A Surgeon’s Woodstock
Native American blanket toss, 1947
Before giving a recent lecture, I mentioned to my hosts that my father, Sydney P. Schiff, MD, FACS, had studied at their medical school, Queen’s University in Kingston, ON, during World War II. They quickly located the graduation picture on the library wall. In the photo, my father is seated, beaming from the front row and holding the class sign. I lamented the fact that they did not have the opportunity to meet him—my father has been long gone—and he seems today a larger-than-life character from a lost age. Asked to elaborate, I offered them a story from the Woodstock Festival of 1969, in Bethel, NY—one that poignantly highlights the striking metamorphosis that our society and medicine have undergone in the last half-century.