One thing is for certain, in 1956 Phillip Pearson did not become a dentist. A few years earlier he had considered the field but decided that "standing in one place and looking into people's mouths" was not for him. Instead, that same year, he graduated from Iowa State University with his DVM and nothing was to be quite the same for himself, the College of Veterinary Medicine, and a good many other people as well. Following graduation, he did a ftfteen month surgical internship at Angell Memorial Animal Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. When he had occasion to work closely with some of the staff from Harvard Medical School, using dogs as an animal model for the study of acute and chronic nephritis in humans, Dr. Pearson entertained thoughts of medical school.