#17 DR. BAYRAM KARASU
stayed in the dorms. 100 of us came from different cities around the Eastern Anatolia. You said that you were very active in high school. How were you in university? I enrolled at Ankara University Medical School in 1959. Ping-pong stayed with me. I was on the ping-pong team there. I also performed Erzurum’s folk dances. Actually, my first trip to United States was for the international folklore games in 1959. We came to play at the New York City Theater at 57th street, then played in Washington, DC, and a number of different places. How did you come to United States? Did you have any relatives here? First I came to Montreal, Canada to go to the University of Montreal, St. Jeanne D’Arc Hospital. In the 1950s, no one thought about going out of Turkey to begin with because of the visa issue. In 1961, I went to Adana for my compulsory service. I had some contact because of UNICEF, which I work for, in trauma center. I was working in that time to pay back my grant, which I got from government when I was in high school. Then I met a Dutch woman who was traveling in Turkey and she had an accident. I took care of her. Through her I got some ideas. It’s still not clear how I got the names in Montreal hospital. It could have been from the Dutch patient or the UNICEF people. I wrote to the Montreal St. Jeanne D’Arc Hospital to introduce myself. So three and a half years after I graduated from medical school, I came to Canada in 1962. Did you serve in the army in Turkey? Yes, for two years, between 1959 and 1961. There were also MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) hospitals in Gaziantep. So it was a perfectly equipped, traveling, medical surgical ambulatory hospital. I was the only physician there. We were opening a tent at middle of a village. People all lined up. I treated them, whatever their problems were. I was treating a thousand people in hours. 30 seconds each. How were your days in Canada? They were using foreign people whenever they needed. There was no rotating internship, which we had here. So I had a surgical internship. Basically I was in operating when they were not. The first months, I did not understand what they were saying. I knew French, but in Canada but the dialect was totally different. I realized that French was not a good language for medicine. I decided to switch to English. So St. John New Brunswick Hospital agreed to take me to teach me English. They sent me into the operating room. So I spent a year there in St John Brunswick from 1964 to 1965. YALE AND HARVARD How old were you when you started to learn English? I was almost 28 years old. Actually my French was better. I was going to neurosurgery. That’s what they had set up for me. Then I had a major car accident. I couldn’t stand up in operating rooms for more than three hours. I had an option of general medicine, pediatrics or psychiatry. The psychiatry fit me well because my father and mother were interested in literature and poetry. I even published poetry when I was
a child. I applied to only two universities, Yale and Harvard. That was kind of absurd for a foreigner. Anyone with my background right now couldn’t apply to us. But they were accepting in those years. You could apply in July for next July. So one year I decided to practice medicine in Twohills, Alberta, Canada. The hospital was in the middle of nowhere in the north. It was worse than Erzurum. Nobody wanted to go there and that’s why they accepted me. I did everything in terms of surgical experiences. I delivered babies; set the fractures, whatever came to me. How did your background help you get accepted to Yale? Yale accepted me by reading some of my poems. I had sent them my poems as well. At the time psychiatry was different. They saw my literature interest. That was good enough for them. I did not have to know the brain. So your high school classes helped you? Yes, high school literature classes helped me in my career. My father had an enormous library. As a kid I used to read Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Anton Chekhov, all the Russian literature. I got accepted to Yale in 1966. Actually Yale and Harvard both accepted me. I liked Yale. Yale has its own hospital. I liked that. Did you have enough money to go Yale or did you get a scholarship? No, they were paying at the time. I got $6,000 dollars salary in a year. There was a dorm and you could stay there. The food was free. The salary was 6000 dollars and it was a lot of money. I spent 3 years there. Before you started at Yale, you had a totally different career. Yes, I totally shifted. Medicine was still involved with psychiatry but not anymore. Psychiatry became an intellectual field. I spent more time with the English literature, psychology and philosophy departments than close to the medical school. I graduated from Yale in 1969. I was the only foreigner in the 56-member house staff. Graduate students were very high crème de la crème. Being Turkish, knowing French, and having surgical background, I was unique. Did you consider staying at Yale as faculty member? When I became chief resident, Yale wanted to keep me on the faculty. I got offers from many places from California to New York. I came to Einstein because they really made efforts to recruit me. Since I had worked with UNICEF, those kinds of activities impressed them. I became a junior faculty member. In two years I was director of education. Then I was clinical director in two years. In 1975, I was deputy chairman – it didn’t take even a full six years. I was the youngest professor at the department and youngest tenured professor. THE SAME PLACE FOR 43 YEARS Why did you prefer to stay same place in 44 years? The jumping often from one job to another job is almost impossible for me. As I said, now I wouldn’t be accepted at Einstein, they wouldn’t even interview me with my background. Never mind becoming chairman of the department. I don’t think there have been any more chairs for any Turkish psychiatrists in the country. I am the only one. TurkofAmerica • 37