When I took the job over from Herb Pardes, I was told there was a $20 million deficit in the annual budget. The university told me I have to fix that. It wasn't as though they gave me $20 million for new programs, I had to make it myself. They described many new programs, but they said, 'Gerry, of course you have to raise money for that'. Most of the fundraising at this medical school and every other medical school, is from grateful patients. And they're equally grateful to the hospital as they are to the medical school. In fact, they didn't have much of a sense of what the medical school did.

Indeed, the trustees of the university didn't either. It's not a big board of trustees, it's about 20 people, and none of them had ever been to the medical school, which was at 168th Street, as opposed to 116th. I asked them, gave them the privilege of having a board meeting at the medical school. And the trustees were shocked at the resources and the research going on, they did not understand what was being done at the medical school. That seemed to shift and two or three of the trustees became close advisors and friends.