Interview for Plastic Surgery News
The seeds of art Jeffrey Rosenthal, MD, Fairfield, Conn. Chief of Plastic Surgery at Bridgeport Hospital, always marched to the beat of his own drum, creating things that were beyond the ken of his then-young classmates. “I recall that in social studies class I had a project that involved the explorers Lewis and Clark. I made a big relief map instead of just a drawing,” he recalls. “ Later, in biology class, I drew a picture of the human body, which always fascinated me, and used a pump and plastic tubing to show how fluid coursed through the veins. In another course, I made an incandescent bulb out of a glass jar, wire and transformer.”
“I really enjoyed black-and–white photography and then developing and printing the images in a inspired way, while in college. In medical school, I decided that I wanted to learn how to draw with pen and ink, so I bought pen and paper. During one psychiatry class I was drawing an Oriental couple with an umbrella. The instructor walked by, looked at it and smiled. He didn’t bother me about it, I was lucky it was a psych. professor,’ Dr. Rosenthal says. “
I was always creative in doing things, but not in the standardized prosaic form of art such as drawing, painting or creating music. Even in my earlier years, I remember sitting for hours, creating things with blocks, just designing, and using my imagination kept me enthralled,” he adds.
