American Dreams, Still Alive

There is an old adage "Like father, like son". My father and I do indeed share many similarities - for example, our physical characteristics are eerily similar - same height, same shoe size. Fortunately for me, my father had impeccable taste in clothing. Over the years, I "borrowed" quite a few of my father's sport jackets - each one holds a special place in my heart. Every time I see, touch or wear one of them, I wonder what my father was doing or the people he was meeting while wearing them. We also both chose to devote our professional lives to gastroenterology. In 2015, I was honored with an invitation to deliver the David Sun Memorial Lecture at the Annual Meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology. As I reviewed the list of distinguished gastroenterologists who had spoken before me, I was surprised and humbled to see that my father had also given the David Sun Lecture in 1987. It was fun to share this story with the audience at the start of the talk though I didn't tell them the origin of the perfectly fitting sport coat I was wearing.