What I Was Thinking

CHAPTER 1

To Be or Not to Be—These Were the Questions

When I was a child, probably around three or later, I would fantasize. Riding my tricycle into a commune kitchen, I would tell stories to a woman, our neighbor, that when I was grown up, I would be a pilot and a brave hero. I couldn’t understand then why that grown-up and smart woman believed my stories about my past when I was a pilot or something like that. I remember that I didn’t have an answer to this question. Now I do. I remember myself being extremely promiscuous in my dreams and fantasies at the preteen age: I wanted to be a pilot or a boxer (I was very little and weak and probably dreamed about boxing as a compensation for such deficiencies); sometimes I wanted to be an actor, a spy. During World War II, I was around eight to ten years old; the little stuttering boy was dreaming about being a spy in Nazi Germany and doing something very brave and good. And due to his (my) deeds, the Soviet Union won the war. Such hypothetical choices were so easy to make. None of those professions were later considered.

1952, I Am Sixteen Years Old

I had to make the first serious decision in my life. I was finishing high school. At that time, anti-Semitism was overwhelming. Among those working-class kids, the anti-Semitism was reflected mainly (unfortunately but not entirely) in different dirty words related to me or any other Jew. Those words often did not have serious meaning when they were said.

I learned much later, in the 1970s–80s, what was happening then in the early 1950s. At the end of 1940s and beginning of 1950s, a group of prominent physicians in the country were accused of treason. These physicians were treating leaders of the Soviet Union. According to KGB data, those Jewish doctors, being spies of the international Jewish organizations, were trying to kill the leaders of the country. The doctors were called in newspapers murderers in white coats. Newspapers were full of stories of how, specifically, one doctor killed one prominent communist and so on. Later we all learned that it was purposely spread propaganda by the government that was preparing to displace all Jews from the cities in the European part of the Soviet Union to Siberia, to the north and far east of the country. At that time, I didn’t know this yet, and being a high school student, I was lost and didn’t know what to do. Prior to that, gradually, my desire to become a physician was growing. It was growing under the influence of books. One of them was a translated into Russian book titled Arrowsmith, written in the 1920s by Sinclair Lewis. It received the Pulitzer prize.

Many years later I learned from Charlie Serhan, a great scientist (I recruited him to our department in 1994), that this book was written based on Rockefeller Institute. Years later, two people mentioned to me that they had become what they were because of this book. One of them was Charlie Serhan, PhD, I describe him in chapter 2 in detail. Another was Dwane Rori, the chairman of anesthesia in Mayo Clinic years ago. He was charming, generous man, one of the few chairs who were not full of themselves. He also became a doctor because of reading that book.

My parents, late 1930s.

My grandfather Joseph with me 2 years old, 1938. He died in 1942 from starvation in Leningrad. His body was buried in mass grave.

I am 4; 1940.

I am in military (navy) uniform, 1958.

Eugene Ryss, my classmate in medical school, close old friend. He was visiting us in Boston around 2010.

Maria is 16 years old. We met then.

We are in Syktyvkar. Maria is 19 years old.

Yours truly in 1961, returned from Syktyvkar.

The wedding of my classmates in medical school. Left to right: Simon, my classmates Galya Rakov, her husband Sasha Neyshtadt and Maria on the right. Early 1960s.

Maria with Professor Sergey Alexeevitch Seleznev 1972.

I am with Derryll, technician, preparing for an experiment, 1985.

Alex with Constantine Lurie. He and his father played an important role in my life.

Late 1980s. Right to left: Vladislav Mikhalovitch, Maria, Bruce Freeman (leader of ischemia-reperfusion research group in Department of Anesthesiology at Birmingham, AL), and his wife Meg Tarpey (attending anesthesiologist in the same department) at Bruce and Meg’s lake in suburb of Birmingham.

1989. Dr. Ernst is retiring.

First meeting of Soviet Anaestheslogists/Reanimatologists in Moscow, 1972. I am in the second row on the left.

I was also attending the first meeting of Anesthesiologists of Leningrad as a student in 1957.

I wanted to become a physician because at that time, for a city boy after graduating from high school, there were only two ways for the next step: one of them was to serve in the army for three to five years. This was considered to be bad because it often really was. Another way was to get higher education. Higher education would include mainly studying to be an engineer or a teacher or a physician. The function of lawyers was to defend the positions of the government and Communist Party. At least, the majority of people thought this way. Being a stutterer, I couldn’t be a teacher or a lawyer. I didn’t want much to be an engineer because the world of engineers was almost completely devoted to the military-industrial complex. At that time, the rumors were circulating that the Communist Party Central Committee had conducted a study and decided that to get rid of the Jews immediately would ruin the military industry. Therefore, it was decided to stop accepting the Jews into the high-profile engineering institutions that were at the level of universities. In ten to twenty years, such a policy would automatically lead to the absence of Jews in the market for military-industrial complexes. I, being a Jew in this wave of anti-Semitism, wouldn’t find any decent job in that field. It strengthened my desire to become a physician. The problem was that for a Jew to enter a medical school in the climate of the trial of the murderers in white coats, it would be close to impossible. I was lost.

Only very few people (mainly participants in organizing the operation) knew in 1953 of the government’s plan, actually Stalin’s plan, which was to move all Jews from the European part of the Soviet Union to the far east and north of Siberia. They were supposed to be transported there by trains in wagons without any warming facilities. According to calculations done by the government authorities, up to 30 to 50 percent of the transported Jews were supposed to die on the way from cold, hunger, and diseases. Sometimes lack of knowledge might be a blessing.

1953, Stalin Died on March 5

I cried. I thought it was a tragedy, as millions and millions thought then. Almost immediately, information became available that those physicians (murderers in white coats) were not murderers and that all stories were not correct and that these physicians were released from their imprisonment with a certain (a relatively minimal) degree of apology. Some of them were reestablished in their positions. At that time, in all medical schools in the country, it was a short period of uncertainty: Should we admit Jewish students or shouldn’t we? This was the question for the medical schools’ leadership. Since I was stubborn and was not aware of some decrease in but overall remaining government-sponsored anti-Semitism, I applied to medical school. And to my happiness, I was accepted.

*****

It is probably needed to stress that the profession of a physician at that time was not respected, mainly because of low salaries they were receiving. My aunt, being a primary care physician, was trying to convince me not to become a physician, saying that I would never have money even for handkerchiefs and would be using gauzes instead. There was a joke then: why do physicians work for 1.5 salaries (12 hours a day)? Because on one salary, they would have nothing to eat, but for two salaries, they would not have time to eat.

*****

I had become very close with Eugene Ryss, my classmate in medical school. We practically lived together for six years; we were studying together for all the exams, mainly in his (rather than my) apartment. At that time, both my father and mother worked while Eugene’s family was different. His father was a famous professor of medicine in another medical school in town. He was a good doctor, very well-known and respected. In an overall overwhelming environment of anti-Semitism, this family was wonderfully different.

Gene’s grandfather was a son of a Jew who converted into Christianity before the 1917 Revolution. Gene’s father was brought up as a Christian, and the family celebrated all Christian holidays. His older cousin, Gene’s uncle, was from a branch of the family that did not convert into Christianity. I knew the uncle well, but I do not know whether he was brought up and educated as a Jew or not because at that time (1950s–1960s), the religious background was almost always hidden, particularly the Jewish one.

It was not seen in me either. My parents were brought up as Jewish and went to Jewish schools, but after the revolution, the Jews were allowed to leave their small villages, called shtetels, and move to Moscow, Leningrad, and other big cities. My parents met and married in Leningrad. Their abilities to receive education were limited because they were considered to be children of capitalists (my one grandfather had a store and another grandfather was renting a mill; both were employing a couple of workers. This was a sign of capitalists).

After all, my mother had seven years of education, and my father had four years of education. It is my pleasure to admit that I have met and worked with hundreds of people and I put my parents among a couple of dozens of the wisest people I have ever met. My father was a worker in metallurgy when they met. Then my older sister was born and died within a few days. I was the second child. I guess it was one of many reasons that my mother worried about me as much as she did.

*****

Coming back to Eugene’s family: his mother was a descendant of a Russian and a gypsy. She was a physician. She was chief of staff (like a president) of one of the largest hospitals in the city until 1950–51. Eugene’s family was extremely anti-anti-Semitic. I remember an episode: in 1961, I was working as a surgeon-volunteer in that hospital. Nobody knew my connection with Eugene and his family. Once in the duty room, physicians were chastising the present chief of staff for something he did. I asked whether this hospital ever had a good president. Two older gentlemen looked at me and said, simultaneously, yes and mentioned the name of Eugene’s mother. She resigned from her work in the early 1950s because she categorically refused to fire a few Jewish doctors. After my forty-five years living in the US, I understand that for a normal American, this story would not mean much; but at that time and in that place, it was so unusual and so courageous that the family impressed me and showed an example for my life. I admired this family, and their role in my growth was irreplaceable.

*****

It happened to be that I read a lot. I guess partially because I was stuttering and reading was the easiest way for me to be in touch with the world. I fell in love with poetry and could read poems by heart for hours. My wife told me later that she fell in love with me because I could read poetry by heart for hours. I could read poetry out loud without stuttering! Eugene’s family introduced me to other arts. They were constantly going to theaters and symphonies and were taking me with them. I still love both symphony and theater. Eugene also introduced me to his friends; mainly, they were children of professors in different specialties and worked in different universities in town. They have also affected my life and my understanding of the world. I will recall here one of them. His name was Anatoly Issakovich Lurie. He was a professor of some engineering type of science, hydraulics, I think. Periodically, we children, around age twenty, were coming for parties to their apartment. He, Professor Lurie, had a habit of taking one of us in his office for twenty to thirty minutes; he would give us a sip of cognac (I have loved cognac since that time), and we would have a conversation. He patiently tolerated my stuttering; he looked (and probably really was) interested in what I was saying. When I became a chairman in Alabama thirty years later and then in Boston, my wife, Maria, would cook dinners for residents once a month. We never called catering; all dishes were washed by the participants of the party—residents, Maria, and me. All this made us closer. It was useful to me, but mainly, it was