Pulling Back the Curtain
Charles S. Abrams, MD
In this edition, Charles S. Abrams, MD, talks about the value of working as a team
and getting out of one’s comfort zone. Dr. Abrams is professor of medicine,
pathology, and laboratory medicine; vice chair for research; and chief scientific
officer of the Department of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He also is
the director of the Blood Center for Patient Care & Discovery at the University of
Pennsylvania and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and the 2016 president of the
American Society of Hematology.
Dr. Abrams with his wife Elisha and
their dog in Central Park.
What was your first job?
I grew up in the suburbs of
Philadelphia. Almost all my
childhood was spent there –
except for a brief period of time
when we moved to Berkeley,
California, for my father’s work.
When I was 13 years old,
I spent the summer mowing
lawns. I slaved for the entire
summer, saved my money, and
used it to buy a bicycle. Then,
about two months later, it was
stolen. It was fun for the two
months it lasted!
My first job in medicine was
during high school; as part of a
work-study program, I worked in
a clinical pathology department at
one of the local hospitals. I don’t
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remember how I got that job, but
I must have called up the lab and
asked if they had something for
me to do. I worked on a sort of
wax-embedding assembly line
and my main responsibility was
embedding tissue in paraffin wax.
It was a great job that gave me a
little bit of exposure to medicine
and set the stage for the rest of
my life.
Did you consider any other
professions?
I think I first wanted to be a
professional hockey player, bu t
reality set in pretty quickly. For
a while, I wanted to become a
veterinarian because of my love
for animals.
Were your parents
involved in science or
medicine?
I was the first in my family to
work in health care. My father
was a nuclear engineer. He was
part of a team of people who
helped design the USS Theodore
Roosevelt, which was an early
nuclear submarine. Later, he
was involved with quality
assurance for nuclear reactors.
My mother was a medical writer
and worked on a variety of
projects – from being the editor
of a medical school’s paper to
writing for popular magazines
such as Cosmopolitan, Good
Housekeeping, and Harper’s
Bazaar.
When did you decide
you wanted to focus on
hematology?
By the time I entered medical
school, I knew I wanted to
pursue internal medicine; by
a lottery process, the school
assigned my subinternship
rotation to a leukemia floor.
While there, I ended up working
with Joe Bertino, MD. He was
a fabulous attending and a
larger-than-life figure. We often
thought of him as “Papa Joe,”
and he was kind enough to prep
us for the next day’s rounds.
He would say, “Here is some
medical literature pertaining
to your patients’ conditions.
So, tomorrow, you ask me a
December 2016