Interview with Edmund D. Pellegrino, August 21, 1984

Interview Summary

SUNY-Stony Brook Medical Center; Pellegrino Family history; Pellegrino's educational background; benefits Pellegrino sees of attending a Jesuit high school; attending St. John's University and NYU Medical School; Pellegrino's decision to chose the medical field over the priesthood as a career; Pellegrino's interest in scientific medicine; interning at Bellevue and Goldwater Hospitals; his three-year battle with tuberculosis; Pellegrino's research into pediatric tuberculosis; his appointment as Chief of Medicine and Director of Flemington Community Hospital in New Jersey; his work with Raymond Trussel (Harvard Medical Center) in planning and designing Hunterdon Community Hospital; his recruitment by William Willard for the University of Kentucky Medical Center in 1959; his recruitment to plan and develop the Medical Center at SUNY-Stony Brook; the involvement of Al Knudsen and Lars Lawson; the recruitment of deans; recruitment for the position of president at the University of Kentucky and ethnic bias; ethnic discrimination experienced by Pellegrino and his acceptance by the NYU Medical School; planning the physical plant at SUNY-Stony Brook; the reasons for establishing a School of Social Welfare at Stony Brook; reasons Pellegrino accepted the position at SUNY-Stony Brook; Nelson Rockefeller's support for higher education in New York; Samuel Gould's support for SUNY-Stony Brook; interest of New York state legislators in SUNY; the absence of town-gown problems at Stony Brook; tension between the president of SUNY-Stony Brook-- John Towle-- and Pellegrino; the "Thanksgiving Eve disaster" regarding funding for the Medical Center; Pellegrino's involvement in setting up the Yale-New Haven Medical Center-- and the difference between it and the situation encountered at Stony Brook; Pellegrino's opposition to proprietary-- for profit-- take-overs of university hospitals; Pellegrino's opinion regarding future governmental intervention in the health care industry; Pellegrino's relationship-- as Chancellor of the Memphis Campus-- to the president of the University of Tennessee; effect of social activism in the 1960s on Stony Brook's faculty appointments; the reasons Pellegrino left Stony Brook; characteristics that Pellegrino believes a chief executive officer of an academic institution ought to have; Pellegrino's thoughts on the necessity for an academic health center to be an integral part of a university campus.

Interview Keyword

Health Services Medicine Physicians

Interview LC Subject

Academic medical centers Pellegrino, Edmund D., 1920- Pellegrino, Edmund D., 1920- --Interviews

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