Now that he had found his professional home and knew clearly where he was headed, Arnie had to struggle to pay for it. His parents helped with what they could and he worked his butt off night and day, while in undergraduate school. He started out working for the fraternity as their supply man, ordering and keeping track of food and other materials. In his senior year he worked full time as a psychiatric attendant at the state mental hospital for about seventy-five cents an hour. He worked the 3 pm to 11 pm shift and occasionally the night shift (11 pm to 7 am). There were times he did doubles, working from 3 in the afternoon all the way through the night until 7 in the morning, then attended classes from 8 am until noon, went back to work that same day from 3 pm until 11 pm and finally crashing that night for sleep.
In those days, early to late sixties, the state hospitals only had one RN (Registered Nurse) for 150 patients during the evening and night shifts. Due to this dangerous and obviously inadequate staffing, they made Arnie, a senior pre-med student, the ward nurse for the main admitting unit of the psychiatric hospital. In a year’s time he learned to give injections, pass meds, dress wounds and yes, he also helped with bedpans and urinals. In order to pass the medications he immersed himself in the study of pharmacology and became familiar with doses, counter-indications and combinations of drugs. “I believe every doctor should have that kind of experience,” he says, “providing individuals with hands-on care, before they complete their medical studies and call themselves doctors.”
By the time he started his freshman year at the University Of Cincinnati School Of Medicine, he had saved enough to not have to work the first year. It is during the first year of medical school that many students make it or crash and burn. He had been wise to be able to direct all of his attention during that time to medicine.
In his sophomore year Arnie became the medical student in residence at the Children’s Psychiatric Institute in Cincinnati. He became an employee of the Department of Psychiatry for three years, throughout the remaining days of medical school. His sophomore year as a student in residence saw him living at the Children’s Institute with about fourteen children, most of who were diagnosed as autistic. He lived, ate and slept at the institute and was on call for the night nurse if there was any trouble with one of the kids. He was responsible for eight of the children every day at breakfast and dinner. The position covered his room and board at school, but it didn’t cover him attending classes, which he still had to do daily.
In the 1960s the University Of Cincinnati Department Of Psychiatry was one of the premier psychiatry departments in the country. It had the largest psychiatric residency program in the nation and one of the top-notch Freudian psychiatrists of the time, Maurice Levine. Aspiring physicians at the University Of Cincinnati School Of Medicine had four years of psychiatry, regardless of their specialty. Arnie Leff recalls a number of “fascinating” lectures by Dr. Levine that “would hold up today regardless of one’s psychiatric training or psychotherapeutic persuasion.”
His senior year at medical school was filled with opportunity. He and some other senior students worked at a rural hospital in Dayton, Kentucky. They were the docs for a 95 bed hospital and did “everything an intern would do” even though they weren’t yet interns. There was no legal precedent for such practice, but no illegal one either.
Even though Arnie was provided room and board from the Department of Psychiatry, he still had to pay for tuition. As in the past, the Civil Air Patrol came to the rescue.
When Arnie moved to Cincinnati he transferred to the Civil Air Patrol in that area and converted from a cadet to a senior officer. He would attend rabbinical school during the week then trade his Yamika for an Air Force cap on the weekend. In the summers he did a two week officer’s training course for all the Civil Air Patrol cadet officers at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, Ohio. They were up and coming officers, who were only three to four years his junior in age. He was the equivalent of a drill sergeant for this elite officer core of cadets and taught them military tradition, leadership skills and search and rescue missions. When Arnie was approaching his senior year in medical school and realized he’d be running short in funds, he applied for a $1500.00 national scholarship from the Civil Air Patrol, of which only one was given throughout the country. He won the scholarship and made it through his final year in medical school without owing a penny.
Dr. Arnold Leff graduated from medical school in July of 1967 and started his residency in internal medicine. He completed his first year internship in 1968. They let him skip his second year of general training and go directly into his third year pharmacology specialty. It was during that fellowship year when things “started getting crazy” and he had time to take advantage of his fellowship by not being on call every night, even though he moonlighted in emergency rooms to both learn and make extra cash (about $25.00 a night). “I learned a hell of a lot during that year. Working in the emergency rooms really toned me up as a doctor. It was very challenging.”
By the time he had finished his extensive medical internship he was living on the third floor of the Cincinnati General Hospital administration building. He rotated through every section of the hospital, including an emergency room that saw 400 people a day. It was essentially the county trauma center of the time and was the last stop for people with nowhere else to go. He was making $3,600 a year, plus room and board. He ate there, slept there and pursued his love interests there. The Summer of Love in the Haight Asbury of San Francisco had made its way to Cincinnati, Ohio by 1968 and Dr. Leff was not immune to its pull.
When night time rolled around countless young people, including Dr. Leff, took to the southern streets of the university. It was called Calhoun Street and the crowds spilled over into the thousands, closing off any access. People played music, smoked dope, drank liquor, made out and danced. The police periodically upset the party, but never for long. It was an exclamation of freedom, whether it really made anyone free or not.
Even though he lived on the third floor in a single room without a shower, Arnie could always make arrangements with his friends, when needed. His internship partner was from the University of Pennsylvania and was married to another intern. Married couples were provided their own rooms on the second floor of the hospital administration building. They had enough money to rent their own place in town and only used their room at the hospital, which was more spacious and had a shower, when they were on call. They were kind-hearted friends and agreed to let Arnie use their room at the hospital whenever he needed a place to take a date or a few people he’d met on Calhoun Street wanted a more discreet place to “get down”.
One of the women Dr. Leff had an affair with was a singer named Sondra. She was a student at the Design Art and Architecture College who sang with Sandy Nassan. Sandy was the boyfriend of Renee Kaplan, who was the sister of Sandy Kaplan. Sandy Kaplan was married to Stan Dragul. They were the anti-war couple that had received so much flack from the community for their views about the Viet Nam war.
It was somewhat surreal when Dr. Leff would walk down the stairs of the hospital administration building to give Sondra a ride home and would run smack dab into the college dean who was dressed in his suit and tie, just coming into work. Men and women openly living together or sleeping over was not yet common in those days, especially in the mid west at an esteemed educational institution.
In order to avoid being drafted into the Army, Dr. Leff chose to enlist in the Air Force. By the time he had finished his pharmacology fellowship he had received active duty orders to go to Thailand via basic training at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas. It was July, 1969. After basic training he planned on driving down through Texas to Los Angeles, where he would leave his car with his folks before flying off to Thailand. The night before he left Cincinnati turned out to be quite memorable.
His musician friends, specifically Sandy Nassan, insisted that they have a big bash for him before he left. After their gigs were up at 1 and 2 a.m. half the musicians in town gathered on a Calhoun apartment complex rooftop to wish their friend Arnie a fond farewell. His friend Dennis Wolter was there, the artist and sculptor Steven Truchil and his friend Sondra. It lasted most of the night until the police put a halt