On Terry Oberley, Age 60

Kelly H. Clifton, Ph.D.

          To begin with, Terry is a rational man.  In the forty or more years I’ve known him, we’ve agreed on most everything we’ve discussed. So that makes him a rational man, right?  Right!  Second, he has excellent taste in women, and that’s not just because Edith is my first cousin once removed.

          We first talked seriously when Terry was completing his Ph.D. and considering whether to complete his clinical years to also finish his M.D.  I was pleased he chose to do so, and particularly that he then came to the UW for a residency in pathology.  He is, and was, remarkably honest with himself.

          Terry rapidly carved a niche in the Path Department Chairman’s labs and was soon recognized as a talented investigator.   And in addition he was recognized as a calming and thoughtful force in the lab and in the Department as a whole.

          Not long after he came to the UW, I mentioned I was going to a Radiation Research Society meeting.  His monozygotic brother was also attending the RRS meeting and Terry told him I planned to look him up.  With a straight face, his brother asked how I would know him!   As it turns out I noted a familiar form in a darkened meeting room , leaned over its shoulder and said, “Hi Larry.  I’m Kelly.”  It sure wasn’t difficult.  It has been a pleasure to watch as the work of the pair of them converged to the enrichment of knowledge of the role of superoxide-related derivatives in carcinogenesis and other aspects of life.   Do two sets of an intelligent genome always double the possibilities of good science?

          When Terry was a resident I had an appointment in the Pathology Department to teach in their graduate program.   While Terry was finishing his residency, the Path Department had more than its share of turmoil.  As luck would have it, the department chair with whom Terry collaborated decided to leave the departmental administration.   I am a squint and squirt biologist and not a board pathologist nor physician.  My primary appointment was in a dynamic radiology department.  Clearly, I was neither qualified nor desirous of being a permanent Chairman of Pathology.  For these reasons, the Med School Deans decided I was, however, qualified to serve a few months as an acting Chair of Pathology during the search for a permanent Chairman. 

          The acting Chairmanship turned out to have a longer tenure than I had planned, and was filled with unexpected insights many of which are best not described here.  What is clear, though, is that my most important contribution to the Path Department really was not mine at all.   It was Terry Oberley’s.  A few months after I took the temporary job, the ex-Chair and Terry’s senior collaborator came into my office and said, “What’s the matter?  Don’t you like Oberley?”  I was taken aback and responded that I thought very highly of Terry.   “Well then, why haven’t you nominated him for a faculty position?” says he.  I explained my reticence and asked, “Why don’t you nominate him for a faculty position at the next department meeting?”

          And so he did.   Before discussion of Terry’s nomination, I explained that because a) Terry was a relative of mine by marriage and because b) I was an acting Chair, I believed it was not appropriate for me to take part in the discussion or to vote on Terry’s appointment.   I asked another senior faculty member to chair the meeting, and left the room.  It has always perplexed me that the man who nominated Terry never forgave me for withdrawing from the process.

          Of course the vote was unanimously favorable, as I thought it would be.  History has shown it was right.  Among Terry’s many contributions to the department has been service as acting Chair (after he had refused to accept the department’s nomination to be permanent Chair),

          More recently when Dr. Mike Hart arrived as the new Pathology Department Chairman, he and I had a brief discussion about the faculty.   I mentioned that I believed Terry was an outstandingly rational man.   Mike responded, “I know.  That’s why I chose him to be vice Chair.”