Mary Jane Roach Masters Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

A. Not quite. She turned into fiction but it was based on his.
Q. Back to Tom. Who were his favorite authors?
A. We read a lot together. A lot together.
Q. Yes, but being both interested in the theater. . .
A. He was crazy about Dreiser because Dreiser was a great fiiend of his uncle's and they had
quite a correspondence.
Q. So you really liked different types of literature?
A. Yes, and some of the same.
Q. A little more "dryer".
A. Dreiser. . .
Q. I don't mean by Dreiser but dryer. A little more technical.
A. Yes. Yes. When he read the New Yorker he read every page and every word. When I read it,
I skimmed it. ( chuckle)
Q. What did he think about the changes in medicine during his career?
A. He was excited about them. He was disappointed that the Medical School here didn't do
more with clinical medicine. He had long talks with Sergio Rabinovich about that who was also
regretful but there simply wasn't time. The increase in knowledge of chemistry took over so
much of the Medical School. They really had very little clinical training. For example, they made
an effort to send people in to see what Tom was doing in diabetes. He was an Honorary Clinical
Professor and they would come in and were astonished to see that one man had so much practice
in diabetes, but they didn't have time to follow any cases through. They didn't see what his
teaching had done for his patients. This was disappointing and Sergio agreed that this was just
too bad.
Q. Did he ever make a comment that the teaching approach was changing?
A. Very much so. He loved the clinical practice teaching that he had at Rush and here he
naturally thought this would obtain her. The CHANGE was here, and of course everything was
so experimental in the medical field when this medical school was formed. We always overdo
everything in this country don't we? And we overdid that.