Watsonian Society
 
An Organization for Public Health Advisors

skip menu
Bylaws & Constitution
Committees
Community Service
Events
Help Wanted
History

 bullet Early Days
    of  PHAs

 bullet PHA Tales

 bullet America&nbsp
    Attacked -&nbsp
    PHAs&nbsp
    Respond

 bullet Future of 
    PHAs

 bullet Task Force
    2010

 bullet Watsonian

Membership
Mentorship
Mission
Newsletter
Officers
Join Watsonian
Contact Us
  
History - Tales from Today's PHAs

Ed's 34 Years in 65 Lines: The First of Many More Newly Volunteered PHA Tales?

I Remember:
In 1963, a college newspaper article: a recent graduate did immunizations with the CDC in Africa. An observer noted - the added lifespan of the newly immunized made them more likely to die from starvation or civil war than from a vaccine-preventable disease.
A 1964 interview, a letter on official USPHS stationery – Venereal Disease Control. A choice – Harrisburg, PA or NYC? My NYC experience was limited to the NJ PATH tubes and the Peppermint Lounge – I chose Harrisburg.
Chelsea clinic – the see-through mirror; the Chelsea Hotel.
Harrisburg detectives bracing me in the home of a 16 year old girl at 9:00 PM.
First plane ride – a prop job to Minneapolis-St. Paul; meeting Dr. William J. Brown at one of the national seminars. “It is better to have a VD Investigator waiting for a syphilis case than to have a syphilis case waiting for a VD Investigator ? ”

I Remember:
Lancaster, PA, a grid map to locate homes to survey about Polio. Virgil Peavy.
Migrant blood testing near Gettysburg: long lines shifted when a novice botched a vein. Filled Shepherd tubes in the refrigerator next to baby formula.
Pittsburgh: sharing fortified wine on a scorching radiator in a gas station to “fit in”. Driving from the Hill to the Forbes Avenue VD Clinic with a station wagon full of mechanics. The North Side Go-Go bar at 1:00 AM. Sweet potato pie in Homewood-Brushton.
Martin Luther King died – my black colleague warned me not to stop if we had to run; he was coming right over my back if I did. My other black colleague, my FLS, checking with my wife to make sure she and our kids were safe while I was away.
A TB interview in NYC – but we couldn’t be reimbursed for miles driven outside of Pennsylvania.

I Remember:
Newark, 1968. Dirt floors and heroin.
“Red Dog” epidemiology.
Two days looking for 125 Norfolk Street - it was 125 North Fourth Street – an Alabama native in Newark said: “Nawff Ffawth Squwreet . ”
Tony Imperiale, a tank in a neighborhood, Hugh Addonizio, LeRoi Jones before his name change, Mayor Kenneth Gibson, Rolex watches for sale cheap. Dashikis and the Little Red Book.
The unforgettable Runyonesque characters of the Newark City VD clinic at 102 William Street. Ten men in a cubicle; one command heard over the partition.
Procaine penicillin reactions - men with bare buttocks with a needle projecting, pants around ankles, horrid premonitions of death - that cleared the clinic waiting room instantly.
Skin clinic – a doctor’s advice to a patient with a likely skin cancer: “Go over to Martland’s ER and lay on the floor until they take care of you”.

I Remember:
NYC – a supreme labor lesson: you do not furlough the Shop Steward.
A City car crushed between two floors on a parking elevator.
The lad who called after the stolen City car was retrieved – could he pick up the TV sets he left in the trunk?
Forgetting to specify bi-lingual when advertising for Spanish speakers – no one to interview the applicants.
The atypical CDC Program Reviewer: “I don’t think I need to see your quarterly narratives; I just spent two days in four of your VD clinics. Let me tell you what your staff is doing.”
The book “Darkfields of Venus”. The Museum exhibit on VD.
The HR person at CDC – “Do you mean to tell me that you’re hiring known HOMOSEXUALS?”
The Program Coordinator at a Senior Staff Meeting: “I’m thinking of renting the Playboy jet to go to the National VD Conference”.

I Remember:
Harrisburg, 1976 – David Fraser, the CDC epidemiologist, looking like Sherlock Holmes. Human tissue on commercial planes to Atlanta – pre 9/11 security. The Governor in the Communicable Disease offices. Late night unexplained gaps in the social histories of the Legionnaires.
Three Mile Island. And an ongoing epidemiologic study of birth defects in Central Pennsylvania. Amish without knowledge of TMI. And initially resistant to administering vaccines.
Swine Flu and more EIS officers. Pittsburgh, vaccine and Guillain Barre Syndrome.
Being called “Germ Busters” in Chester, PA, when the criterion for who got Bicillin in the syphilis outbreak investigation was simple – if you stepped into the Health Department van you were eligible.
My Public Health Advisor interviews on college campuses – and the sense of pride that still accompanies seeing a familiar name in an award ceremony. Or a promotion list.

Edward J. Powers
1367 Princeton Road
Mechanicsburg, PA 17050
Syphilis@aol.com
June 1964 – July 1998, Public Health Advisor
August 2006

 Back to Tales from Today's PHAs 


Click on Watsonian logo to return to home page.
Page last updated January 03, 2008