment,” he said.

The most recent of his books is James A. Garfield (2006), part of the American Presidents series edited by the late Arthur Schlesinger. There was interest from publishers in Rutkow’s pitch for a book about the medical aspects of Garfield’s assassination, but Rutkow went with Schlesinger – and a straight biography of the President – when he learned of the other authors (Garry Wills, Tom Wicker, George McGovern, Gary Hart, John Dean and Robert Dallek) who would be part of the series. Rutkow appeared on C-SPAN’s Booknotes with Schlesinger before the noted historian’s death in March.

Rutkow’s works on history also include Bleeding Blue and Gray: Civil War Surgery and the Evolution of American Medicine (2005); American Surgery: An Illustrated History (1998); Surgery: An Illustrated History (1993), named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; and the two-volume The History of Surgery in the United States (1988 and 1992). He is working on a book about the history of American medicine, due to Scribner in 2009.

Rutkow and his wife, Beth (who he met while a student at Union), divide their time between Manhattan and their farm in the Catskills. They have two children, Lainie and Eric, both lawyers.

Posted on Jun 12, 2007

There was no parade or banner welcoming the first co-ed students at Union College. 

 Instead, the fall semester of 1971 started like any other, despite it being the first year the college had female students. 

 Kin Flagg Bolz remembers the male students didn’t even acknowledge them. 

 “They almost didn’t see us. They didn’t know we were coming,” she said Friday afternoon at a lunch marking the 35th anniversary of the first female graduates in 1972. 

 “The first year was hard,” said Flagg, an architect.

“There was no welcoming of women,” said Susan Maycock, one of the original co-ed class. “They voted to allow women, let us in, and that was it.” 

The student body of 2,100 is now nearly 50 percent female.

There were 11 women who transferred to Union as juniors, into a college with a strong tradition in engineering and science. Students and staff weren’t used to women on campus, unless they were cleaning ladies or guests.

The men were used to going to Skidmore College or Russell Sage, then all female, for social life. 

 “Men would leave on the weekend,” Maycock said. “There wasn’t much of a social life.”

There was a women’s dorm the first year, though it had not been refitted for women — urinals remained in the bathroom.

There were no clubs or events for women. Some got involved in theater and in the second year formed a cheerleading squad for the basketball team. Those were the years when James Tedisco, now the state Assembly minority leader, was playing on an emerging Division III powerhouse as a high-scoring point guard.

“There were no women’s activities,” Maycock said. “We ordered some uniforms, held tryouts and formed a squad.”

Mary John Boylan, now an attorney, remembered it was diffi – cult to find a women’s bathroom and would go to her apartment on Union Street.

Boylan was ready to drop out of college before she went to Union. She finished three years at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. She took a train trip from Rochester to Schenectady, where her brother attended Union, and after looking around, she decided on a whim to apply.

“I interviewed in my bare feet,” she said. “They took me, and I had to get on the next train, head home and get some stuff.”

After that, she spent her senior year living in an apartment on Union Street with 12 other people.

“It was kind of crazy,” she said.

When Union went co-ed, “it was really at the height of the anti-war movement. It was a very serious time,” she said.

Boylan was involved in many protests against the Vietnam War. Now, she notices a lack of passion in students against the Iraq war, even though it is not popular.

“I don’t know, maybe we didn’t raise them right,” she said, “maybe we had more to lose because of the draft.”

Five of the original 12 female graduates attended the luncheon, which was part of a weekend-long college reunion. Most remembered the college as friendly and fun, despite the cultural change on campus.

“I never felt out of place,” said Camille Price, a biology major and member of the Class of ’72. “Being the only woman in all of my biology classes, they could have pulled rank and closed me off.”

Margaret Green, a pre-med and modern language student, said she did have some issues. On a field trip for a biology class, students went into water wearing waders, looking for specimens.

“[The instructor] made a big deal, and said, ‘Oh, look, a woman is going in the water,’” Green recalled. “I grew up on a farm. I was used to wearing boots to keep out of the manure.”

Posted on Jun 12, 2007

The Board of Trustees met on campus on June 2 during ReUnion Weekend. To read the report from Chairman Stephen Ciesinski '70, please visit this link:

http://www.union.edu/Board/Archive/2007_06/

Posted on Jun 12, 2007

A two-day symposium exploring new curricula in engineering ethics, bioengineering, environmental engineering and liberal education will be held Thursday, June 14 and Friday, June 15 in Old Chapel.

Special guests will be Dr. Stephanie Bird, co-editor of “Engineering Ethics” and Dr. William Vitek, an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Clarkson University.

The symposium wraps up the four-part spring lecture series for the Michael S. Rapaport Ethics Across the Curriculum initiative.

Bird is Special Assistant to the Provost of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where she works on the development of educational programs that address ethical issues in science and the professional responsibilities of scientists. Current research interests emphasize the ethical, legal and social policy implications of scientific research, especially in the area of neuroscience.

Vitek received his BA from Union College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from CUNY Graduate College. Vitek's research and writing is focused at the intersection of social practices and the environmental, cultural, and historical contexts in which they occur. He publishes in the areas of environmental ethics and civic philosophy

For more information on the symposium, contact Dean Cherrice Traver (518) 388-6530.

To date the Rapaport Ethics Across the Curriculum program has funded ethics segments in 11 courses in all four divisions of the college, plus the lecture series.

The Rapaport Ethics Across the Curriculum initiative incorporates ethics into the lesson plans to help prepare students to face the world of tough decisions and empower them to exercise moral leadership. The initiative also offers grants to professors who explore ethics in their courses.

For more information, visit Rapaport Ethics Across the Curriculum.