I can tell you this. I know from several other sources, including several of his colleagues throughout the years, that he left legions of students feeling demeaned and degraded.

By the way, at the time I had a savior. My pediatrician was a saint by the name of Dr. Evelyn Knoupf. She was already very old in 1964, and when my Mom saw how this was eating at me, she took me to see her.

The conversation was easily one of the most important of my life. Dr. Knoupf listened to my story, asked me a few questions, and then began to tell me what it was like to be the first woman ever to graduate from one of the state medical schools in the midwest. She wasn’t talking just to talk about herself, but because she knew just how helpful this story would be to me at that moment.

The story was beautiful, sad, epic, everything. The harrassment she faced was relentless. The men who had not wanted her admitted were relentless. The men who had supported her claimed to be relentless out of some sick belief that harrassment would toughen her up. She told me that she was tough during the day and that she cried at night.

And yet she ended by suggesting that anger, while completely natural and nothing to be ashamed of, could be corrosive to me.

I haven’t alwasy lived out this lesson, but it was precisely what I needed to hear at that moment. To this day when I am feeling bitter, I actually feel her presence.