Roger Cracco, MD, UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School ’60
Leo Pisculli, MD, UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School ’60
Nowadays, med students can take virtual road trips on the internet to “see” where they might want to spend their futures. Back in the summer of 1959, Cracco and Pisculli, members of the charter class, then Seton Hall College of Medicine, had no such luck. “Roger and I drove across the country to check out all the great medical centers before we made decisions regarding internships,” says Pisculli, a neuro-psychiatrist. In Cracco’s 1956 Buick, “We started out in June, the same day I got my driver’s license and our first stop was the American Medical Association convention in Atlantic City.” The cost of gas, food, and motels was so low that they could eat breakfast, have dinner at a restaurant and sleep for about $300 the entire summer. “Of course, we stayed in places that charged $2 to $4 a night,” Pisculli recalls.
“It was a real Lewis and Clark expedition,” remembers Cracco, vice-dean of the College of Medicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center and Distinguished Service Professor, Department of Neurology. Philadelphia, Chicago, New Orleans, Little Rock and Los Angeles were all stops on their journey. Pisculli says, “I was most impressed with Los Angeles County Hospital, a 3,000 bed facility at the time. For me the trip was a great transition from being a student to becoming a doctor and it opened my eyes to the world beyond the shores of the Hudson River. I went west to that Los Angeles hospital and never came back.” Cracco stayed true to the east coast choosing a Philadelphia hospital first before landing in Brooklyn.
Leo Pisculli, MD, UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School ’60
Nowadays, med students can take virtual road trips on the internet to “see” where they might want to spend their futures. Back in the summer of 1959, Cracco and Pisculli, members of the charter class, then Seton Hall College of Medicine, had no such luck. “Roger and I drove across the country to check out all the great medical centers before we made decisions regarding internships,” says Pisculli, a neuro-psychiatrist. In Cracco’s 1956 Buick, “We started out in June, the same day I got my driver’s license and our first stop was the American Medical Association convention in Atlantic City.” The cost of gas, food, and motels was so low that they could eat breakfast, have dinner at a restaurant and sleep for about $300 the entire summer. “Of course, we stayed in places that charged $2 to $4 a night,” Pisculli recalls.
“It was a real Lewis and Clark expedition,” remembers Cracco, vice-dean of the College of Medicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center and Distinguished Service Professor, Department of Neurology. Philadelphia, Chicago, New Orleans, Little Rock and Los Angeles were all stops on their journey. Pisculli says, “I was most impressed with Los Angeles County Hospital, a 3,000 bed facility at the time. For me the trip was a great transition from being a student to becoming a doctor and it opened my eyes to the world beyond the shores of the Hudson River. I went west to that Los Angeles hospital and never came back.” Cracco stayed true to the east coast choosing a Philadelphia hospital first before landing in Brooklyn.
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