From there I went through all the different rotations in medicine, neurology, surgery. And then I had to decide what to do, whether I would toy with the idea of doing a PhD at Rockefeller, but the Vietnam War was on, and I was told... hinted at, but clearly, that if I did not have a position, I would be drafted. I said okay, I'm going to do an internship. I applied to several areas and was accepted in several but thought we would like to get away from New York and we picked Seattle.

The university there, the medical center, was really on the rise. Two of the great scientists, Chuck Stevens, who recently passed away, and Bertil Hille, they were young faculty. I very naively thought during my internship I'd have lots of time and I'd go hang out in their labs. I never saw them once.