Jim Veney

A Fork in the Road Jim Veney

When you come to a fork in the road, take it. Yogi Berra (maybe) The quote above is commonly attributed to Yogi Berra, but it seems to have appeared as early as 1913 in newspapers in Oklahoma and Iowa. Regardless of where it came from, it is quintessential Yogi. And it serves as a great description of my career. In 1978 I was on the faculty at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health. I'd just been promoted to full professor. I'd been lucky to work with some very capable people, in particular my good friend and long time colleague, Arn. We'd written academic articles and worked together on grants that had seen both of us promoted to professor. Arn's understanding of the important questions in health services delivery was the engine that drove our collaboration, made our grant proposals attractive to funding agencies and resulted in many published papers. We were central members of a small group of researchers working productively on issues of the delivery of health services through local hospitals and health departments. The future track of my career seemed to be more of the same, research about health care in the United States. But in January of 1979 a fork appeared in my road. I was asked if I would be interested in a position with the World Health Organization in New Delhi, India. Up to that time I had little expectation of doing anything but proceeding with the university career I was following. But after some discussion with my wife and some thoughts about the consequences, I took the WHO position. That was the fork in the road that made all the difference in my subsequent career and in the lives of myself, my wife, and both our daughters-and the subject of this memoir.