Chapter 3: Focused on Medicine; Navigating Institutions without Mentors
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Description
Dr. Kleinerman traces her educational path up to medical school.
Dr. Kleinerman begins by sketching her family background and notes her father’s role as her first mentor. She describes experiences that inspired her to be a physician-researcher from the age of five.
She next sketches her path to Washington University (St. Louis, Missouri, BA 1971, Biology). She describes instances of gender bias that left her without a mentor to help her navigate the college environment. She notes that she became accustomed to not being taken seriously and credits her mother with providing her with determination. She also sets her experience in the context of the cultural environment of the 1960s. Dr. Kleinerman notes that she married Leonard Zwelling, MD (while in medical school) in 1972, describing the assumption on the part of colleagues that she would then become less serious about her career.
Identifier
KleinermanES_01_20140521_C03
Publication Date
5-21-2014
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD, Oral History Interview, May 21, 2014
Topics Covered
The Interview Subject's Story - Educational PathPersonal Background Inspirations to Practice Science/Medicine Influences from People and Life Experiences Experiences re: Gender, Race, Ethnicity The Researcher Evolution of Career Women and Minorities at Work Discovery and Success
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Disciplines
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Oncology | Oral History
Transcript
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
All right. We have the recorder back on again, and it is now 2:33. So after we kind of turned on the recorder just—oh, my gosh, we’ve got to turn it on because we had a conversation in progress, and I’m really glad we captured that. But as we just decided, we’ll kind of go back and sort of do the usual pattern. So I wanted to ask you kind of the standard beginning question for an oral history interview. Can you tell me where you were born and when, and where you grew up? (laughs)
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
I was born in Baltimore, Maryland, April 16th, 1949. My dad was a physician. He was a pathologist. He was in the army.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
His name?
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
Jerome, middle initial I, Kleinerman. My mother was Seretta, S-e-r-e-t-t-a, Miller Kleinerman. She was a teacher. And I only spent actually twelve days in Baltimore, and then my dad was shipped over to Japan. So he was in between World War II and the Korean War, fortunately. He was a physician. So my mother took me and went to live with her mother in Pittsburgh, so my first few years were spent in Pittsburgh, and the first year my dad was overseas. And my parents spent a couple years in Philadelphia. My dad did a fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania and then got a position at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, and so that’s really where I grew up, Shaker Heights, Ohio.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
How did it affect you, seeing your dad in his profession? To what degree did you understand and when did you understand what he did as a doctor?
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
I think very early. He was certainly my first mentor and, you know, I wanted to be a doctor from—I think five years old is when I really remember it.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Really?
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
Yeah.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
What did you think of at that time? How did you see being a doctor?
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
Okay, well, mostly from the aspect of my own pediatrician. So, of course, my dad is a physician, so he has a lot of physician friends. In fact, my mother used to say, “We have our physician friends and we have our civilian friends.” And she said, “I find our civilian friends are much more interesting.” But anyway. (laughs) So he had a very close relationship with many physicians of all different disciplines, internal medicine, pediatrics, OB/GYN, people in basic science, because he was a laboratory investigator and doing pulmonary research. So, of course, back then pediatricians made house calls, and I remember having the measles once—well, yes, only once, yes. I remember having the measles, and then it was a pretty—it wasn’t an easy disease for a kid. It was before vaccinations. And so he would make house calls, and he came and he said, “Hi, Genie, I see you have the mizzles.” But I think the vaccine was just coming out then. And so he spent maybe a minute with me and then immediately went to my sister to give her the vaccine so she didn’t get it. So I really, you know, I just had an affinity for the way he was and the way he treated the whole family. The whole family was really part of the visit, even though it was just me and my sister. It was always talking to my mother and follow-up with my dad. So I decided I wanted to be a pediatrician.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Wow. That’s amazing.
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
Also, my dad took me to the laboratory, so my mother—in those days, the woman stayed at home, and my dad was a doctor, and I think if my mother—if it were today, she would have been a professional woman, but who was going to take care of the children? And my father was definitely traditional, you know, “You stay home, cook dinner, take care of the children,” whatever. So, Sunday she would teach Sunday school, so it was his responsibility to take care of me on Sunday. So he took me to the lab, so I got a very early exposure.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
What kind of world was that when you were little?
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
Oh, it was exciting. I loved it. I mean, he’d always give me a little project to do, or he’d have one of his postdocs or whatever, you know, take me, and we’d figure out something to do. I’d look under the microscope with him. Now, one thing, he did animal research, and there was a kennel where they had lots of dogs, and I remember—as I said, I was like five or six years old, and I’d have to walk through that kennel. And when you walked through, the dogs would, you know, really bark, and I remember, like, taking a deep breath, putting my hands down, and walking quickly, because I was afraid if I didn’t, I would fall against one of the cages and the dogs would bite me or whatever.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
But that didn’t put you off?
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
No. No. No. So, you know, from an early age I had an exposure to the lab and to medicine. The other thing was that my dad, even though he had this traditional viewpoint for women at home, was very supportive for women going into medicine. One of his technicians, her name was Mabel, she was a black woman, and he thought she was very talented, and he was really instrumental in getting her to go to medical school. She went to Meharry, which was a black medical school back then. So he just felt medicine and science was the most wonderful field, and anybody who wanted to do that, he felt that it was his duty to, if they were hard workers, to facilitate that, to be a mentor.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
So tell me about your education path. What were you drawn to in school and how did your sense of science and your interest in science evolve?
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
I just liked science. I loved biology. I liked chemistry. The concept of physics, I was not—but I could memorize formulas okay, so I was able to get through physics. But loved biology, just loved it, and I loved the organization of chemistry, you know, with the Periodic Tables and balancing the equations. And the organic chemistry, figuring out how you put two things together with the fire and you make a new molecule. I mean, that was fascinating for me. But I also had other interests. Ballet was a big interest for me. Cheerleading; I was a cheerleader in junior high. Music; I played the piano. But my path was I wanted to be a doctor.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
So tell me how you selected your college.
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
(laughs) Okay. So as I told you, my dad had a very close-knit group of friends that were physicians, and a man named Tom Kinney was his chief of pathology, was chief of pathology at Case Western Reserve, and he was recruited to Duke University to be chief of pathology, and several of the members of my dad’s department followed him. My dad did not. But one spring break—and I think I was in middle school—we drove down, because we were good friends. The children of those doctors we used to have Sunday picnics with, so we were very close. So we were going to go to Florida, we figured we’d stop in Durham, North Carolina. I took one look at Duke, and I said, “Oh, my god. This is amazing. I want to go to school here.”
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
What was it that grabbed you?
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
The chapel, the campus. It was Gothic architecture. It was contained. It wasn’t a city school like Case Western Reserve, like University of Pittsburgh. That’s where my parents went, and my mother was very loyal to University of Pittsburgh, which is a city school. And just seeing that campus, I just fell in love with it. And, of course, it was a fine school, and it was also in the South. I hated the winters in Cleveland, I hated the weather, and so my goal was I was going to go South. So I applied there. And, to me, St. Louis was south, Washington University, so I applied to Washington University. We were only allowed to apply to four schools in high school, four colleges. That’s all that Shaker Heights limited. You couldn’t apply to—so I applied to four schools. And I didn’t get into Duke, so I got into Washington University, so that’s where I went. And why did I pick Washington University? Well, I picked it because the campus looked a lot like Duke. And my father said, “Well, they have a good medical school, so that’s okay.” And it was a good choice.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
So tell me how you kind of flowered during college. What was that like?
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
Well, I’ll tell you, my freshman year—and this was in the book [Legends and Legacies]—you know, I got dressed, you know, made sure I looked proper, and I went to see the premed advisor, and she proceeded to tell me after the first semester, because that’s when you saw—you know, you had a semester to decide—that’s when she told me I was not cut out to be a doctor.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
And what was the reason she gave?
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
Well, she said, “You’re a cheerleader and you’re a sorority girl, and clearly, you’re not serious.” (Rosolowski laughs.) So, of course, that was a real blow, and it was very difficult, because she provided guidance in how do you apply to medical school, when do you take your MCATs, all this other stuff. So I had to really navigate that process by myself, and I really didn’t have any other—there were no other women students that I was friendly with so that we could do this together.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
So was anyone a mentor to you during your college experience?
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
No.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Wow.
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
No.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Wow. So tell me how did you react to situations like that in college when they presented themselves to you, I mean people being dismissive or—
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
Made me angry. Made me angry, and I said, “I’m not going to let them deter me.” I was used to not being taken seriously, so, you know, it’s like, “Here we go again. Will nobody take me seriously? Why do you think I—this is something that’s fly-by-night? Why don’t you think this is something that I really want? You don’t know me.” I was very quiet. “You don’t know me. How can you make the assessment that I’m not going to follow through? I am determined, and I will show you.”
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
What was your relationship with feminism at the time? Because you were in college, you got your degree, your BA, from Washington University in ’71, so this was the late sixties. There was discussion of feminism in the nation.
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
Not that much in the Midwest. It’s not like the East Coast or the West Coast, for that matter. So there really wasn’t. I mean, it was starting. And, of course, my mother was a woman ahead of her time. She always preached equality for women, and I think that’s why my sisters and I all had this determination. You know, I think she was very frustrated with staying at home. I think she never realized her dreams of being a professional woman, and so she drilled it into our heads that we didn’t have to take a back seat and that women deserved to have every bit as much as men did. She was very active in League of Women Voters. I remember a lot of my friends’ mothers would play cards, you know. They’d play Marjong or whatever, Mahjong, I don’t know, whatever, however you pronounce it. But she was always somebody—League of Women Voters, she’d work for candidates. She worked for Johnson, Adlai Stevenson. I remember her doing that. And, of course, my dad was a Republican, so we had heated discussions at the table, political discussions at the table. So I think probably she was my mentor, I guess.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It sounds like she really did model things for you as best she could, given the limitations of the family structure.
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
Yeah. You know, it was very “You don’t have to get married to have value.”
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
It was really a difficult generation. I mean, I’m of that generation, too, you know, and it’s the first generation of women who were raised by traditional mothers but expected to have men as their role models.
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
Right.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah. So, really tough situation to be in.
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
Right. And back then, the philosophy was, well, if you choose a career, you can’t have a family, and I was very determined I was not going to make a choice. Why did I have to make a choice? And probably in my mind it was, “I’m not going to marry somebody like my dad who can’t share things.” Now, what we thought “share” was is not really reality, but—9
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Mm-hmm. Right. Well, it was learning on the job for women all the time in those years and still continues to be in a lot of ways. (laughs)
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
Right. But it was very—if you’re going to do this, then you’re clearly—this is your phenotype, and you couldn’t have the phenotype of a professional woman and also like to be a sorority girl or, you know, have parties, have a social life. It was like either/or, and it was like I’m not this and I’m not this.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
I know a professor at University of Wisconsin at Madison who brings a tie with her the first day of class, and she hangs it over the lectern, and she says, “If that’s what you’re looking for, you’re in the wrong place.” (laughs)
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
That’s great.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah, I love that.
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
That’s great. That’s great. You know, but it also was an interesting time because the Vietnam War was going on, and I think it was my junior year when all the protests, when the Kent State incident happened. Of course, coming from Ohio, you knew people at Kent State, and so for me it was much more of an impact. And the rioting that was going on. And, you know, thinking about am I not going to go to class and not complete my coursework and perhaps this will have a negative impact because I won’t complete my coursework and I won’t get good grades and I won’t get into medical school, thinking about, you know, am I going to break the line and go to class? Because a lot of kids that I knew were doing this because they didn’t want to take finals.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
No protests. Yeah, right.
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
And struggling with that and just making the decision I’m going to class and I’m going to take my finals, that there’s nothing I can do really for the people in Vietnam. I’m against the war, but here this isn’t—and one of the guys I went to college with, actually—I don’t remember exactly what he did. He was an elementary friend of mine. He was eventually arrested. So it was an interesting time—
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Very interesting time, yeah.
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
—both for women, and, of course, Gloria Steinem was just coming out then. Respected her tremendously, I remember that, and people saying she’s bitchy, she’s hard, you don’t ever want to be like her. And so it was trying—how can I maintain my feminism and yet be taken seriously and convince people I can do the job and I’m committed and I’m not just going to turn around and get married and drop out, which was the perception. If you didn’t want to go on this path and you wanted a balance, well, of course, you were eventually—and I remember when I got married, I got married in 1972 after my first year in medical school, and my in-laws had a party for us after we were engaged.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Your husband’s name?
Eugenie Kleinerman, MD:
Leonard Zwelling, Z-w-e-l-l-i-n-g. I met him in medical school. And so people saying, “Oh, well, okay. So you’re getting married, and now what are you going to do?” And I thought to myself, “What do you mean, what I’m going to do? I’m going to finish medical school. What are you talking about?” But the presumption was you’ve got a husband now, he’s going to be a doctor, you don’t need to do this anymore. And it was like, what are you talking about?
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
What are you talking about? (laughs) Yeah.
Recommended Citation
Kleinerman, Eugenie S. MD and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 3: Focused on Medicine; Navigating Institutions without Mentors" (2014). Interview Chapters. 1399.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1399
Conditions Governing Access
Open
