Peter deGreeff Jacobi, MD – 50th Reunion Essay

Peter deGreeff Jacobi, MD

19 Oak Drive

Durham, NC 27707

dr.peterjacobi@gmail.com

919-433-6563

Spouse(s): Sandra Hyde Jacobi (1972 to present)

Child(ren): Lauren Anne Jacobi (1975), Timothy Robert Jacobi (1978), Christina deGreeff Jacobi (1981), Marianne C. Jacobi (1984)

Grandchild(ren): Jackson Jacobi (2006), Molly Jacobi (2009), Alberto Pedolino (2011), Thomas Peter Jaglom (2018)

Education: Yale College (Davenport) BA 1969, Case Western Reserve Medical School MD 1979

National Service: US Army, 10th Special Forces Group, Team Medic, 1970–1973

Career: Family Physician, Lakewood FP, Durham, NC 1982-1998; Medical Director Duke University Health Plans 1998–2015

Avocations: North Carolina Mountains to Sea Trail, Rotary Club of Durham, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church Durham, NC, hiking, fishing, golf, travel to Italy, marriage and family

College: Davenport

New Haven 1970. I had been working in the president’s office for nearly a year when I received my draft notice. After spending a last night in New Haven in Horace and Mary Jane Taft’s guest bed at the Davenport Master’s house, the next day I was in the army. Soon thereafter I was a medic in the 10th Special Forces Group. There I learned two important life lessons I didn’t learn at Yale: (1) you may think that you are special, but the army needs you to do a job. Get over it; and (2) you had best learn to get along with all manner of people, because you will surely find them in the military.

Many years later, after redirecting my American studies degree at Yale and acceptance to law school at Cal Berkeley towards medical school, and then several careers in medicine, I have always been thankful to Sam Chauncey and the US Army. Sam and Kingman Brewster showed me that good decisions required a moral compass, even in turbulent times, set on true north. The US Army taught me that an education in life would not end at Yale.

As we all know, 50 years is a blink. Sandra and I have been married for 45 years. We have four fabulous children (Timothy, Class of 2000), four grandchildren, and wonderfully rich lives together. I have reinvented after a work life in family medicine and medical administration.

My oldest brother Rob died suddenly at 73. He left many legacies in California, but also a list of things he meant to do. He aspired to plant 1,000 trees, but didn’t. So, I plant trees. He dreamt of travels in Italy, but didn’t go. Sandra and I go every year to visit family and grandchildren, to see them in school or at play. It is time well spent. We study Italian. Memo to self: work on the legacy; keep the to-do list short.

As to Yale, I am forever in debt for the opportunities—those taken and those missed. I wish Avi Soifer had discovered women in 1965, not 1968. I remember being given the opportunity to return to Yale in 1973 to add the basic sciences that I had missed on the first time through. Woody Ewell, the medical school adviser, made sure it was at no cost because, he said, Yale understood that life experiences changed minds. Perhaps that would happen today. I don’t know. But that was a time when Yale stood by us, even as we challenged the institution itself.

We live in a sweet spot in history, with more opportunities than at any time in the past. I am still seeking to hit a ball, like Ben Hogan, that is straight and true. I look forward with great anticipation to our forthcoming reunion. I want to hear your stories and learn about your dreams.