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VADM Donald L. Custis, MC

JAMA. 1990;264(17):2259-2262.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

PERHAPS more than most physicians, I have had an unpredictable medical career—little of it developed according to plan. Although as early as I can remember my goal was medical school, I never intended a vocation in military surgery or executive medicine.

War in Europe broke out in September 1939, the year I graduated from college. I was an early draft registrant and, on entering Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, had applied for a reserve navy commission. Two years remained before the tranquility of our sheltered academic environment would be shattered by the unforeseen and disastrous Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor.

It was not at all apparent in the 1930s that modern medicine would begin with my generation. Nuclear medicine, for example, came with an atomic age born of the war, which also ushered in the space age and an explosion of medical technology. Nor could I have imagined that . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
USN Retired

Dr Custis is senior medical adviser, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Washington, DC, and clinical professor of surgery, Uniformed Services University School of Medicine, Bethesda, Md.

Footnotes
Reprint requests to 10402 Windsor View Dr, Potomac, MD 20854 (Dr Custis).

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