A young person looks into the future while an old person reminisces about the past. However, these reminiscences should not only be of personal interest but also to be informative to young people in telling them about the past in what might have been bad and what might have been good. Thus, my memories are mostly intended for my young colleagues in pharmacology as well as other academic scientists.
I was born in Germany just before Hitler came to power and survived with lots of luck the Second World War. After the war, I again had the misfortune to live in East Germany under Russian control. After I finished my pre-university studies, I was not allowed to study because my father was labeled a capitalist (he employed 4 workers) and I had to move to West Germany, where I studied organic chemistry and finally obtained my MS and Dr. rer nat. By good luck, I obtained a postdoctoral fellowship at the department of pharmacology at the Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, NY– a place where I fell in love with pharmacology and decided to follow an academic career in this field. It was here that I changed my title (because “rer nat” is pronounced in English like “rare nut”) into a PhD. At this time I also a met a wonderful lady and soon I was married. Later on we had two great daughters.
After Syracuse, I attended the medical school of the University of Illinois in Chicago, the National Institutes of Health (working with B. B. Brodie on catecholamine metabolism and alpha agonists) and finally obtained a position at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 1967.
The institution offered me a great start and as an associate professor I obtained tenure immediately. My main duty was to teach medical students (I did so by giving a two-hour lecture on aspirin – do not ask how anybody could talk for two hours on this subject but I did and followed Goodman and Gilman to the letter). I also supervised the students with their pharmacological experiments. They had to perform 12 “pharmy” experiments. One was a bit of rabbit colon suspended in a solution and being exposed to pilocarpine and atropine by the students. The student had to observe contractions and relaxations. Another was to anesthetize a dog with either ether or chloroform. Usually, the students would measure blood pressure and heart rate manually. At one year, we had introduced electronic monitoring of blood pressure and heart rate and three students were desperately working all the knobs on the monitor and complained to me that they could not get any measures from the anesthetized dog --- they were correct because looking at the dog, I told them that the dog had died because everybody concentrated on the monitor and completely neglected the animal --- lesson learned: watch the living first, rely on the machine secondarily! My teaching load at this time was about 35 student-faculty contact hours.
However, I also wanted to do research. Research was expected by the administration but was not obligatory (I remember 2 colleagues who taught in the “pharmy” course but then “vacationed” until the next course came around). As the custom was at this time, the institution supplied its faculty members with a laboratory, a research assistant, 2 lab coats and a small budget to do research. The college also offered free animal purchases and housing.
The administration did not expect us to apply for research grants from the NIH since we were on a 12-month pay schedule (other schools employed faculty only for 9 months and these individuals had to find ways to pay their summer salaries – for instance, through grants). Nevertheless, I applied for a research grant. And I still remember vividly when proudly presenting my first grant in 1969 with 30% of my salary on it to the dean for his signature (the dean did all the institutional grant work at this time) when he told me: take the 30% off because my faculty is being paid by “hard” and not “soft” money. In retrospect, the grant was not a very good one – but I got it. At that time, most grants were funded! If my young colleagues think that we lived in Fairyland, let me assure them: yes, in retrospect, we lived there and it was wonderful.
My tenure status and the research support first from the College and later from grants allowed me to continue my research on neurobiology and psychoactive drugs. This research was performed by my graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and technicians. Here, I was very fortunate to have had so many bright and dedicated coworkers.
In 1968, I applied for membership in ASPET – and I was accepted. I felt very proud. I now belonged to an organization which represented and fostered my chosen scientific specialty.
Starting in 1980, our academic life started to change for the years to come. Unfortunately, this change was not for the better. First, the administration placed more emphasis on publishing followed quickly by “mandating” to obtain research grants from the NIH. Next, the institution abolished its financial support for laboratory expenses which now had to come from grants. Next, the institution abolished free animal purchases and housing and we had to pay these from our grants. Next, promotions and salary increases – albeit not openly – were tied not to teaching and research efforts but to obtaining a grant. Next, the institution did not pay for the research assistant anymore who now had to be paid by a grant. Next, young faculty members hired did not obtain tenure when reaching the associate professor level but were placed on contracts with renewals often only possible if grant support was available for salary and research support. While tenured faculty members were safe, members on contracts lived in constant worry about their future. Next, many departments of pharmacology disappeared and departments were fused or compiled into a “basic science department”. Next, we had to write two to four grants with the hope of getting one funded. We spent more time writing applications than we did teaching medical students. To meet deadlines we often could not thoroughly repeat important experiments hoping that the data were correct (and I am sure contributed to the current discovery of fraudulent data with irreproducible information). All that grant frenzy also caused many faculty members to avoid teaching and medical education started to suffer greatly. Many basic science lectures – including those in pharmacology – were now given by pharmacists, physicians and outside lecturers (the latter got an adjunct degree). And I think recent concerns about the declining quality of research and the appearance of more fraudulent research data resulted from the pressure to obtain grants in order to be employed and to conduct research. Good intentions of the NIH were exploited by college administrations to the detriment of research and education.
I received many awards for excellence in teaching and research. One of these teaching awards was that one year the medical students elected me to have my portrait painted as outstanding teacher – which is now hanging in the educational building of the College. The highlight of my research career was the Humboldt Award – to perform research at a German medical school for one year (here I learned that pharmacology professors are permanently employed and do not worry about their employment; they receive ample research support from their institution and each professor teaches about 50-70 hours per year of pharmacology to medical students). I received many other “awards” including seeing my graduate students as well as my postdoctoral fellows excel later on in their professional lives.
When I retired in 2008, my life changed but my interest in teaching and research continued. On a part time basis, I continued to teach part of the “pharmy” courses at Jefferson Medical College until 2017 and the osteopathic school in NJ until 2019. Having no laboratory anymore, I resorted to “paper” research. Here, I look at the history of pharmacology and tried to identify the causes of our current opioid epidemic. Even at my age of 89, I keep busy with research and still publish scientific papers.
My wishes to my young colleagues are that the current trend of forced grant research and uncertain employment situations at medical schools will eventually reverse themselves and they will again be offered tenure and institutional research support, so that they can perform their educational and research duties in a relaxed, proper, and productive way.