Hello to everyone (especially those I have not seen for 50 years), who will be attending the reunion.

I just managed to spend some time with Mike eliastam in Boston, and we cameup with some thoughts about . how to keep everyone amused over three days, before our official dinner in February.Mary Hodkinson has added some aditional good thoughts, and Mike Belman has browbeaten me into adopting the website as THE site ofcommunication for the reunion.

Firstly, I thought of collecting some demographics from you 

• What is (was) your field of medicine?
•  In which countries have you lived during your career?
•  Where are you currently living?
• Number of children/grandchildren?
•  Your spouse- her career and influence on your career path.
• Which people from Wits most influenced your career?
• What would you do if you had to start over again?

Mary has stressed a point I totally agree with, that the most important part of our time during these three days will be to get to know each other. Fifty years is ,after all, quite a time to catch up on. So we should ensure that bus time will be used to mix seating so people are forced to sit next to different people at least every hour. If two of you find you have nothing to talk about, it's also OK....

I think we should all think back to the really crazy experiences they remember (e.g. Paul Gottlieb eating the ox eye), and be ready to tell, as well as maybe some parodies reminding ourselves of our tachers, memorable and others......

Soooo.....I am going to send this as a test message to see if it reaches only reunion yeahs and maybes.Please reply to the demographic questions so I can get some idea of if this communication reaches you, and more important, if you will respond...????

And try to get us into using this website for communication.

Cheers  Basil

Great post.

One idea from my wife Lorna is to consider a session on "Practice of Medicine where you Live". By looking at the map on the Home Page you will see that we are on 4 continents and several countries. Many of us have lived abroad for a long time. May be interesting for a representative from each country to provide an introduciton. Area to include could be racitce environment, medical schools and teaching, impressions of local students and training programs, physician competence, etc.

I think others have suggested a local expert talk on the "Future of Medicine in South Africa"

Look forward to seeing other posts. 

To help with HR program discussions, the current plan for Wednesday afternoon after we return from HR by noon,  is a  seminar starting at 4PM. First speaker(s) to discuss healthcare in RSA or JHB or at Wits.

This to be followed by one hour session to honor our classmates who have passed away. One idea is to ask for volunteers amongst us to  give a brief 'life review' of individual classmates.  After this we will go to refreshments and gala dinner where Professor Veller, the dean will be the  after-dinner speaker.