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IN RUSSIAN
WITH LOVE
August 15, 2014
Hi Dr. Trachte,
This is Justin Walker, and just for simplicity’s sake, I am
the soccer player that graduated last year with the NCAA
postgrad scholarship. I am writing to you in regards to my
first couple of weeks of medical school, and the profound
impact that it has had on my respect for the education I
received at Lycoming College.
While I never doubted my education at Lycoming - I know
I learned a great deal - I always wondered how it compared
to other science programs around the nation. My friends
at other universities would regularly discuss how much
detail their professors expected them to know, and I always
wondered if the big name status of their respective universities was proportional
to the amount they were learning. I have now been in medical school at Penn State
Hershey - a very reputable medical school - for about a month, and I have learned
that what Lycoming’s biology department does for its students qualifies it for elite
status around the nation.
I am involved in a small study group with four other students: one went to
Messiah, one to Allegheny College, one to Johns Hopkins, and one to Yale. While
they are all very intelligent individuals, the material that we are covering at this time
is beyond the scope of their undergraduate education. We are discussing biology in
molecular details they have never encountered before, and many of the terms they
have never even heard. I am currently teaching those sessions based entirely off of
prior knowledge that I gained in Lycoming’s biology courses. I have explained the
style of our courses to Lexy, the individual that went to Yale, and she sat in awe and
said “I wish our classes were run like that.” Specifically, I described Dr. Morrison’s
class style - with late night review sessions that were entirely of her own altruism,
clinical connections of material we learned in lecture, and depth at which we
were expected to know material. My very first lecture at medical school was a cell
biology lecture, a course that I took at Lycoming. There was not a single concept
that was unfamiliar to me; I had encountered it all. For many, and likely the majority
of my fellow classmates, this was not the case.
I would be doing a disservice if I didn’t also comment on both Dr. Newman and
Dr. McDonald’s biochemistry course, and the anatomy course offered at Lycoming.
The cadaver anatomy course that I took has set me apart from other students thus
far, and my friends are literally envious of the opportunity I had to learn on a human
cadaver.
I will also add, in short, that the humanities courses I was required to take at
Lycoming have also contributed to my success at medical school. Penn State
Hershey has a department of humanities that is integrated with the medical
education. While it is not as strenuous of a course, my ability to think critically
and ask relevant questions has been improved by the courses I took at Lycoming,
specifically those that were offered by Dr. Whelan in the philosophy department.
In summary, I want you to know how much respect I have for Lycoming College,
and how proud I am to have graduated from that institution. The foundation it has
laid for me as an individual and as a student has been invaluable to my first weeks
of medical school, and will certainly continue to facilitate my growth both as a
student and as a future physician. You commented to me that your future vision
for Lycoming College was to have it in the top 75 someday. Based on my current
experiences, I believe that Forbes and Princeton Review do Lycoming a huge
injustice, even in their current rankings.
Thank you, and good luck with the upcoming school year!
Respectfully,
Justin Walker
Penn State University College of Medicine Class of 2018
Richard Hughes’ 10th book, “Genes,
Destiny, and the Cain Complex,” has been
published in Russia. Mikhail Melnikov,
the translator, is a clinical psychologist
who collected Hughes’ papers for this
book to promote Szondi studies in the
Russian Federation.
The book contains
13 chapters of essays
Hughes previously
published, with a
new introduction and
university lectures.
The lectures include
“The Symbolism
of the Bridge”
and “Moral Destiny and Relational
Cosmology.” Special attention is devoted to
epilepsy and the sharing of its equivalents
across the generations of the family.
The chapters refer to the life and work of
Leopold Szondi (1893-1986), a Hungarian-
born Swiss psychiatrist, who produced a
magisterial system of psychiatry known
as the “Analysis of Destiny,” under the
conditions of war, revolution, and the
Holocaust, which remains untranslated.
The book was translated by Mikhail
Melnikov and Maria Fomel and published
by Ergo Publishing Company in Izhevsk,
Russia.
LETTER
Open
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