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SKMC Alumni Bulletin
Read the Original Article Featuring Elliot J. Rayfield, MD ’67

Elliot J. Rayfield, MD ’67

Career-wise, where has life taken you? Is it what you expected to do when you were a student, or did you change your trajectory sometime in medical school or afterward? If so, what inspired you to change? Did you take an interesting path to where you are now, and if so, what was that path?

EJR: Jefferson opened doors for me for internal medicine residency training at the University of Michigan Hospital, an endocrinology fellowship at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, and a research internist position studying the viral etiology of diabetes at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID).

During the Vietnam War when I was doing my fellowship training at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (now Brigham and Women’s Hospital), I received a call from the Army telling me that I could not complete my two-year fellowship, but instead would be required to start my Army tour of duty the following July. I was offered the opportunity to take on a three-year research position. I was posted to the USAMRIID, part of Walter Reed Medical Center, in Frederick, Maryland. This was an incredible experience, allowing me to do basic and clinical research on infection-carbohydrate metabolism interrelationships along with other MDs, PhDs, and veterinarians. I was able to complete my fellowship training there, including taking my board examinations. This unrivaled experience was responsible for me receiving my first academic position as an assistant professor of medicine and the first full-time faculty member in diabetes at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 1974. 

Now in semiretirement, I have been able to give back to the medical college by chairing the Class Agent Cabinet starting in April 2021. The Class Agents are a liaison for each class at Jeff to the Alumni Association and the medical college to keep all informed about events on campus as well as educational and social activities. While this program was disbanded in 2006 through 2008, we have successfully recruited from 17 to 81 Class Agents in less than one year. It has been a great experience meeting grateful alums from many classes who are excited to engage their classmates in the events at the medical college. I am also currently serving on the Jefferson Institutional Advancement Committee of the Board of Trustees.

How did your Jefferson education help you achieve your goals as a physician?

EJR: The education that I received at Jefferson was extremely thorough and covered every field of medicine, both from a basic and clinical point of view. I felt that based on this training, I, or any graduate, could select any path that I wanted—clinical, teaching, basic research, or clinical research, all the way up to being the dean of a medical school. The sky is the limit for what you can do with a Jefferson education. As an example, when I was a child, my camp counselor, Sheldon Gilgore, was a Jefferson student and went on to become the CEO of Pfizer pharmaceutical. In addition, one of my classmates, Dr. Steven Slogoff, became the dean of the Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University in Chicago. I became a full professor of medicine and was elected into the American Society of Clinical Investigation by age 40.

What is your fondest memory of your medical school and training days?

EJR: I remember fondly the chair of microbiology, Dr. Kenneth Goodner, known as K.G. It probably was the quality of his teaching, but I excelled in that course, and later in my research career, I worked on viral models of diabetes and the metabolic response to infection.

I remember as a second-year student being in a small group learning how to do venipuncture for the first time. We had to practice drawing blood on each other. A PhD student asked me and my classmate Dr. Edward Sorr if either of us had ever drawn blood from patients. I said, “No.” Dr. Sorr said, “Not from patients, but I drew blood from monkeys.” Whereupon the student said, “OK, I’ll take the one who drew the blood from the monkeys.”