Volume 19 Number 1 Winter 2002

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Another time, another place, another war
by Joyce Thomas

Professors served as exceptional role models for Ralph Schaffarzick, MD, during World War II

When alumnus Ralph Schaffarzick, MD, and his classmates entered Stanford School of Medicine, the United States had been an active participant in World War II for just six months. The war altered the lives of the young physicians-to-be in a number of unexpected ways, Schaffarzick recalls.

In 1942 Stanford’s medical school, as well as many others throughout the nation, eliminated summer vacations to accelerate the preparation of doctors needed for the military – so Schaffarzick and his classmates started their training in June. World War II also affected the faculty, many of whom joined the war effort. Faculty who remained behind assumed an extra heavy teaching burden and year-round responsibilities.

Medical students completed their training in three rather than four years as part of the stepped-up pace but because the medical degree was then awarded after one year of internship Schaffarzick and his classmates became the class of 1946.

Their initial year was spent in Palo Alto on the university campus, where the coursework was devoted to pre-clinical studies. For the second year, the students moved to the San Francisco campus for the study of clinical medicine. By then most of the students, having been offered the choice of joining the Army or the Navy for the continuation of their studies, were wearing uniforms under their white lab coats, notes Schaffarzick. The military provided payment for books, fees, tuition and a stipend for living expenses. The students lived in neighborhood boardinghouses and at the four-storied neo-classical Irwin Mansion, the former residence of the William G. Irwin family, which also housed the nation’s very first community blood bank and a medical fraternity.

As an undergraduate at Stanford, Schaffarzick had earned his meals working as a "hasher" (waiter) and when he moved to San Francisco in his second year of medical school, he did the same. Across the street from Stanford-Lane Hospital in San Francisco was the "Diet Kitchen," a dining facility for ambulatory patients on special diets. On the second floor of the semi-Victorian structure was a faculty dining room.

"It became my privilege," says Schaffarzick, "to serve lunches there to a group of truly awesome teachers and medical investigators," including Arthur Bloomfield, Dean "Yank" Chandler, Thomas Addis, George Barnett, Paul Hanzlik, Windsor Cutting, David Rytand, Frederick "Fritz" Reichert, Sterling Bunnell, Rodney Beard, Don King, Dohrmann Pischel, Lowell Rantz, Alvin Cox, Lelland Rather, John Luetscher, Harold Faber, Victor Richards and Robert Newell. Conversation at lunch would range from medical cases and discoveries such as penicillin to the progress of the war, the symphony and other arts, and medical ethics.

"I could listen and recognize that not only were they wonderful teachers but also men of character and principle. All these leading faculty were exceptional role models for those of us who were fortunate to be their students during another time, another place and another war."

SM

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