Last Lecture: UCSF Neurobiologist Shares Personal Journey, Life Lessons
STORY:
http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2014/04/113896/neurobiologist-shares-personal-journey-life-lessons-annual-last-lecture
Igor Mitrovic, MD, arrived at the
JFK airport in
New York on Dec. 24,
1991, a refugee from a country that was sliding into chaos.
Just out of medical school, he had come to join his wife. But he looked young and spoke broken
English, and a customs agent didn't believe he was a doctor or that he was married.
They were about to send him back, when another agent passed by, smiled broadly and said, "Oh, man, let him go!
It's Christmas Eve!"
So began Mitrovic's unlikely journey from
Yugoslavia, where he grew up in a small
Croatian town wanting to be a family physician, to
UC San Francisco, where he became a respected neurobiologist and a beloved teacher.