Chapter: 02 Recruited by J Freireich and Moving the Family to Texas
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Description
Dr. Bodey begins this segment by noting that during his residency he realized that he would not be a medical missionary. However, in 1966 he was recruited by Dr. Emil [J] Freireich to join the Department of Developmental Therapeutics. He recalls his trip to Houston to visit the Department and his decision to relocate because of the professional opportunities MD Anderson offered .
Identifier
BodeyGP_01_20130619_C02
Publication Date
6-19-2013
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD, Oral History Interview, June 19, 2013
Topics Covered
The Interview Subject's Story - Joining MD Anderson/Coming to TexasPersonal Background The Researcher Professional Path Discovery, Creativity and Innovation The Professional at Work Patients, Treatment, Survivors Research, Care, and Education Character, Values, Beliefs Joining MD Anderson
Transcript
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD:
We’re at Seattle. I was there for one year. During this time, I guess, was around when it became clear that I was not going to end up being a medical missionary. That just didn’t quite work out. So I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do, and I was thinking, “Well, maybe I will go into private practice somewhere here in Washington or something.” I really was very insecure at that time, not knowing what—
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
—what to do. Now, what kind of work were you doing when you were in Seattle?
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD:
I was just a resident.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, okay. So you weren’t doing any research or—?
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD:
I was finishing up my residency at that time. It just so happened that around the end of November or thereabouts, I got contacted by Dr. Freireich. He had come down here from the National Cancer Institute to MD Anderson—he and his boss, Dr. Emil Frei. So they were down here now, and they were looking to recruit some people, and they wanted me to come down and see if they could get me to go down there. Well, I will never forget I came down here, and it was about two weeks before Christmas, and it was rather hot and humid and unpleasant. I stayed in a motel near MD Anderson. Dr. Freireich took me out to his home for dinner. We came up past Bellaire Boulevard and—I forget what the other street was; it doesn’t matter. Anyway, there was a little plot in the middle of the street there, and they had a little hut there. It’s still there as far as I know. It was made out of bricks. They had this whole thing decorated up for Christmas. The street light changed to red, and we’re sitting there, and they have this music coming out—“It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.” I looked around, and I thought, “I don’t know that anything looks like Christmas here.” So the next—there was another doctor with me, Dr. [Evan] Hersh, who had been at NCI with me. He had been recruited there too. When I went home, I went by way of where he was living. He was in California, at Stanford. And we sat there on a Saturday night until the wee hours of the morning commiserating, because we knew this was a great medical opportunity—the job—but we didn’t want to come and live in Texas. I flew on home to Seattle and walked around in the snow, which just made it even more difficult. But we both decided to come here, and I’m certainly very, very glad that I did.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Was the adjustment to Texas hard after you got here?
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD:
Not terribly so.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
So you kind of built it up in your mind?
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD:
I was busy enough with my work. I don’t know. You need to ask my wife how she adjusted; that’s more important. But no, we knew what we were getting into. So it wasn’t—well, the one thing that I should say is that when we came down here during August of the next year, I asked for permission to stay up there for a month or two to work in a microbiology laboratory so I’d be better prepared for what I was going to be doing down here. We drove from Seattle to Houston in August. At that time, we had two children, and my wife was pregnant with our youngest, and we didn’t have any air conditioning in our car. I will never forget, particularly as we drove across north Texas, all these big limousines coming with their windows up and all that, and here we were—it didn’t matter whether our window was up or down, we were roasting either way. We got into Houston on a Friday afternoon around 3:00, went in and saw Dr. Freireich. They had a place for us to stay close by the hospital. The next morning at 11:00, I took our car, and we drove down to what was then Mosehart and Keller, down on Old Spanish Trail. We went in there and bought a new car with air conditioning. Now, I did not have an address. I didn’t have a bank account. I really didn’t have any money either. And I came out with a new car.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Wow, things are different now.
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD:
They sure are. They sure are. So anyway, that’s—we ended up moving to Meyerland. That’s where we lived then up until we came up here in 1991.
Recommended Citation
Bodey, Gerald P. MD and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter: 02 Recruited by J Freireich and Moving the Family to Texas" (2013). Interview Chapters. 986.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/986
Conditions Governing Access
Open
