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Married Bathea Majus in 1976 aftergraduating from Wits as a doctor. Had 2 children Larry and Ian. Since then I bacame a nephrologist while working at Wits Medical School. Bathea is a Social Worker and has numerous other degrees. We left SA in 1992 and I worked at the University of Arizona till 2007 in the nephrology division. I ran the Kidney Pancreas Transplant Program before moving to the East Bay so the bathea could take on the postion as head of school for a Jewish day school called Tehiya. I now work for University of California San Francisco in the Division of Nephrology.
Larry has become a Philosopher and has decided to quit academia. He and his wife live with us for now until they can find jobs close by. Ian Live in Chicago and works for Walgreen?s in their head office.
For relaxation I play golf and mess around with clay modeling among other thing. Spend a lot of time on the internet reading daily news and such like. Don?t get to read to much outside of the medical literature.School
My Bio
I arrived here with my whole family (4 of us) in 1992. My plan was to immigrate to the USA, leaving SA behind for several reasons. I was 40 at the time and was very happy with my life in SA but realized I could not bring up my 2 boys in SA and expect them to be normal. Although we thought we were giving them good examples in terms of race relations we had clearly failed. In addition prospects for young white people were uncertain and I wanted them to have every chance of success in their futures.
I to did not want to practice medicine taking care of loads of HIV pos patients. There were other reasons as well.
We tried to assess our prospects in several countries including Israel, Canada, England and Australia and ended up choosing USA where we thought that our prospects were the best.
I was able to move here with a H1B visa, making the transition to the green card a whole lot easier. Essentially the process went according to clockwork as did my progression through acclimatization to American medicine. I have always enjoyed nephrology and working in an academic environment. I have known nothing else and have no regrets. I enjoy working with students and residents and of course our fellows. UCSF is a big step up from the University of Arizona and I am surrounded by a lot of exceptionally talented physicians and researcher. It is a pleasure working with them. I am participating in research projects and in fact am the PI of all of them. I did not have that opportunity in Arizona.
Having said all of that, I am still a SA at heart and have a typical SA mentality. I miss the country and take every excuse to visit. Never miss a simcha and unfortunately loss of family and friends.
Coming to America was my big emancipation and an enormous growing experience. I changed overnight and grew up for the first time getting out from under the protective wing of my Dad and Brother. I became independent and that was a great experience for me. I became fully responsible for all my actions, no one to go to for help. In SA my Dad and Brother took care of everything for me.
I am very appreciative for everything America has given me but I don?t love it like I love SA. The longer I stay here the more comfortable I become with Americans. I think in some weird way being a foreigner gives me an advantage. Americans are infatuated with foreigners. There is no doubt that I have become more comfortable and confident around Americans. I still like the company of South Africans though. Funnily enough I sense other South Africans are like me. Obviously I don?t make friends with every SA I meet but we certainly connect without any trouble.