Jon, what was your childhood like?
Jon: My father was a bit of a biomedical gypsy. I was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, when my dad was finishing up medical school. My early memories are of Boston, where he trained. I also remember being in Bethesda, Maryland, when he was at the NIH during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I recall doing duck-and-cover drills in kindergarten.
One weekend when I was about 10 years old and my father was working at the Thorndike Lab in Boston, we went in and did splenectomies on rats. That made a big impression on me – it may have been the moment when I decided I wasn’t going to be a surgeon. I don’t have a “surgical†bone in my body.
Dick: I never had any aspirations for surgery either. The mortality of my surgical work on rats was awful, but enough of them survived to be able to get some data.
Jon: Then my folks divorced when I was about 11. After spending a year in Ann Arbor, I moved back to Boston with my mom, where I went to high school. During the summers, I worked in the lab at the Milwaukee Blood Center, my father’s shop, as a volunteer.
Dick: I think you were paid.
Jon: Well, I don’t remember being paid. I think you kept my paycheck.
Dick: No, no. It was a nominal amount that you were paid, I think.
Jon: I don’t remember cashing any checks, but that could be true.
How did you decide you wanted to go into medicine?
Jon: Growing up, I was exposed to different aspects of biology, research, and medicine and that certainly made a big impression on me. I always wanted to do something involving science and the natural world, and initially was drawn to meteorology. I was fascinated with weather.