Ilse Kaulbach (später Jawetz, Wheelis)

Born:	10-11-1915
Faculty:	Medical School | Medical University Vienna
Category:	Expelled student

Ilse KAULBACH (married WHEELIS), born on October 11th, 1915 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ('heimatberechtigt') for Vienna/Austria, Citizenship: Austria), only daughter of Richard Kaulbach MD (physician/obstetrician, retired) and Sofie Fuchs. Ilse Kaulbach lived in Wien 3, Gärtnergasse 2, was enrolled finally in the spring term 1938 at the Medical School in the 4th year of her studies (Leaving Certificate ('Abgangszeugnis') was issued on July 13th, 1938). In the spring term 1938 she could continue her studies in the context of the Numerus clausus of Jewish Students until the end of the term, but could not finish her studies in Vienna.
She was forced to leave the university and interrupt her studies in 1938 and could flee from Austria to the USA. Arriving in New York, she supported herself by working as a governess for the children of a New York surgeon. At first thwarted in her efforts to return to medical school, she pursued a degree in social work. She married microbiologist Ernst (Ernest) Jawetz (born 1916 in Vienna) Ernest Jawetz, a fellow Viennese and colleague at the Medical School whom she helped to get out of Austria, and moved to San Francisco. Ultimately granted full credit for her coursework in Austria, she completed her medical studies at Stanford Medical School graduating in 1949 with both academic honors and clinical distinction. Known professionally as Dr. Jawetz, she started her psychiatric residency at the Langley Porter clinic at the University of California, San Francisco and then finished her training at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Subsequently she returned to the Bay Area where she completed her psychoanalytic training at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute. In addition to the her private practice she maintained as a training and supervising psychoanalyst in San Francisco for more than 50 years. She was also much admired and sought after for her teaching and supervision at the S.F. Psychoanalytic Institute, UCSF Langley Porter, and Mount Zion Hospital.
Her marriage to Ernest Jawetz ended in divorce. In 1954 she married Allen Wheelis, also a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst and a well-known author who died in 2007.
Their daughter Joan Wheelis became a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in Cambridge, Massachusetts (stepson Mark Wheelis, a microbiologist at U.C. Davis, stepdaughter Seattle author Victoria Jenkins).
Ilse K. Wheelis retired from her clinical practice as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst only in 2011 and died at 96 in San Francisco/USA on January 9, 2012.

Lit.: information from Niko Hofinger and Keith Kinsbrook, 2015; obituary in San Francisco Chronicle on February 12, 2012.

Herbert Posch