Interview with John Kersey

Abstract

John Kersey begins by describing his background, including his education and why he went into medicine. He describes his experiences during his residencies, being appointed a Medical School faculty member, and as a faculty member. He discusses faculty and research at the UMN Medical School while he was a student, the reorganization of the Health Sciences in 1970, the effort to establish a children’s hospital in Minneapolis in the 1960s, relations between UMN faculty pediatricians and community pediatricians, teaching, Homecare for the Dying Child Program, and hospitalists.

He talks extensively about cancer research and treatment work, touching on topics including his own research and other work, funding and the NIH, clinical research versus laboratory research, informed consent and medical ethics, cancer research in the 1970s, the development of medical and pediatric oncology and chemotherapy, bone marrow transplantation, cancer research funding, the bone marrow transplantation program, nurses who worked on cancer treatment, the Masonic Center in the 1970s, the Cancer Coordinating Committee, the development of organ transplantation treatments, the Comprehensive Cancer Center in the 1980s, the Cancer Detection Center, ALG, experimental treatments, and clinical research. He talks about James Dawson, Mead Cavert, and Robert Good.