Volume 17 Number 3 FALL 2000

ALUMNI PROFILE

LAST OF THE

OLD SCHOOL

THE NEWEST PRESIDENT OF THE STANFORD MEDICAL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

By Charles Clawson

ROBERT CODY, MD, arrives on Stanford's student union patio looking collegiate in shorts and new tennis shoes, carrying his reading glasses and a sports page folded into quarters. Recently he turned 70. Athletic and tan, an avid tennis player and skier ("I only exercise when it's fun"), Cody projects what seems a youthful eagerness constrained by old-school humility. As he talks, he forms box-like architectures with his hands and closes his eyes briefly when the conversation forces him into pronouncements. At times rather boyishly he says, "Now you really shouldn't write this," and "I don't know why I was talking about that" (see below at worms), while at other moments he is laconic and self-deprecating. "I'm just sort of an average guy," he says. "Sort of vanilla."

In June, Cody, class of 1957, began his one-year term as president of the medical school's alumni association. During the year, he hopes to raise alumni participation by making more use of class representatives, he says. "People don't want to let their class rep down," he explains. "They look at him as, 'Old Joe over there is working his butt off, the least I can do is send a check or come to the reunion.' " For the 12 previous years Cody was that class rep, "Old Joe."

Born in San Jose, a fourth-generation Californian, Cody received a BS from the University of Santa Clara in 1953 and graduated from Stanford's medical school in 1957, when it was still located in San Francisco. "I'm probably the last of the old guard from the San Francisco era," he says.

After interning at the Los Angeles County Hospital for one year, he returned to Stanford for his residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in cardiology. In 1962, he went into private practice in San Mateo in a multi-specialty group, where he practiced for 35 years to the day. "My wife planned that."

In 1967, Cody participated in a two-month volunteer rotation with Project Hope, a program that docked the whitewashed hospital ship U.S. Hope in ports of economically struggling countries for a year at a time, providing medical services on board and in the community.

"I was on the Hope in Cartagena, Colombia. You not only saw patients that were admitted to the ship, but you taught medical students at the local university. We saw tetanus, we saw meningitis, acute rheumatic fever, all kinds of degenerative and infectious diseases -- shigella, salmonella. At that time the life expectancy of Colombians was in the 40s. We had a ward full of kids with rheumatic fever. We saw worm infestations that were incredible. Patients would come in with bowel obstruction, and the surgeon would open them up and scoop these worms out into a big basin -- they looked like spaghetti."

A 35-year medical career, ranging from Cartagena poverty to San Mateo privilege, grants one, if nothing else, a sense of perspective. "A lot of people are disappointed with the direction medicine is heading -- the depersonalization. But I have hope. People going into medicine are just as compassionate, idealistic and caring as ever. Actually, in the events we put on for students, I see much more esprit de corps than 10 years ago."

An avid participant in Stanford's continuing studies program, Cody's own education continues to inspire him -- and helps him maintain his sense of perspective. "I recently read 22 books on the Normans," he says. "When I finished, I thought I really had my arms around the Normans."

The embrace is enthusiastic, coming straight from the old school. SMD