Early in my second year at the NIH I had a call from Hermann Blumgart, my chief at Beth Israel Hospital, who told me that he, he was organizing a program in medical oncology at the hospital and invited me to come back to... to take charge. I had no background in oncology, but he, and he knew that, but suggested that he'd be tolerant during my learning. Actually, my laboratory... my lab... one of my laboratory partners at the NIH was Henry Kaplan who was on sabbatical from his position as Chairman of the Department of Radiology at Stanford and one of the world's experts in the treatment of cancer by radiation. He introduced me to Alfred Gellhorn who, at that time, was the director of the Francis Delafield Hospital, the cancer hospital at Columbia Presbyterian in New York. I described to Alfred my dilemma. I was about to go back to Boston to organize an oncology program and I knew no oncology. What could he... how could he help me? He was obviously, and is, a very giving man. He has since become one of my very closest friends. And he suggested that I come to New York and that he would teach me what he knows, so I said, 'Well, I'm leaving here in Bethesda in June, shall I indicate to the people in, at, in Boston that I'll be away for six months?' He roared with laughter, and he said, 'Six months! I... I don't know how you'd spend six months with me. Why don't you plan on coming for a week, I'll teach you all I know'. So, I did spend a week with Alfred at the Delafield Hospital. I didn't learn all that he knows, but I did get some confidence, and went then back to Beth Israel Hospital where I organized a clinical program in oncology, and set up a laboratory where I continued the work that I had begun with... with Bernie Horecker.