Stephen Sudler:  

After seeing that several people had been kind enough to be curious about my profile and it has been largely unchanged for at least 10 years (yes, I have been a longtime Classmates member), I thought I should write something at least informative rather than those asinine profile questions. So here is a brief synopsis. After graduating from Abington in 1974, I attended Harvard College. While there I majored in Biology and toyed with the idea of a career in law or medicine. That was not fun. What was fun was the Marching Band, working on Harvard's radio station in News and Classical music as an announcer, and in 1976 I started the R & B department at the radio station. I had to keep air time staffed from 7:00 PM-4:00 AM every Saturday night for the year. I took the 11:00 PM-4:00 AM shift for 1.5 of my three years. I announced Classical music Friday afternoons for 2 years. I only did News for a year. That R & B department still exists today. Medicine won out, and since I was graduating in three years instead of four my career ended. Even so, I made lifelong friends there. So, it was off to medical school, and I attended Jefferson Medical College in Philly for the usual four years. Medical School was boring for the most part. College was more difficult. After Ricky Housepian ('75) literally chased down my parents on Walnut St to tell his second grade teacher to come in and see brother's disco, I got a membership at the Second Story. I went to the ballet. I joined a fraternity, played pinball, and consumed alcohol. Oh yes, I did learn something and decided I wanted to be an OBGYN. You can practice surgery, medicine, your patients can get better (unlike Internal Med, whose patients eventually die of their chronic illnesses and Surgeons were often arrogant), and they seemed to eat well. You can occasionally save someone's life. It does feel good if you can make someone feel better. From Philly, I went far west to Pittsburgh, where the women wore animal prints before and after they were in style). I did my residency at West Penn Hospital. it was actually a good program, and had three unusual perks. It had the lightest call schedule of all US OBGYN residencies, encouraged you to moonlight for money and experience, and had a three month rotation in GYN Oncology at MD Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute in Houston, Texas. I must say it was a wonderful academic experience, and I met this young woman there with poor judgment, who eventually married me. I used to say I was just passing through town. She reminds me that Texans strongly support gun ownership, and do believe that some people need killing. Before we were married, I finished residency, and I went to join the Ohio region of Kaiser Permanente. I served in a variety of positions there, but eventually became disgruntled after 5 1/2 years. Cleveland is cold (20 degrees below zero), but the best thing that happened is that Chere (that'...Expand for more