Dan Tandberg, M.D.
Professor Emeritus
I was born in La Puente, California, in the summer of 1946 and spent the early years of my life on my grandfather's orange and avocado orchard. My father was stationed in the Philippines at the end of WWII and we didn't meet until after my first birthday. My father's parents were Norwegian immigrants and my mother is descended from Eastern European stock. I was the oldest of three boys and was good at sports, farm work, mathematics, and fixing things.
Our family ran a small music equipment store and my brothers and I worked after school and on weekends. I did well in high school academically and lettered in cross-country and wrestling. College was at UCLA (BA, Philosophy '70) with two years out in the middle for the Army. After medical school (UCLA '74) I was matched to New Mexico for internal medicine training, and after four years took a faculty position in our own Department of Emergency Medicine. My major publications have been in the areas of poisoning, trauma, foreign bodies, clinical epidemiology, and physical diagnosis. I have a long-standing personal commitment to medical care for the poor and to the State of New Mexico.
Since retiring in 2001 I have been working two days a week in the emergency department at the VA (clinical and teaching) and one day a week at the medical school (student research support.) In my free hours I build and fly radio controlled model sailplanes.
My wife, Matilda, and I have been happily married for over 40 years. She reviews children's' books. We have two children: John is an Architecture graduate student at UNM, and Lizzy is a Geology undergraduate at Trinity in San Antonio . Other leisure-time interests include backpacking, running, reading for pleasure, and woodworking.