David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

Washington, DC. He was, by all
accounts, a brilliant and dedicated
physician, the first at the hospital in the
morning and the last to leave. But he
remained never more than a step away
from his tumultuous beginnings. He had a
volcanic temper. He had no patience, no
gentleness. One colleague remembers
his unforgettable first impression of
Freireich: “a giant, in the back of the
room, yelling and screaming on the
phone.” Another remembers him as
“completely irrepressible. He would say
whatever came into his mind.” Over the
course of his career, he would end up
being fired seven times, the first time
during his residency when he angrily
defied the head nurse at Presbyterian