Donald / Yan

Donald’s high school yearbook look, 1971.

Sophomore or junior year multitasking.

Donald after multitasking in May, 2023 in a DuPage Symphony concert.

Yan in 2022.

Donald Lurye talks to fellow physician Yan Chow about the surprising twists and turns of a life well-lived, including a return to the clarinet.

Donald Lurye was, in his words, “kind of minding” his own business, practicing family medicine, starting to raise a family with his wife (to whom he’s now been married 42 years), when the first Gulf War broke out.  The director of his medical group was called away to Fort Benning, the doctors in the group had to divide up responsibilities, and suddenly Donald found himself thrust into what was at the time a relatively new field: managed care.  And he liked it, this departure from being a clinician.  He discovered he was good at “leadership,” and in this doctor-to-doctor conversation with Yan Chow, he explores the distinctly different mindset it takes to be an administrator as opposed to being a practicing physician.  

After many years in the Atlanta area, the Lurye family relocated to a place “a lot of people have never heard of”—Evansville, Indiana—and that too brought unexpected joy. “It’s a great, small city; culturally enriching,” Donald says.  He’s recently retired.  But he’s learning Spanish, and a former passion, the clarinet, has led him to a new one—the bass clarinet—which is surprisingly, and thrillingly different.  “Really,” he says, “it’s been a professional and personal life well spent.”