Boyer, John "Jack"

This interview was recorded at John Boyer’s house in Tucson, Arizona on November 1st, 2018 and covers the following themes: 

b. 1929 

• Childhood in Newcastle, Indiana and Columbus, Ohio. The Great Depression and the outbreak of the Second World War. Parents’ careers: engineer and teacher. Religion. School experience and social life. Interest in medicine and the social status of physicians. Football and college at Dennison. Fraternity life. 

• Attending Harvard Medical School. Dating another med school student. Self-assurance of medical culture in the early 1950s. 

• Division between doctors and surgeons, general practice and specialists. Decision to focus on internal medicine. 

• Move to Cleveland for residency. 

• Move to Australia for a year-long medical fellowship. 

• Military medical service in South Korea in the late 1950s. 

• First impressions of Tucson in the early 1950s. 

• Return to Cleveland after Korea, teaching and practicing medicine. 

• Move to Tucson in 1968 to join the newly-created University of Arizona Medical School as head of the Metabolic Disease Program. UA med school early years: lack of facilities for medical school, cooperation with local physicians and Tucson Medical Center. Gradual distancing of UA Medical School and local hospitals and ramifications of school/community relations.