The MacArthurs: Daniel, ’10, Peter, ’11,
Alexander, ’09, and mother Dorothy Hsiao, ’75

When Dorothy Hsiao graduated from Maryland in 1975 she knew it would always hold a special place in her heart. Yet even she could not predict that some day not one, not two, but all three of her children would attend her alma mater—at the same time.

Alex, the oldest, is in the class of 2009; Dan, the youngest, is in the class of 2010; and Peter, the middle son, will graduate in 2011. “To have three here at one time is very unusual, I’m certain,” says Hsiao. “We’re just so pleased that they are all true friends; it’s just wonderful.”

Sharing their medical school experience wasn’t something that the boys, who use their father’s surname, MacArthur, had planned to do. Alex, who has an undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, worked in engineering for four years. Peter, who has an undergraduate degree from Tufts University in Boston, also worked for four years before turning his attention to medicine. Dan, who has an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Brown University in Rhode Island, admits that “medicine was always in the back of my mind, so I did all the pre-med classes. Fortunately there was a lot of overlap between pre-med and chemical engineering; so it wasn’t that hard,” he reveals. “But then I worked for a year in Boston doing immunology research.”

His path was similar to the one his mother followed. “It’s really ironic how certain things play out,” Hsiao admits. “I graduated from Cornell, and I really didn’t want to get a PhD; I couldn’t see myself doing research, and I was not interested in law. So I thought maybe medicine. I applied to a few medical schools, but it was very late; so that didn’t work out. So I thought I’d go and do some work in medicine and see if I even liked it. And I ended up working in immunology in Boston.”

In those days, it was much more unusual for students to have worked in between undergraduate and medical school. “I felt that I was different from a lot of my classmates, having had that life experience for two years,” confesses Hsiao. “It made me very much appreciate the purpose of why I was here.”

That purpose was to make a difference in her patients’ lives, something she felt pediatrics would help her do best. “I felt the futility of interviewing a 65-year old man with asthma who’d been smoking his entire life and saying, ‘You really have to stop smoking if you want to get better,’ and knowing that wasn’t going to happen,” she explains. “I thought the way to really have an impact was to start when they were young, when I could influence them and influence the parents through their children.”

She admits, though, she had little influence when it came to her sons’ educational pursuits. “I was shocked they all chose medicine, because none of them were really pre-med when they were in college, but I’m thrilled that they came to Maryland,” she admits.

Adds Alex, “I actually think if my mom had pushed us to go to Maryland we would have been less likely to go,” he says with a laugh. That independent thinking extends to the boys’ choices of specialties, which don’t include following mom into pediatrics. Alex is pursuing residencies in radiology and hopes to be able to stay in Baltimore, where he and his wife have made their home. Dan has been intrigued by his clinical rotation in neurology, but says it’s too early yet to know what specialty he’ll end up practicing. The same goes for Peter, although he has a strong interest in emergency medicine.
No matter what path the three young men choose to follow, it’s a sure bet they will remain close. Not only are they currently sharing the medical school experience, they’re also all sharing a home, with Peter and Dan renting rooms from Alex and his wife. “She has a heart of gold,” Hsiao says of her daughter-in-law. “She had no idea what she was getting into,” jokes Peter.

Aside from sharing clothes and books, the brothers also pass around advice on surviving the grind of medical school. “If they say I don’t need to know such and such for the step one exam of the boards, I won’t concentrate as much on it,” admits Peter. “It definitely helps.”

Dan says that another advantage is “I know pretty much everyone in the school, even if I actually don’t know them, because they think they know me,” he says with a laugh, explaining that he often gets mistaken for Peter and sometimes Alex. “It can be great for a conversation.”

Another thing the brothers share is a love of sports, playing together on intramural football and basketball teams. “This is the workout generation now,” says Hsiao. “We did not work out when I was in medical school. We were too exhausted. Our workout was running to class. Exercise was not something anybody talked about at that time. So the fact that they have all these wonderful facilities they’re building for the students, like the new gym, is great. Because doctors have to be role models for their patients. Not being obese, not smoking, getting regular exercise and eating well are all things that if doctors can’t do them, why should their patients? That’s another big difference from when I was here. They have a lot of facilities now for the students, not just lecture rooms.”

The diversity of the students is another thing that has changed greatly since Hsiao’s time here. “I think my class was ten percent women,” she recalls.

“Now it’s 55 percent or something like that,” says Alex. “On top of that, there are also many more minorities in the school. There’s a much richer diversity of people and backgrounds; a lot more people, as my mom was saying before, come from different experiences. At least half my class didn’t come straight out of college. Obviously, the technology is also a big change.”

It certainly is. While Hsiao and her classmates scribbled notes down on paper during their hours and hours of lectures and strained their eyes studying glass slides under microscopes, now “everybody gets a laptop, all the lectures are on powerpoint; so if you miss a day of lectures it’s really not a big deal because you can watch the lectures at your leisure over and over again,” explains Peter.

Hsiao couldn’t be prouder of the progress her alma mater has made and the way her children have been able to take advantage of it. “The Medical School serves the state well,” she says. “I don’t know what percentage of students stay in the state, but I know I’ve spent all my career in the Maryland area (she and husband Charles live in Bethesda). The school’s focus on personal integrity, moral values, contact with patients and service comes through very strongly, in addition to the excellent medical education and training they provide. It’s just a really great medical school.”