NEWSLETTER

of the

AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC AFFILIATION - CANADIAN SCIENTIFIC & CHRISTIAN AFFILIATION

Volume 28 Number 5                                                                            OCT/NOV 1986

Exciting is not the first word that comes to mind when one thinks of Houghton College in western New York state. Indeed, at the opening session of the 41st Annual Meeting of the American Scientific Affiliation, held there August 8-11, the dean welcomed ASAers with wry humor about Houghton's isolation and lack of excitement.

"It's not the edge of the world," the dean said, "but you can see it from here." (And, indeed, you can, if you peer over the lip of the gorge at nearby Letchworth State Park.) Instead of boasting of its student-faculty ratio, he acknowledged, Houghton College stresses the number of trees per student on its woodsy rural campus. This year's graduating class added its motto to Houghton's hoary store of boredom lore: "Out of the sticks in eighty-six"

So it might have been a quiet week on that campus, but the 190-some ASA registrants brought their own excitement-or generated it on the spot. Psychologist David Myers kept a packed lecture hall in rapt attention through each of his three keynote addresses on psychology and Christianity. Saturday's plenary session on "Technology and Humanity" and Monday's session on "Creation, Evolution, and Education" also had a stimulating effect. Houghton produced quite a mix in eightysix.

The open quality of the program's theme, "The Nature of Humanity," seemed to draw a wide variety of contributed papers. Program chair Charles Hummel fit them all in by scheduling three parallel sessions on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, five on Monday afternoon. That gave each speaker a full half-hour, including discussion time.

Of course, some members complained about not being able to hear all the papers, but this year few felt discussion was limited. Discussion seemed to flow freely-and continuously. The dining hall's big round tables, seating eight, catalyzed good conversations. Houghton's facilities (all new since the last time ASA met there) seemed perfectly suited to such a meeting. The committee organized by Local Arrangements chair Don Munro put them all at ASA's disposal.

The setting was quiet, and beautiful. Worship on Sunday morning took place in the stately college chapel, with Anglican John Stewart as liturgist and Lutheran George Murphy as minister. To extend the worshipful mood, Houghton biologist Elizabeth Cook then led a large group to a well preserved "kettle bog" left by a melting glacier. Moss Lake, now a National Landmark (thanks to Professor Cook and others), proved to be a perfect site for private meditation and thanksgiving.

Even the weather was refreshing, especially to drought-stricken southeasterners. The Weather Committee had arranged for occasional thundershowers, generally timed so that no one got soaked between the dormitory, the dining hall, and the science building. The possibility of rain did keep Saturday night's barbecue indoors, but permitted a motorcade visit afterward to nearby Letchworth State Park. Even those who had taken the longer pre-conference trip to Niagara Falls commented on the exquisite charm of Letchworth's Middle Falls at dusk.

But the natural beauty and serenity of the setting merely formed a baseline from which excitement began to build. The Newsletter editor could hardly keep track of the action, but we'll try to give you a taste of it in the next few issues.

By the time you're reading this, a story on the ASA meeting will have appeared in Christianity Today (scheduled for Sept 19). ASA member James Hefley, who gave a paper on news and the news media at Houghton, was also gathering news for CT. After the annual business meeting, Jim said his tentative title would be "ASA: The Sleeping Giant Awakes." Wow.

Members heard ASA president Ann Hunt report that the Committee on Integrity in Science Education had almost completed its work on the manuscript of a 48page guidebook for science teachers. Foundation funding will permit the printing and free distribution of some 40,000 copies of Teaching Science in a Climate of Controversy to high school biology teachers. That project alone could "put ASA on the map," she said.

(You'll hear much more about Teaching Science in a Climate of Controversy. In fact each ASA/CSCA member should receive a copy in the mail in late October or November. At Newsletter deadline time in September the editor and his wedded editor were rushing cameraready copy for the booklet from Berkeley to Science Press (printers of JASA) for an October printing.-Ed.)

Members also heard that ASA's "gene-splicing conference," once merely a gleam in the eye of ASA executive director Robert Herrmann, will definitely happen in 1987, the Lord willing. That conference may take place soon after the first attempt at human therapy with "engineered" genes-and the NIH scientist making that attempt is expected to be one of the conference speakers. What's more, another major speaker may be recombinant-DNA-basher Jeremy Rifkin, with ASA geneticist Elving Anderson as a respondent presenting a more balanced view. Time and place have been set (26-30 June 1987, at Eastern College in Pennsylvania). Stay tuned for further exciting details as they are confirmed.

In the next twelve months ASA may thus come to public attention as a supporter both of responsible scientific research and of responsible science education. Maybe even of responsible sharing of scientific knowledge, through the 1987 ASA tour (see CHINA CHECK-IN, below).

Members also heard that two more traveling "Gingerich Lectures" in 1986 (U.B.C., Vancouver, and U. of Colorado, Boulder) would complete Phase 1 of the proposed ASA television project. If enough interest (read: "money") has been found by then for Phase 2, the more expensive scripting phase, that project will go forward. If not, several alternative proposals are already in the hopper. One is a regular ASA traveling lectureship, building on the enthusiasm generated by the lectures given around North America by Harvard astronomer Owen Gingerich.

What else is news, or about to be? ASA's Journal will soon sport a new name, to make its contents more obvious to librarians (and hence get it into more librar. ies). The Council announced that it had used criteria suggested by a professional librarian to cut a long list of member-suggested names down to a "short list" of finalists. The new name needs to be "distinctive" as well as "descriptive."

(We're probably not supposed to reveal the leading candidate at this stage. But if you object strongly to Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith, with The Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation as subtitle, we suggest you get word to one of the Council members before their November meeting.-Ed.)

There was more excitement, lots more, from founder Alton Everest's presentation to the Council of his history of the ASA to news of deposition of the ASA archives at the Wheaton College library. On display at Houghton was a brand new portable ASA booth display, which Gordon College biologist Tom Dent immediately carted off for a trial run at the American Institute of Biological Sciences.

It was announced that the Committee for Integrity in Science Education has rented a booth at the 1987 National Science Teachers Association meeting and applied for a spot on the NSTA program to present Teaching Science in a Climate of Controversy.

Fresh rumors circulated that ASA's long-awaited "popular science/faith publication" would surface in some form or other early in 1987. Wow.

The excitement was contagious. In addition to the usual evening discussion groups several "working groups" formed more or less spontaneously. About a dozen people responded when Ken Olson, chair of the Commission on Science Education, invited people to eat lunch with him to begin planning future ASA assistance to public school teachers.

Another dozen people gathered at Paul Arveson's beck (or was that Russell Biork's DEC?-Ed.) to form an ad hoc "Committee for ASA Computer Applications" (see CALLING ALL COMPUTERERS, below).

See what we mean? Was it all just talk? Not on your pocketbook! ASAers put their money where their hearts are. At the Annual Business Meeting Ann Hunt made that clear. All this activity has been supported not only by our dues, she said, but by $63,000 in contributions over the past twelve months.

"Let's keep it going," members seemed to be saying at Houghton. To show they meant it, they contributed some $3,300 in an offering taken at the end of the business meeting.

DON'T MISS ANOTHER ONE

Don't be caught napping while the ASA "sleeping giant" is stirring in the land. Plan now to attend the next ASA ANNUAL MEETING, to be held at COLORADO COLLEGE in COLORADO SPRINGS, 2-6 AUGUST 1987.

ASA's Commission on Global Resources and the Environment will be in charge, with Commission chair Ray Brand of Wheaton College serving as Program chair. The exact theme and keynote speaker have not yet been decided, but all the possibilities Ray mentioned at Houghton sounded great.

With the ASA China tour coming immediately after the meeting and with many ASA members concerned about serving Christ overseas with their technical skills, next year's meeting should have a distinctly international flavor.

At the Houghton meeting, craftwork produced by Christians in desperately poor countries was on sale in the student union. A poster at the display said: "Globalize America. That's better than trying to Americanize the globe"

The cost for the 21 days will be approximately $2,400 from San Francisco, with return to San Francisco, including airfare, sightseeing, tour guide, group visa, hotels and three meals per day within China. (A bar gain!-Ed.) Details are still being worked out for the group to be housed and fed inexpensively at Hong Kong Baptist College for the two days in HONG KONG.

The 18 days within China will be spent in eight cities: SHANGHAI; HANGZHOU (a "heavenly city"); NANJING (formerly Nanking, old capital city, where the only Protestant seminary in China has been re-opened); BEIJING (formerly Peking, the present capital); XIAN (where the famous "buried army" is located); GUILIN (said to be China's most beautiful city); and GUANGZHOU (formerly Canton). The most days (four) will be spent in Beijing.

Chi-Hang is especially looking for tour-goers to lecture on their field of science or technology in a university or research institute in one of those cities, so proper arrangements can be made with the Chinese authorities. Other ASA members and families are welcome on the tour.

CALLING ALL COMPUTERERS

Physicist Paul Arveson was one of the organizers of the ad hoc Committee for ASA Computer Applications at the Houghton meeting. He sent us a report of the committee's impromptu brainstorming session, with a request that other ASA members with access to computers inform the ASA office if you have any interest in helping on committee projects.

Ann Woodworth of the Ipswich office and computer science prof Russ Bjork of Gordon College reported on the hardware and software now available for ASA use. The primary computer is a VAX 785 at Gordon, with a smaller DEC computer in the ASA office for word processing. The VAX can be made available for limited use in new projects. It contains the POISE data management system and a modem for telephone hookup to other computers.

2. A directory of ASA members more complete than the present one, listing members by interest and specialties. This would require a complete survey of the membership but would facilitate get-togethers at scientific meetings and formation of ASA "working parties" on specific topics.

4. A project aimed at getting JASA listed in library indexes and computer data bases. (Anybody out there in library science or computer data bases who wants to help with this one?)

Several other projects were considered desirable but not feasible at present, including a keyword-based directory of JASA for computer search and retrieval. (If authors provided keywords for their articles, ASA might provide floppy disks for searches on home computers.) It might someday be desirable to have a complete transcription of JASA text on magnetic media. (Not so hard for recent years, with the text already on 8-inch floppy disks; for earlier years the job might be done automatically using optical character recognition (OCR) equipment. John Setchell of Rochester, New York, who works in OCR, was at the meeting.) Finally, on-line access to ASA data and/or a bulletin board system was not considered to be needed at present.

Meanwhile, it was recommended that disks used for JASA printing be backed up (preferably on 1/2-inch 9track tape) and archived for future uses, whatever those might be. And Paul Arveson has begun to check out commercial on-line data bases to see if they would consider including our Journal. He has written to the American Theological Library Association, the largest producer of computer-readable data in the religion category for use by major on-line systems such as Dialog and BRS. Their data base is called Religion Index One or the ATLA Religion Index.

If this sort of thing presses your ENTER button, get in touch with Ann Woodworth in the Ipswich office or write to Paul Arveson, 10205 Folk St., Silver Spring, MD 20902.

The Canadian Scientific and Christian Affiliation is a somewhat smaller giant than the American Scientific Affiliation, but no midget when it comes to getting things done. CSCA members are excited about having taken their first steps in campus ministry. In fact they're so excited that the 1986 CSCA Annual Meeting will be devoted entirely to in-depth discussion of the future possibilities of such ministry.

That meeting will be held Saturday, 18 October 1986, at the U. of Toronto's Wycliffe College (Sheraton Hall, 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.). In his annual report to CSCA members, Executive Council chair Bob VanderVennen called the past year "active and fruitful, probably the most productive year in the history of CSCA."

When it was proposed that Donald McNally be supported in a part-time Campus Resource Ministry, over 50 members (of a total of about 200) responded positively, contributing some $2,700. The Council will ask the membership to continue its support, with Don budgeting 25 hours/month to CSCA concerns on southern Ontario campuses. With a Ph.D. in the history of science giving him a natural niche in science/faith dialogues, Don has already made effective contacts at eight schools.

BULLETIN BOARD

1. Ken J. Touryan, who gave a paper on "The Tentmaker and the ASA Member" at Houghton, is working with a Colorado-based group which has been successful in placing professional people inside China. That group is underwriting the cost of a seminar in Denver, 8-9 January 1987, featuring four experts on the China scene to guide ASA members hoping to be of service to the Chinese people in 1987 and 1988. Participants in the ASA-China Venture orientation seminar are asked to pay their own transportation and room and board (the latter two estimated at $60). Some scholarship help may be available for serious applicants who could not participate otherwise. It is hoped that participation in the seminar may lead to identification of a position in China suited to each person, and that several may be able to go to China as a group, to sustain each other under the hardships that exist there for outsiders. Spouses are welcome; the skiing before or after the seminar should be perfect. To register, send check for $20 as a hotel deposit (by 1 November) to: Ken J. Touryan, Moriah Research, 7795 E. Arapahoe Ct., Englewood, CO 80112.

2. Sherman P. Kanagy announces the second annual Science Conference sponsored by Purdue University North Central. This one, on "The Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary Mass Extinctions," will be held on Saturday, 18 October 1986, from 9:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. at the Pueblo Holiday Inn in LaPorte, Indiana (about 90 minutes from downtown Chicago on 1-80). Sherm has once again put together a program of expert speakers who are proponents of opposite sides of a scientific question, this time on the influence of asteroidal impacts on the extinction of the dinosaurs. Registration is $95 ($40 for students). For registration information, contact: Dr. Sherman Kanagy, Purdue University North Central, Westville, IN46391;tel.219-785-2541, ext.254.

3. Tapes of a March 1986 Science Symposium on "Ethical Issues in Human Experimentation and Medical Decision Making" are available from the Science Division, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL 60187. Cost of the full set of seven cassette tapes is $35. ASA member David L. Swift of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health was one of the speakers on "Ethics of Human Experimentation in Public Health"-including timely issues such as AIDS. Other speakers: pathologist Trevor A. Macpherson, U. of Pittsburgh Med. School ("Fetal Development, In-Vitro Fertilization, and Fetal Research" and "The Fetus as Patient In-Utero"); surgeon David R. Knighton, U. of Minnesota Med. School ("Difficult Decisions in the Surgical Care Unit" and chapel talk on "Lessons Learned from the Healing Wound"); clinical geneticist Terry L. Myers, East Tennessee State ("The Ethical Dilemma of Human Birth Defects"); psychologist Richard L. Gorsuch, Fuller Theological Seminary ("Ethical Issues in Psychological Research"); concluding panel discussion ("How do we deal with a human being as an experimental object?").

OOPS! & FOLLOW-OOPS

1. L. Russ Bush, associate professor of philosophy of religion at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, spotted several goofs in our nod to Jim Hefley's book, The Truth in Crisis (BOOKENDS & NODS, Aug/Sept 1986). We named New Orleans as the site of both Southern Seminary (the oldest seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention, actually located in Louisville, Kentucky) and the 1986 meeting of the SBC (the convention actually met in Atlanta, Georgia). We were right that Hefley graduated from seminary in New Orleans, but of course it was from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

Our geography was bad enough, but our demography was even worse, according to Russ. He took exception to our saying that the 55/45 vote at the SBC somehow paralleled the division of U.S. citizens on the subject of human evolution. Both 1986 SBC presidential candidates, he says, were theological conservatives: "A vote to approve evolution would never be 50/50 in the SBC. We could get an 80/20 split perhaps with 80% favoring some version of explicit creationism, and virtually 95% or more would reject naturalistic versions of evolution"

(From his own past experience in the SBC, the Weary Old Editor agrees. What we meant by a parallel was simply that among conservative Christians, wide diversity, or at least a wide spectrum of tolerance toward diversity, does exist. We were urging ASA members to be careful, and prayerful, when speaking about any science/faith issue, be it biblical criticism among Southern Baptists or human evolution among the population as a whole. If we are to be bridge-builders, peacemakers, and loving speakers of the Truth, we must first realize how polarized people already are. But obviously we didn't say that very well. WOE is me.-Ed.)

2. We also goofed in a note about Richard H. Harrison (PERSONALS, June/July 1986), misspelling his wife Karin's name and omitting mention of their 9-year-old son Paul in our request for your prayers. We erroneously enrolled Dick at Rutgers. He is actually a doctoral candidate at the U. of Pennsylvania, having finished all his work except the dissertation before the automobile accident that left him so badly injured. Gently correcting our slip-ups, Karin adds that any who would like to do something for Dick should write him a postcard, which will help the speech therapists work with him. Address: Richard Harrison, Room 6 North, Hartwycke Center, 1340 Park Avenue, Plainfield, NJ 07060.

3. Good grief, another one? In our note about the 1987 ASA China tour (Aug/Sept 1986, p. 2), we fouled up Chi Hang Lee's address and ZIP. For the right place to send your check for that tour, see CHINA CHECK-IN in this issue. (The address must be something our computer ate, said the typochondriac. But honest, we got the ZIP out of the computer-produced ASA Directory-Ed.)

4. Here's a follow-up without an cops: Physicist Charles M. Randall (4925 Calle de Arboles, Torrance, CA 90505) says that the obituary of Irwin Moon in the Aug/Sept issue brought back memories of the influence Moon and the Moody Institute of Science had on his life: "I imagine the series of Moody science films I saw as a Christian day school student in the early 1950s were significant both in my choice of science as a profession and in my recognition that Christian faith and scientific investigation were compatible, complementary ways of finding truth.

"One thing that impressed me about those films was that the moral and spiritual lessons drawn from the scientific material presented were never at the expense of a clear exposition of the scientific observations and principles. I saw that scientific investigation to understand the workings of nature was perfectly compatible with, and supplemental to, faith in nature's Creator.

"Although I never met Dr. Moon, I shall always appreciate his efforts and those of the Moody Institute of Science for producing the films, and the wisdom of the principal of the school I attended in bringing those films to our school"

Charles wonders what has happened to the Moody Institute of Science, whose studios he toured years ago when Alton Everest hosted a meeting of the local section of ASA.

In fact, Owen Gingerich and Bob Herrmann visited the Institute studios in Whittier, California in January of 1985 to discuss the proposed ASA TV series with Director Jim Adams. At that time they saw a breathtaking preview of the latest Sermons from Science film, "Seed Dispersal" Their address: Moody Institute of Science, 12,000 E. Washington Blvd., Whittier, CA 90606.

Dean of Faculty, Daystar University College, P.O. Box 44400, Nairobi, Kenya. (Received July 1986, from Marion Barnes, who retired as president of Covenant College in Tennessee. several years ago, and now shuttles back and forth between Lookout Mountain and Nairobi, doing academic and financial development work for Daystar.)

Ball Christian Secondary School in the Republic of Cameroon needs a teacher of physics/chemistry or physics/math for its 5-year curriculum, beginning as soon as possible. Master's essential, doctorate preferred. The school, sponsored by Baptists and Presbyterians but drawing students from many denominations, is a boarding school, providing opportunity for much faculty-student interaction and personal witness. Teachers live in houses on the compound supplied by the school, about 12 miles from Bamenda, a town of 50,000 or so. Hospital, mission headquarters, shops, and church at "the college" and in Bali-town. For details, write: Ron Salzman, North American Baptist Conference, 1 South 210 Summit Ave., Oakbrook Terrace, IL 60181; tel. 312-495-2000. (Received July 1986, from Gilbert E. Gordon of Cameroon Baptist Theological Seminary, P. 0. Box 44, NDU, NW Prov., Republic of Cameroon, West Africa. Gil didn't say anything about having to speak French, so instruction must be in English.-Ed.)

METROPOLITAN NEW YORK

The section's fall meeting will be held at Nyack College in Nyack, New York, on Saturday, 15 November 1986. Featured speaker will be Gary /. Allen, neurophysiologist and founder of the Christian Mission for the United Nations Community. A 3 p.m. lecture on "Developing an Idea into an Action: Neuronal Problems and Mechanisms" will focus on problems the human brain faces in organizing and executing a skilled movement, drawing in part on Gary's own single-neuron recordings from monkeys and cats. After dinner, a 7 p.m. lecture asking "Would God Waste a Scientist on Full-Time Christian Work?" will focus on Gary's current work at the U.N. and his perspective on the various roles of scientists in God's economy.

Gary Allen graduated in electrical engineering from Cornell, received a Ph.D. in neurophysiology at SUNY Buffalo, and stayed at Buffalo's School of Medicine to work with Nobel Laureate Sir John Eccles, a worldrenowned brain scientist. When Eccles left Buffalo, Allen succeeded him as director of the Laboratory of Neurobiology, training many international scholars in that field. He published some 30 papers before resigning his position in 1976 to serve in Christian ministry to international visitors to the United States. That work led to the establishment in 1938 of the U.N. ministry which Gary shares with his wife Elaine.

Charles R. Boardman should be on hand for the 1986 ASA ANNUAL MEETING in COLORADO SPRINGS next August. This fall he begins a Master's program in mechanical engineering at Colorado State in Fort Collins. Concerned for Christian community and environmental stewardship, Charles will study solar engineering. He has a B.A. in physics from Grinnell College in Iowa (1982) and an M.A. in theological studies from Gordon-Conwell Seminary (1985). He joined ASA while in seminary, attending meetings of the New England local section before returning to the midwest. Last year Charles served as assistant to director Calvin DeWitt at Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies near Mancelona, Michigan. At Au Sable he helped plan and set up new courses for students from evangelical colleges in such areas as ecology, field biology, land & water resources, and environmental studies.

Richard L. Bowman has become chair of the Dept. of Physics at Bridgewater College in Bridgewater, Virginia. The Bowmans had already moved from Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania and were hunting for a Mennonite church when we heard from Richard. He has been doing theoretical work on interpreting circular dichroism spectra and has now begun to use the synchrotron light sources at Brookhaven and Wisconsin to probe molecular structure with CID spectroscopy.

Richard H. Bube of Stanford University spent a spring quarter sabbatical in Germany and Switzerland. In April Dick worked with two groups doing solar cell research at the Institute for Physical Electronics at the U. of Stuttgart. He and Betty experienced the coldest April 12 recorded in Stuttgart in the past 100 years. In May and June Dick worked with a group on amorphous silicon solar cells and gave a course on "Photovoltaic Materials and Devices" at the Institute for Microtechnique at the U. of Neuchatel. Reine, wife of ASA member Johan Ramon, translated Dick's sermon on "Fools for Christ" into French, enabling him to preach on June 1 to the local Evangelical Free Church on "Fous, 6 Cause du Christ." Ending his 11-year position as chair of Stanford's Dept. of Materials Science & Engineering on August 31, Dick hopes to start a major research effort on hydrogenated amorphous silicon.

Rodney D . Ice has accepted the position of vice-president and director of the research laboratory for Eagle Picher Industries, Inc., in Miami, Oklahoma. A pharmacologist, Rodney has left the narrower world of academic nuclear medicine for new challenges. Still occupied with isotope production and utilization, he now administers research programs in materials science (boron, organometallics, etc.), semiconductors (crystal growth, device fabrication), and analytics (a contract laboratory).

Richard 1. McNeely of Missoula, Montana, completed his Ph.D. in higher education at the U. of Southern California in May 1986. Richard's dissertation was on "The Widmar [1981] Decision and the Status of Religious Liberty on the Public University Campus"

R. Waldo Roth is a professor in the Information Sciences Dept. of Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. This summer the Children's Education Group (CHEDS) of Wycliffe Bible Translators spent three weeks at Taylor, where Wally helped them develop curriculum materials and "freeware" (public domain software) for use by Wycliffe children living in remote areas. Wally's department recently received a major grant to purchase a T.I. Explorer computer for expert systems development using a state-of-the-art software system ("ART"). The department is active in academic and industrial applications of simulation, graphics, robot vision, and robotics. Wally says they would like to find external funding and software support to develop an experimental systems analysis laboratory.

David L. Swift is a Ph.D. in chemical engineering who has been on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene & Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, since 1966, currently in the Dept. of Environmental Health Sciences. This fall he begins a one-year sabbatical to work on respirator fluid mechanics and particle deposition at Denmark's National Institute of Occupational Health in Copenhagen. While there he would be glad to get in touch with any ASA members or other Christians in science (address: Nyharn 18, DK-1051, Copenhagen K, Denmark). The Swifts hope to do some traveling in Scandinavia and David will attend scientific meetings in Austria and Berlin. He is also collaborating with a group in Harwell, England, on studies of radioactive deposition as a result of the Chernobyl accident and his interest in radon.

Richard A. Szucs has begun a four-year residency in radiology at Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. He received his M.D. degree from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 1982 and has just completed three years with the National Health Service Corps doing primary care. Richard worked with one other family practitioner in a small community health care center on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 40 miles from the nearest hospital.