IT was undoubtedly a coincidence that I graduated from medical school in 1957-the same year that Alick Isaacs and Jean Lindenmann published their first papers on interferon.1 That I graduated from medical school at all was a coincidence, too; had I not been growing up in the then communist Czechoslovakia, I very likely would have chosen a different field of study. In high school (called "gymnasium" in central Europe), I liked humanities-oriented subjects better than chemistry and math. Besides, my mother was an ophthalmologist, my parents wanted me to become a physician, and I was not inclined to choose a career that would please my parents! I enjoyed creative writing, and for many years, I had been thinking of becoming a journalist. When during my senior year at the gymnasium I had to make a final decision about what studies I would choose, however, my resolve not to become a physician began to weaken. Journalism in communist Czechoslovakia was a profession reserved to party loyalists. Law and economics were also highly politicized fields and not a good fit for the son of bourgeois parents. So, one day before the deadline, I completed my application to the Comenius University School of Medicine in my hometown of Bratislava. My parents were delighted.
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