Bruce Michael Small – 50th Reunion Essay

Bruce Michael Small

10540 Stoneway

Clarence, NY 14031

brucesmall73@gmail.com

716-713-5597

Spouse(s): Teresa Jen Small (1976)

Child(ren): Louis (1981), Joseph (1983), Daniel (1991)

Education: Yale BS, 1969; Stanford MS, 1971; Albert Einstein College of Medicine MD, 1975

Career: Internist, hematologist, medical administrator and consultant in Western New York. Now blissfully retired!

Avocations: I am still a skier, amateur radio operator and amateur musician. I also keep busy traveling and volunteering in the community.

College: Berkeley

Well! How does one reduce 50 years of living to a succinct review?

Apart from a solid education, I didn’t gain much from being at Yale. This was due much more to my own moody self-absorption than to any shortcomings on the part of the University, my professors, or my fellow classmates. As a young man, my left brain was overwhelmingly dominant. I craved precision, order, and predictability. People, being inherently nonlinear devices, presented a terrifying mystery. I went so far as to actively suppress my right-brained creative leanings, afraid that I could not understand or control them.

Years later, when I was working as assistant director of the hematology and blood bank departments at the Erie County Laboratory in Buffalo, the facility director, a sage and experienced hand, casually remarked that “If you expect things in life to make sense, you have already lost the game.” I knew immediately that he was correct, and over about a decade of effort I taught myself to embrace the absurdity, enjoy the ride, and accept the person I am. The second half of my life has been one hell of a lot more fun and interesting than the first half!

After Yale I attended Stanford for three years, pursuing an advanced degree in physics. I learned that I neither loved the field nor had any particular aptitude for it, so in 1972 I headed back east to study medicine. While at Albert Einstein I met an extraordinary young lady from Hong Kong. Her external sweetness masked an incredible toughness and resiliency. We were married in 1976, and remain so, through all these years of joy, celebration, sorrow, and travail. We have three sons, each making his way in the world.

Terry and I came to Buffalo for residency, and we never left. She became a diagnostic radiologist, while I did internal medicine, hematology, geriatrics, and medical administration. We both worked for long enough, and now, apart from my small effort as a corporate consultant in clinical diagnostics, we enjoy retirement. This affords me the opportunity to contribute as I see fit. I volunteer, leading a support group for diabetics in a nearby VA clinic, conducting workshops on self-management of chronic conditions, and delivering the odd community education lecture.

Did my life play out in the way that I expected when at Yale? Emphatically not! Is that a disappointment? Not at all. If I could wish for one thing to have been different, it would be to have developed self-awareness and a broader view of the world much earlier in life. That this happened late is a shame, but that it happened at all is a miracle!