“I like you. You are
very emotional. Me, not so much: I’m like Mr. Spock”
With these words Elias opened the door to our friendship
twenty-five years ago. We were just starting medical school at Baylor College
of Medicine in Houston, Texas.
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| Medical Students at BCM, 1988 |
Those of you who knew and loved Elias will not be surprised
that we were able to transform our medical school experience into a magical
adventure, where difficult people along our ways became mere pesky Klingons or
Ferengis. We made songs about calcium channel blockers, took espresso and
gelato breaks long before those had invaded the national consciousness, parked
in faculty spots –yes, there was even a car repo episode involving Elias’ s car
and me being terrified by his tendency to behave like James Bond-. We were young and naïve and felt sophisticated
and wise. We had endless, highly spirited, conversations. I am looking for our
unpublished treatise on the origin of species in academic medicine, which was
very helpful on clinical rotations.
Looking back, it makes sense that a recent French Jewish
émigrée to the US and a young Palestinian man from the West Bank and San
Francisco would unite their strengths to withstand acculturation and scaffold
each other’s transformational journeys into medicine: we mentored each other
somehow.
As I write, submerged by memories which seemed dormant for
years, I now know that those memories were a compass all along. As my friend and Division Chief John
Constantino said about such memories: “I think what they are doing is that they
are silently our most influential navigators”.
Elias: thank you for the strength, the joy, the love, the
avocado sandwiches and the many emotions; as I told you
within five seconds of our first meeting: you, my friend, were never like Mr. Spock.
Anne Laurence Michelle Glowinski
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