Class Note 1972
Happy almost spring, fellow ’72s!
From Irwin Korngut: “I am practicing general internal medicine in Dallas and have been since 1979. I have a solo practice and recently transitioned to a preventive care-wellness model with MDVIP. This has made the practice more gratifying because of the time I have with my patients. I still see my patients when they are in the hospital, and my primary hospital is Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas, now the infamous Ebola hospital. I was very fortunate that Debra Schonfeld married me and became Debra Korngut January 6, 1978, and we have three great sons: Kevin, 35, Bryan, 32, and Alex, 27. We have been very blessed. Debra has had some health issues that have made travel difficult. I see Joe Davis and Jim Silcock regularly as they are patients, and occasionally see Charlie Nearberg. Alex and Charlie’s daughter, Anna, are good friends. I keep in touch with Bruce Miller some and Dick Pritchard. I always loved practicing medicine because I love the time with my patients. This space is not long enough to really discuss the issues today with our healthcare system but let me just say that what the government, insurers and a host of other business entities have done to the doctor-patient relationship is criminal. It has been said that the business of medicine is business but the interjection of too much business into medicine because of the dollars to be made unrelated to good patient care has bankrupt the system.”
From Bryant Toth: “For the past 30 years I have practiced plastic and reconstructive surgery in San Francisco, focusing on cosmetic surgery in addition to treating children with birth defects. Medical school was at Brown, general surgery and plastic surgical training was at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, followed by a fellowship in craniofacial surgery in Paris from 1983 to 1984. Upon completion of my training I set up practice in San Francisco, where I immediately created a program in craniofacial surgery in what is now the University of California San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital, Oakland. In our program we take care of children with cleft lip and cleft palate as well as severe craniosynostosis and facial malformation. In addition I maintain a very busy private practice in cosmetic surgery in the heart of San Francisco. In 1984 I established a foundation called Indochina Surgical Educational Exchange, focusing on rehabilitating plastic surgery in Southeast Asia. During the past 30 years approximately 70 surgeons from Vietnam, Burma and southern China have come and lived with us for three- to six-month periods of time, observing surgery and seeing how an efficient medical system works. This is in addition to our annual trips for surgery in these respective countries. I am a full professor of surgery at the University of California, San Francisco in addition to running the craniofacial program at Children’s Hospital. Jill (Stanford ’75) and I married at the end of my internship and have two wonderful children—Alexandra, who is a graduate of Brown, and Bryant Jr., who is a graduate of Cornell.”
Keep me posted!
—Bill Price, 12 Lummi Key, Bellevue, WA 98006; bill@drivasolutions.com
