How do you intend to make a living? —David Levine

These words were uttered—I thought stridently—by my father on the eve of my graduation from Columbia College. I’d attended Columbia because of an abiding attraction to Manhattan and that college’s eminence in the areas that most interested me in my formative years. Those years were wonderful: I immersed myself in the Russian literary masters while majoring in comparative literature; edited The Columbia Review; acted on the off-Broadway stage; spent a great deal of time in New York’s museums. But reality had been happily remote. So with newfound angst, I considered my father’s question and decided on the spur of the moment that I would become a psychoanalyst. That seemed somewhat literary and was a goal that satisfied my father.

A few years later, while in medical school, I saw Rosalind Franklin’s “Photo 51”—a critical clue for determining the double helix of DNA. I thought I’d pursue a PhD in molecular biology instead of continuing as an aspirant physician.

When I noted this to my father, he said, Fine. But if you don’t finish medical school, I’m going to send you a bill for every day of tuition I’ve invested in you, starting with day care. I stayed in med school, with no regret. Medicine is a noble profession that has shaped me.

Beyond their compelling role in my fiscal life, my parents—teacher and lawyer—were clearly influential at each of my many developmental stages. My mother the teacher, who came from a long line of rabbinic scholars, encouraged me to savor words and to study Latin and Greek. (This Jewish mother hoped her son would become a poet, not a doctor.) Recently, I had the occasion to reflect on others who’ve influenced me greatly. I shared those thoughts this May as I delivered the Petersen Lecture—marking the first endowed deanship in the 128-year history of this medical school.

My pediatrician, Chauncey Wyckoff, was a giant in my eyes. (Even though he was one of the few men I’ve known who was shorter than me.) In his day, Dr. Wyckoff was one of the country’s notable academic pediatricians. My older cousin Donald Glaser, who went on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics, engaged me in science as a child. (Our families shared a duplex, and Don and I grew up together.) At Columbia, the eminent author and critic, Lionel Trilling, taught me to reason as critically as a scientist must, although that was surely not his intent. In medical school, internist Clifford Pilz taught me to pay attention to every nuance in a patient’s being. In residency, Max Cooper—then a pediatrician and fledgling researcher and now one of the country’s most important immunologists—illustrated the immediacy of basic science in its nexus with clinical care. At the NIH, the inspirational Wallace Rowe and Sherm Weissman set me on the path of thinking about what causes cancer (as I still do) and becoming a molecular biologist after all. (I didn’t have to drop out of medical school!) Each one of these mentors imprinted something in me. Their bright light has helped me navigate a path that has presented extraordinary clinical, research, and leadership opportunities.

I cannot put my pen aside without noting one of our own lodestars here at Pitt, esteemed medical educator and vice dean Dr. Steven Kanter, will soon be assuming the deanship at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine. Throughout the last two decades, he has ignited idealism and intellectual integrity in our students. I, like many others here, shall miss him greatly.

Arthur S. Levine, MD
Senior Vice Chancellor for the Health Sciences
John and Gertrude Petersen Dean, School of Medicine