He served as Chief of Gastroenterology at Evans Memorial Department of Clinical Research, part of Boston University School of Medicine.
[2] He came to the United States with his family in the early 1920s to live in his mother's home town of Swampscott, Massachusetts where his German father established a general practice as a physician.
[3] After initially wanting to enter the business world, faced with dwindling job opportunities after the Wall Street crash he decided to follow in his father and go into medicine.
"[4] It also helped prevent what later NEJM editors called science by press conference, the practice of going directly to the media with scientific results rather than waiting for the peer review process designed to check the work for errors and flaws.
[5] He used catchy titles for his editorials; for example in 1973, when Clean Air Act standards were lowered during the energy crisis: "Fighting carcinogens with underwear".