Physician Takes a Lease on Farley Hall 1966-1971

In 1966, Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld saw a newspaper ad for a place to rent in a Berkeley newspaper, dialed the phone number for his initial inquiry, and eventually rented Farley Hall on the campus of Williams College. Farley Hall was a building once used to house the English department at Williams College, and Gene remained in residence there from 1966-1971. Dr. John W. Hopkins was Gene Schoenfeld's landlord during that period.

Dr. Schoenfeld is an iconic figure from the sixties who continues his work and publishes to this day. A graduate of U.C. Berkeley, Schoenfeld early in his career worked with Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Gabon, Africa in 1960, served as a Ship's Surgeon for the American Lines in 1964, after which he settled in the Bay Area to continue his practice. He remains a highly respected and much beloved figure certainly for Bay Area residents.

Dr. Schoenfeld's column on health matters was first published in the Berkeley Barb c.1967, and his Dr. HIP Pocrates column soon appeared regularly in the San Francisco Chronicle, before being nationally syndicated. Schoenfeld's column remained in print steadily from 1967-1973 and was revitalized 1978-1979.

As an early claim to radio fame, Dr. Schoenfeld appeared first on the hip underground radio station KMPX (Jive-95) founded by Tom "Big Daddy" Donahue c. 1967. Dr. Schoenfeld was one of the first, if not the first, doctors to answer call-in questions live on the air. Gene continued with his broadcasts when the radio station moved up the dial to become KSAN, and soon he was broadcasting weekly (1971-1972). Everyone, but everyone, in the Bay Area and beyond knew Gene Schoenfeld as "Dr. Hip".

(Eugene Schoenfeld, M.D. Resume
http://www.eugeneschoenfeld.com/resume.html
Retrieved: 7.15.11

On March 7, 1969, Dr. Hip was featured in Time magazine in which he outlined his concerns:

"Why does he write his ill-paying column? Someone, he feels, should minister to the barricade brigade's medical ignorance, and "the best approach to any serious problem must be education." Now Grove Press has published a collection of his columns called Dear Doctor HIPpocrates — Advice Your Family Doctor Never Gave You. Yet Schoenfeld, at 33, has no desire to rise above the underground, 'where I don't have to censor my material.' Instead, from his ramshackle little bachelor home in the Berkeley hills, he continues his public-health work and the column for the sense of fulfillment it brings."

(Note to Time: Farley Hall was hardly a "ramshackle little bachelor home in the Berkeley Hills", but I guess that's how you preferred to write about anything to do with "hippies" or "the underground" at the time.)

(http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,839789,00.html
Retrieved 7.24.11

Here is a recent online television interview, where Gene talks about the golden years of the '60s and working with Dr. Schweitzer at his famed leper hospital in Lambaréné.

I remember that Dr. Schoenfeld always had a large photograph of Albert Schweitzer, obviously clipped from a newspaper, tacked on his bulletin board at Farley Hall.

The memory of Albert Schweitzer continues to inspire and be held dear, as this one statement about him best shows: "Schweitzer, however, considered his ethic of Reverence for Life, not his Hospital, his most important legacy, saying that his Lambaréné Hospital was just 'my own improvisation on the theme of Reverence for Life. Everyone can have their own Lambaréné.'" 1]

1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Schweitzer
Retrieved: 7.24.11

http://www.archive.org/details/JonHammondDr.Hippocrates_EugeneSchoenfeld_akaDr.HiponHammondCastKYOURADIO
Retrieved: 7.24.11


(Photo of Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld by Alvan Meyerowitz, 2009)
(Photo of Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Lambaréné, Gabon, Africa, 1960 by Marilyn Silverstone)
http://www.magnumphotos.com/Catalogue/Marilyn-Silverstone/1960/GABON-Dr-Albert-SCHWEITZER-NN132056.html
Retrieved 7.24.11