My friend, DR JOHN PEZZIMENTI wanted his grandchildren to know his story and like our Mother Felicitas in her “Cord of Longing” (see Blog July 1, 2017) never realized in the beginning that the book would one day be published to be read by many. John's wife was my roommate at Creighton and we have remained friends all these years. Like so many women of our day, she raised the family, while John pursued his career.
I found his revelations about heads of major medical institutions and their rigid, and at times greed for power play, to be shocking, as if they cared more for their own glory than the welfare of humanity. And one wonders how bright young M.D.s ever got out of the shadow of "greats" to do their own research. John quotes Neil Bohr (Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922): "an expert was someone who has made every conceivable mistake in a very narrow field". This gave John confidence in his work later, in spite of the fact he did not graduate from an ivy league school. Years later his mentor John Lindenbaum (world class M.D. in hematology) would tell him he was the best fellow that ever came through Columbia.
Oncology was not a recognized speciality in 1970 (in 1975 it would be seen as a sub-speciality of Internal Medicine) and when John wanted to do training in cancer medicine he was told it was "on the lunatic fringe of medicine". John had to apply to Yale's school of pharmacy in order to do his training. He had the vision to see the future in cancer treatment and cure.
John would go on to set up an oncology center in Danbury, Connecticut, as well as teach at Columbia and Yale. He would pioneer bone marrow transplantation. John practiced for 53 years, was triple certified in Internal Medicine, Hematology and Oncology, was chief of Hematology, chief of Oncology and director of Cancer Medicine in Danbury Hospital.
