1990 - 15th Reunion Report

Some people may feel that the 15th reunion wasn’t worth attending, but those of us who made it had a good time. It was my first time seeing my classmates and my first time back to New Haven since graduation, and much has changed. I couldn’t believe that Grand Central had changed to a Walgreen’s and Barnes and Noble bought out the Yale Co-op.

I also had a chance to tour the new Anlyan Center—home to the new anatomy lab and one of the largest buildings on the Yale campus. It is second only to the Payne Whitney gym in size and holds educational space as well as research labs.

Fortunately, none of our classmates have changed much! I caught up with Nancy Angoff and her husband, Ron, early on. As you all know, she is now the associate dean for student affairs for the medical school—but for us, she’s still known as “mom.” Will Andrews made it from Boston with his family. Will still spends time with his private practice, but I believe he spends more time as senior medical director of Sepracor.

Chandler Samy came up from Ocala, Fla., with his family. He is a retinal surgeon in private practice. Jonathan Foster, an ob/gyn in Waterbury, came in with his wife and parents. His father was present for his 50th reunion.

New York was well-represented at our class dinner on Saturday. Sam Colin came in with his wife. He spends much of his time managing a health care investment fund with First Manhattan Co. Ethan Halm also made it. He is the chair of medicine at Mount Sinai. Finally, Julia Schillinger also drove up from New York. She is director of surveillance, epidemiology and research at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Bureau of Sexually Transmitted Disease Control. Her business card is the size of a postcard!

Robin Hornung probably wins the award for the longest trek to be with us. She came from Seattle by herself—but brought plenty of pictures of her son and husband. She is the head of pediatric dermatology at the University of Washington. Ercem Atillasoy (he’ll always be known as Tilly to us) came from Philadelphia. Tilly is a dermatologist and the director of internal medicine, dermatology and tissue engineering at Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. We also had a chance to catch up with Jennifer Mark, who came in for the dinner. She’s been busy in an ER in New England (I can’t remember just where—a good reason for me to make it to the 20th).

Finally, I came in by myself from Concord, N. C. There, I am an electrophysiologist with a group of eight other cardiologists at a moderate sized community hospital. I am married to Jane Rasmussen (Class of ’89) and have twin 9-year-old daughters!

Overall, all had fun, but the evening did have a bit of a sad note. Dan Stryer passed away from a brain tumor this spring. He really had wanted to make the reunion, which filled us all with a certain sadness. We all decided that we wanted to do something meaningful in his name. I believe Nancy and Tilly are going to come up with some ideas. We need to move on this to make it really meaningful. Stay tuned for more information about this later.

Well, that’s it. I hope to see more of you at the 20th reunion!

Tom Christopher