Rounds NEWS FROM AMERICA’S BEST MEDICAL SOCIETY
the upper Mojave Desert — which was close enough to California’s wine coun- try to allow him to visit when on week- end leave and develop an appreciation of good wine — he’s been in Houston ever since.
Now better known as neonatologist Michael Speer, MD, he’s added the title of president of the Texas Medical Associ- ation, becoming the association’s 147th president at TexMed 2012 last month in Dallas. Taking the oath of office capped a lengthy career of involvement in TMA, which included service as chair of the TMA Board of Trustees and the Council on Scientific Affairs. Dr. Speer visited with Texas Medicine shortly before taking office.
Texas Medicine: What sparked your in- terest in medicine as a profession?
Michael Speer, MD, is TMA’s new president. From Swami’s to medicine
When young Mike Speer asked his family’s California physicians to suggest a medical school, their answers shocked him. “They recommended Baylor College of Medicine. How they heard about Baylor I have no earthly idea.” Taking their suggestion wasn’t easy for a third-generation Californian who grew up in a little beach community near San Diego and who spent much of his youth on a surfboard at Swami’s Beach, which the Beach Boys made famous in “Surfin’ USA” in 1963. “I had never been east of California and, frankly, I had no desire to.” He put aside his hesitancy, however, and looked into Baylor. It so happened Bay-
lor was trying to overcome its reputation as a regional medical school and increase its national profile and impact at the time. And after an interview with the school’s dean, he and four of his Occidental College premed classmates headed to Baylor. Ex- cept for service during 1970–72 as a physician at a naval weapons testing center in
Dr. Speer: I was interested in science. I’m a Sputnik kid. I started off in college as a chemistry major, but calculus and I didn’t get along so I switched majors to biology. I looked around at how you can you make a living as a biologist, and the options were limited. Medicine was about the only thing, so I changed from biology to biology premed. I knew I could support my family. My parents and grandparents lived through the De- pression, and the value of anything was heightened. When you grow up in a fam- ily like that, you want to have a job that you can either work with your hands or work with your brain. I grew up with the mindset that I did not want to have a profession that I couldn’t use or be employed no matter what the circum-
June 2012 TEXAS MEDICINE 7
JIM LINCOLN
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