Calvin Hirsch has taught generations of medical students. Some of Dr. Hirsch's trainees have gone on to prestigious careers in academic geriatrics.Dr. Calvin Hirsch knew that he wanted to become a doctor by the time he started college. He started his collegiate career by attending Yale University, where he earned a degree in 1976. From there, he attended the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. He then took the next steps to make his dream a reality and accepted an internship and residency in internal medicine at Mt. Zion Hospital and Medical Center in San Francisco from 1980 to 1983. From 1983 to 1985, Dr. Calvin Hirsch completed two years of service with the National Health Service Corps in the Tenderloin of San Francisco, a community in the heart of downtown San Francisco. He was primarily responsible for seeing low-income seniors who, for the most part, lived alone. He felt a great deal of responsibility for ensuring these patients got the medical care they needed, as he knew many did not have family that could help or drive them to medical appointments. In fact, this two-year period proved to be life-altering. This experience motivated him to decline a planned fellowship in infectious diseases and, instead, complete a two-year Robert Wood Johnson fellowship at Stanford, researching geriatric health care policy.