“If It Isn’t Fun.” – Part 3 – Rotating Internship: Chicago Wesley Memorial Hospital, 1948-49
Four years of medical school in New Orleans were intense, inspired, even exotic. But they were enough. I had the feeling that if I stayed longer in that enchanting city I might slide into a permanently zany life of passionate medicine pitted against devout hedonism. In fact, each night in the Crescent City brings its siren’s call. It was partly in reaction, therefore, that I turned down a superb internship at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans. Instead, I chose a new life in the blustery light and towering space of Chicago, in a teaching hospital at Northwestern, Wesley Memorial, run by the good Methodists. This I intended as an interval for hard work and clean living before plunging into another potential Decameron, residency at the American Hospital of Paris.
Following Tulane commencement, Louisiana state medical board exams were an anticlimax, as were packing and partying the final three days in New Orleans. Then, after 10 sunny, lazy, food-filled days at home in Miami, I entrained, a spanking new M.D., for Chicago and new adventures.