Louisville Medicine Volume 66, Issue 7 | Page 37

could go as someone’s guest but not as myself,” he said. “Eventually, they would move meetings to the Seelbach, and I could enter freely. But, these instances were still too common.” Despite the prejudices he faced, Dr. Weiss studied enough history to know that his struggle wasn’t the first and would not be the last. “There will always be a long way to go. That’s human nature,” he explained. “It’s part of my persona that we each have an obligation as a citizen and as a human being; you can’t worry about color, race or religion. To that, I’ve tried to lead my life in a way that has been open and honest.” The conflict between his responsibility to himself and the de- mands of a society he doesn’t always agree with came to a head in 1967, when Dr. Weiss was drafted to be a physician in the US Army. “I got drafted on Christmas Day when President Johnson bombed Hanoi. He drafted 780 doctors including me. I was totally opposed to the war in Vietnam. I believed for a while I’d be one of the doc- tors to move to Canada, but I enlisted. I had a two, a four, and a six-year-old. We moved to Williamsburg, Va., where I worked at the McDonald Army Hospital for two years.” After his service, Dr. Weiss returned to Louisville to continue his practice in 1970. His life was changing fast. He was a bachelor once again, as well as a father of three boys and an esteemed car- diologist. He became the Department of Medicine Chairman for Jewish Hospital and a consultant for the Mayor’s Medical Advisory Council. In addition, he chose to pursue new and exciting interests outside of his established career. “I realized I was going to be a boring cardiologist, and I was tired of “Doc-tail” parties. Around that time, I attended an archaeology lecture at the Speed Art Museum. It fascinated me, and I started to study,” he said. Dr. Weiss called an archaeology professor in Missouri and convinced the professor to take him to Poggioreale, Sicily for a dig. “I told him, ‘I’ll go as a grunt. It won’t cost you a penny.’ He agreed and turned out to become a close friend. We went on several digs together over the years.” Archaeology became a major passion for Dr. Weiss, and he spent about 15 summers visiting historic sites along the Mediterranean Sea. He would go on to serve as vice president of the Kentucky Ar- chaeology Association and even briefly sat on the board of directors for the American Institute of Archaeology. Back in Louisville, Dr. Weiss served on numerous boards supporting social work in the community including the Jefferson County Medical Society Civic Affairs Committee, many medical staff committees and the Physicians for Social Responsibility. He is a longstanding member of the Innominate Society, a group devoted to the history of medicine. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of the practice of medicine in Kentucky over the last 150 (continued on page 36) DECEMBER 2018 35