Not so simple
His time in America has been positively tranquil compared to the lifetime he lived through in Eastern Europe. Born in Hungary, Dr. Kaley longed for a medical career to follow in the footsteps of his father, a noted otolaryngologist and university professor. The Nazis triggered a gruesome interruption in those plans by sending him to Bor, a concentration camp in Yugoslavia where only 600 of the 6000 inmates survived hard labor in the mines and on the railroad, he relates. By war's end, Dr. Kaley had escaped the Nazis on a forced march to Germany and spent several weeks as a Yugoslavian partisan under Tito. Having crossed to the Russian side, he finally made his way to Romania and then Budapest, his home.
"Some of my close relatives died in Auschwitz and others were sent to Bergen Belsen, but miraculously, all of my immediate family survived," Dr. Kaley says in voice so low, the listener feels his reluctance to remind the gods of his good fortune. After returning to Budapest, he completed two years of medical school at Pazmany University, followed by a third year at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany. Then came a decision that may have made him what he is today. Certain that his future lay in America and able to wrangle a visa to the U.S., he boarded a ship alone and nearly penniless, rather than finishing school in Europe. But with no way to come up with records, Dr. Kaley was not accepted to any American medical school.
Ph.D. instead
He turned to college instead, and after receiving a B.S. in biology at Columbia University (1950), was drafted into the U.S. Army during the Korean War. A severe knee injury left him with something to remember, but in the end, the Army was his salvation. Dr. Kaley used the GI Bill to earn an M.S. in physiology from New York University and a Ph.D. in experimental pathology. Although his post-doc fellowship at NYU had been in pathology, he decided that a career in physiology was the better choice.
This is how Edward Messina, Ph.D., '73, professor of physiology and one of Kaley's first students, feels about his chairman: "Gabe Kaley has been my teacher, mentor, boss and friend for over 30 years. He is a remarkable person in many ways. Most people don't know what he had to overcome when he first arrived in the United States with less than $20 in his pocket. His instinct for science and his dedication to purpose have all contributed to his successes as a person and scientist. Those who know him well are not surprised that at this stage in his life he is one of the most distinguished physiologists in the United States."
Ah, but does he regret not finishing medical school? Shaking his head to reinforce the right answer he replies, "There are satisfactions derived through a long career in science that far outweigh what I imagine I would have accomplished as an M.D. The pressures now in science are greater than ever. Remaining creative is a full-time job and I relish it. As my biochemistry teacher Albert Szentgyorgyi, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine said, 'A good scientist has to see what everybody sees and think what nobody else has thought'"
"How a problem is solved depends on the talent and style of the scientist. History is made by prominent people, and science advances the same way-through individual accomplishments. Nobody knows what will happen in the foreseeable future. Everything is possible, and anything that can be done will be done. For my generation the great sorrow is only that we won't see the great advances that will undoubtedly be made."
In the meantime, life treats Dr. Kaley well and so do his colleagues. It is common knowledge that the entire faculty in physiology returns like bees to the department conference room with provisions at lunchtime. Speculation put forth by outsiders ranges from snobbishness to just wanting to please Dr. Kaley. The real reason is, according to good authority, they just like having lunch together. What a nice reflection on the chief who finessed it that way.