Eisenberg soon began working at the MIT Health Service, teaching psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and exploring the atmosphere of 1960s MIT.
"As students were protesting Vietnam, I became much more interested in the political side of life [at MIT]," she says. "It was just then that [MIT administrators] asked me to become dean."
Eisenberg says she did not feel torn between her humanitarian values and student protests, since students were on the whole "well behaved" and more concerned with government powers than campus administration. She says her greatest challenge during years at MIT was facing the unknown, unnamed hazards of being the first female dean.
"I was the first to do all kinds of things," Eisenberg says, "And while in some ways it was easier for me than for women entering the field now, we were very few then and we were being watched very carefully."
Eisenberg used her eight years at MIT to probe student life on campus in order to forward the cause of women and minority students.
"They were exhilarating years for me," she says. "I had been feeling since I came [to the U.S.] that I needed to help a larger group of people, to broaden my panorama of student life, and this gave me a chance to create a community more friendly to minorities and women."
It was at MIT that Eisenberg began hosting her now famous student dinners, welcoming small groups into rooms filled with the sights and sounds of the world, where ebony sculptures from Africa keep company with plush Oriental rugs and scents of paella-her specialty dish of rice, yellow saffron and chicken or "whatever you have in the house"-fill the air.
During her first years as dean of student affairs at Harvard Medical School (HMS), Eisenberg had many such cozy dinners, eventually inviting the entire first and second year classes to her home in 25-person groups.
"They were completely free and they began to trust me," Eisenberg says of the informal dinner meetings and discussions.
Eisenberg stresses the importance of developing strong relationships with faculty for women headed towards careers in medicine.
"It's particularly important in medicine since there are so many fields undergoing such rapid changes," she says. "However, the quality of the mentor should be more important than their particular specialty, since [student] interests often change drastically once they enter [medical] school."
Since Eisenberg was followed in the post of dean of students at Harvard Medical School by Dr. Edward Hundert in 1990, both administration and advising systems for students have been restructured. While Eisenberg's role was to serve the entire student body, the school now divides entering classes into five groups, assigning each class an administrative advisor, or master.
The new system allows Associate Dean of Students Nancy Oriol, who studied at HMS during Eisenberg's tenure and was appointed dean in July-greater scope in defining student needs, although she hopes to follow Eisenberg's example in focusing on specific student concerns.
"She really had a passion for medicine, encouraging people to have a life and at the same time pursue a career in medicine," Oriol says. "Her energy and commitment to being a role model in medicine was clear."
A Homecoming
It was Eisenberg's upbringing in an environment of strong free thought that brought her to medical school, and it was her compassion for fellow human beings that took her past her first cadaver to a career of helping people the world over that she never could have dreamed.
Though her childhood home fostered the determination to succeed against all odds, Eisenberg avoided returning to Buenos Ares for years because she did not feel strong enough to face a dictatorial regime that had made her homeland a "victim" of aggression and suppression.
However, for her birthday on Sept. 15, Eisenberg's son gave her a one-week trip to Argentina. She is now looking forward to returning home in November.
"I left when women were not even allowed to vote," Eisenberg recalled. "I'm eager to see the progress women have made."
"My parents covinced us that the most you can do is give to others." --Dr. Carola Eisenberg