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spring 2009volume 26, number 1

Senior Executive Director of CommunicationsTom Garritano

Interim EditorCheryl SooHoo

Contributing WritersJanet DeRaleauEileen NorrisMichael NyquistAnn Ross

Editorial BoardCharles V. Clevenger, PhD ’86, MD ’87Colleen M. Fitzgerald, MD ’96, GME ’00Lisa M. Godsel, PhD ’97James P. Kelly, MD ’83John B. Nanninga, MD ’63Lawrence J. Pass, MD ’77Bonnie L. Typlin, MD ’74Ukeme Umana, MD ’85Paul D. Urnes, MD ’59Diane Bronstein Wayne, MD ’91David P. Winchester, MD ’63J. Larry Jameson, MD, PhD,

Vice President for Medical Affairs and Lewis Landsberg Dean

Rebecca A. Cooke, Senior Associate Dean for Administration

Ginny Darakjian, Assistant Dean for Alumni Relations

Katherine E. Kurtz, Dean for Development

Robert M. Rosa, MD, Dean for Regulatory Affairs and Chief Compliance Officer

Alumni AssociationBonnie L. Typlin, MD ’74

PresidentF. Douglas Carr, MD ’78 President-elect

Ward Rounds is published quarterly for alumni and friends of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and the McGaw Medical Center graduate medical education programs. Material in Ward Rounds may not be reproduced without prior consent and proper credit. Address all inquiries to the Office of Communications, Northwestern Univer-sity, Feinberg School of Medicine, 303 East Chicago Avenue, Rubloff 9th floor, Chicago, IL 60611-3008, 312/503-1246, or [email protected].

©2009 Northwestern University

Ward Rounds is a federally registered trademark of Northwestern University.

DesignPivot Design, Inc.

Principal PhotographyAndrew Campbell

Archival images appearing in this special issue of Ward Rounds courtesy of the Galter Health Sciences Library Special Collections, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois.

Celebrate your alma mater’s 150th anniversary in style! Visit our online store at www.fsm150.com to purchase sesquicentennial memorabilia. Mugs, pens, clothing, and more collectibles displaying Northwestern’s unique commemo-rative sesquicentennial logo can all be yours for today and forever. Purchase items for yourself, your family and friends, or your classmates during this special year in your medical school’s history.

Act soon while limited-supply items are now available— and enjoy!

www.fsm150.com

here’s to 1859!

Dean’s Message

page 5President’s Message

page 7–21

Past, Present, FutureA medical student’s journey…

page 24–29

The Great ReformersOne of the first to offer graded courses, Northwestern keeps

reformist spirit alive in designing its ever-innovative curriculum

page 30–35

Collaboratively ConstructiveCooperative space planning guides growth of academic

medical center

page 36–39

History-making PersonifiedNotable faculty, alumni who’ve made history for the medical

school near and far—even in space!

page 42–51

Inter-TimedNorthwestern’s story intertwines with historic events

throughout time

page 54–59

Treasured NomenclatureFrom buildings to departments, tangible evidence of donor generosity

can be found throughout the medical center complex

page 60–65

Generational AdvancementAlumni families strengthen their bonds at (and to)

the medical school

page 70

Sesquivial PursuitTest your Northwestern knowledge!

contents

This special edition of Ward Rounds celebrates the 150th anniversary of the founding of the medical school with words, photos, and memories. We hope you take

great pleasure in learning more about Northwestern’s rich history and keep this sesquicentennial souvenir for many years to come!

2 ward rounds sesquicentennial 2009

ward rounds sesquicentennial 2009 3

Dean’s MessageOn March 12, 1859, the medical school’s founders signed an agreement

with the nascent Lind University in Lake Forest, Illinois, to launch a new

medical department that eventually would become the medical school of

Northwestern University. It would be the first U.S. medical school to offer a

graded curriculum. Fittingly, this March 12 we kicked off our sesquicenten-

nial celebration by inviting members of the Northwestern community to

“walk in the shoes” of our institution’s founders by signing a model charter

(Lind University received the original in 1857) at a fun-filled event held on

the Chicago campus.

In this special sesquicentennial issue of Ward Rounds, we invite you to take a

look back at our history during the past 150 years and the events and peo-

ple who have made possible all that we have accomplished. While much has

changed, the foundation of the medical school’s mission to reform medical

education for the benefit of patients and society remains strong and

vibrant. From its campus to its curriculum, Northwestern has continued to

develop all the elements of a great academic medical center to support the

individuals—students, alumni, faculty, staff—who advance our institution’s

reputation near and far, now and into the future.

Please enjoy this keepsake issue and join us as we relive the excitement of

the past 150 years!

Best regards,

J. Larry Jameson, MD, PhD

Vice President for Medical Affairs and

Lewis Landsberg Dean


President’s MessageThis is my last message as president of the Alumni Association National

Board of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, as I am

soon to be succeeded by F. Douglas “Doug” Carr, MD ’78. My greatest plea-

sure will be to attend and cheer our alma mater and its sesquicentennial at

Alumni Weekend, April 24–25. As you can see, this edition of Ward Rounds

is dedicated to this wonderful celebration.

Our medical school has evolved and prospered under the leadership of

some amazing physician deans and stands in a position of leadership and

prestige in education, research, and clinical medicine among the many

other fine institutions of medical education in America. Our alumni have

excelled in their professional achievements and have helped countless peo-

ple both in this country and abroad. As we look to the future and the health

care reform we have all been anticipating, I am sure that Northwestern

alumni will again show leadership in the process of insuring availability of

care to all Americans.

Our medical students have, in large numbers, ventured to study abroad to

serve needy people around the world. They will be a source of pride for all

of us as they become global physicians. On behalf of those of us tied to our

communities by busy practices, academic pursuits, or research responsibili-

ties, I would like to express thanks to our alums and students who travel

near and far to offer medical care to the underserved.

I’d also like to thank the members of the Office of Alumni Relations,

especially Ginny Darakjian, and the Ward Rounds staff, for all they do to

promote alumni relations. Without them, and their willingness to enter

the electronic age of communication, our legacy would be lost.

Sincerely,

Bonnie L. Typlin, MD ’74

President, Alumni Association

1859–60Fees: $121 for two years of courses, with the third year being free.

Room and board was $3 to $3.50 per week.

1883–84“The anatomical department affords the best of opportunities for the study of

anatomy. The dissecting rooms are large, airy, and well lighted. The means for the preservation of material are such that the supply exceeds the demand.”

1890–91Fees: $100 per year. (Not included: $5 returnable deposit

against breakage in laboratory.)

1901–02“The classes are limited in size, which is a matter of very great advantage to a student, giving him the privilege of the personal instruction of the head of each department

in all recitation, laboratory, and conference courses.”

1909–10“This medical school now requires for admission evidence from its students of

adequate collegiate preparation in physics, general chemistry, and biology; consequently these subjects are not included in the curriculum.”

1932–33“The work of the senior year is clinical in character. The class is divided into

three divisions: (a) clinical clerk service; (b) outpatient service; and (c) hospital clinics and ward walks.”

1941–49“To obtain the degree of doctor in medicine, the candidate must be of good moral

character and must maintain an irreproachable moral standing while at school; he must be at least 21 years of age; he must pay all fees in full; he must complete

satisfactory four full annual courses of lectures of eight months each, including all the topics listed as required; he must dissect the median half of the human body; he must be in attendance upon clinics for three years; he must secure satisfactory standing in

all final examinations; and he must spend a year as an intern in a hospital approved by the faculty, or, in exceptional instances and with the approval of the Medical Council,

in graduate work in one of the laboratory departments of the school.”

Present“Problem-based learning is a metaphor of how students will

learn for the rest of their lives.”

fun facts



Fifty-two years ago Edward S. Friedrichs, MD ’58, shared his “slice of life” as a medical student in Northwestern University Alumni News, one of the predecessors of today’s Ward Rounds. In the following three-part series, we take a look at the past, present, and future of “Ed’s” journey as well as that of current student Monica Krcmarik. While medicine and the education of future physicians have changed over the years, it is evident that the desire to provide the best care to patients continues to stand the test of time.

PAST PRESENT FUTUREA MEDICAL STUDENT’S JOURNEY...



THE COVER introduces Ed Friedrichs, a junior in the Medical School, who is the subject of the first article in this issue’s report on the Medical Center. On the table in front of Ed are the books and equipment he has purchased during two and a half years of medical studies.

Reprinted from Northwestern University Alumni News, April 1957, Vol. 36, No. 3

STUDENT ED FRIEDRIChS ShARES hIS MEDICAL SChOOL ExPERIENCE


ward rounds sesquicentennial 2009 9ward rounds sesquicentennial 2009 9

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To read the entire April 1957 issue of Northwestern University Alumni News, please visit wardroundsonline.com.


Edward S. Friedrichs, MD ’58, fondly remembers the April 1957 issue of Northwestern University Alumni News in which he was featured as a young junior medical student. “I still have an intact copy of the magazine,” he says with the friendly laughter that punctuates his remembrances during a recent visit to Chicago. “I was humbled and honored to be chosen.”

DR. FRIEDRIChS REFLECTS ON A SATISFYINg AND FULFILLINg CAREER



He was elected president of his class in his first, second, and third years. As a senior, he served as president of North-western’s chapter of the Student American Medical Association. Achieving Alpha Omega Alpha status and graduating fourth in his class, Dr. Friedrichs chose to specialize in internal medicine. During his internship at Minneapolis General Hospital, he mar-ried Geraldine Moehling, a Wesley Memorial Hospital nursing graduate he met during his senior year of medical school. The newlyweds moved to Seattle where Dr. Friedrichs began his internal medicine residency at the University of Washington. He completed his third year of graduate medical education at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1962.

Two physicians there introduced him to psychosomatic medicine. “The word ‘psychosomatic’ became misused over the years, meaning that you think you’re sick, but you’re not really,” says Dr. Friedrichs. “Today we call it the brain-body connection, describing how brain physiology influences health and disease.”

He cites an extreme example: conversion paralysis, or stress-related motor inhibition. “This happened on the battlefield. The soldier was in a situation where he was terribly conflicted: rage at the enemy and fear of dying. The soldier becomes paralyzed and can’t shoot or flee. The conflicted emotional brain through the limbic system and the ‘fight or flight’ response leads to this dire solution: paralysis.” Common examples of psychophysio-

logic phenomena include blushing, sweating, sighing, crying, laughing, and nausea, among others. More complex examples are swings in blood sugar and appetite in diabetics and arterial constriction, inflammation, and clotting in vascular disorders.

In 1962 Dr. Friedrichs became the first psychosomatic medi-cine fellow in the University of Cincinnati’s Department of Psychiatry. When he began practice in 1964 at the Clinic of Internal Medicine in Milwaukee, his approach to diagnoses and medical care integrated the brain-body connection. “I described it as working with a checkerboard,” he explains. “The black squares were the body, and the red squares were the mind and brain, always side by side.”

These interests resulted in a clinical faculty appointment in psychiatry at the University of Marquette Medical School (now the Medical College of Wisconsin) where he taught brain-body medicine, interview techniques, and the patient-physician rela-tionship from 1963–93. “I like to say I taught at three medical schools,” says Dr. Friedrichs with a laugh. “The name kept changing, but it was always the same place.”

He was primarily an internist in a busy private practice where he and his colleagues “took care of the whole ranch.” They referred to or consulted specialists as needed and had privileges at several area hospitals, including St. Luke’s Medical Center where Dr. Friedrichs served as chief of general medicine in the mid-1980s.

Dr. Ed Friedrichs had an opportunity to tour the modern medical school campus earlier this year with third-year student Monica Krcmarik. She introduced the Class of 1958 alumnus to one of her mentors from her primary clerkship, Dr. Jennifer Bierman (above, center), assistant professor of medicine. Dr. Friedrichs, who practiced internal medicine in Milwaukee for 46 years, may someday welcome another physician into the fold: Krcmarik is considering a career in internal medicine.



“Psychosomatic medicine led me to become fascinated with sleep early in my career,” Dr. Friedrichs relates. As he wrote in an invited article for the Marquette Medical Review in 1968, “A simplified psychosomatic hypothesis might read: sociopsy-chologic events influence sleep patterns, and sleep patterns effect a fluctuating influence upon the pathophysiology.”

He incorporated aspects of sleep medicine into his lectures to students, attended national meetings, and began taking detailed, lifelong sleep histories from his patients. “I sat down with my daily list of patients and checked off how many com-plained of poor sleep; it was two-thirds of them,” remembers Dr. Friedrichs. “For example, I took sleep histories from my backache patients, and most weren’t sleeping well for 6–10 months before their pain began. They had been living in a con-stant state of muscle tension.”

However, “Even nowadays, we don’t know how to repro-duce normal sleep medicinally,” says Dr. Friedrichs. “All the drugs we use screw up the quality of sleep. You’ve heard of the people on Ambien who go out driving and are amnestic for the event. Many medications complicate the quality of sleep, prevent-ing the brain from reaching the important recuperative stages of slow-wave and rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep.”

Where appropriate, he taught his patients meditation and other relaxation techniques or used sedative antidepressants and neuroleptics in low doses to try to preserve REM sleep. “What many people really need is sleep and exercise to step away from the stresses that had exacerbated their conditions,” states Dr. Friedrichs. “The physiology of stress and that of healing stress are two sides of the same picture that need to be in balance. Later I learned about the physiological concepts of yin-yang, and thought, ‘I guess somebody got to it before I did!’”

Then in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he says, “Drug addiction really took off with cocaine. That’s when I switched to addiction medicine because these patients were some of the worst sleepers around.” He achieved certification in addiction medicine in 1992.

Abuse of drugs such as alcohol, cocaine, and heroin injures sleep quality and quantity and, along with other causes such as head trauma, ultimately damages the sleep centers in the brain, a condition he calls “chronic organic insomnia.” Adds Dr. Friedrichs, “That term is now in the sleep literature.”

His years of teaching and studying the patient-physician relationship and communications served him well in his new specialty. People addicted to drugs are often secretive and don’t feel good about themselves, so developing a healing relationship requires delicacy and persistence. “I always taught my students that you have to be nonjudgmental and compassionate with patients,” says Dr. Friedrichs. “It’s good to engage your emo-tions as a physician, but don’t take the patient’s problems and feelings on your own shoulders. That’s sympathy; you want to demonstrate empathy.”

For example, when Dr. Friedrichs brought students to see his private patients at the hospital, he would advise them, “Just go in and ask, ‘How are you feeling today?’ Maybe that patient will say, ‘Go away, I don’t want to talk to anybody,’ and then you say, ‘You don’t feel like talking today?’” Continues Dr. Friedrichs, “You just reflect it back to the patient, and more often than not, you’ll start a dialogue. It was just fascinating how that nondirective interviewing technique worked.”

Dr. Friedrichs believes the next frontier in treating addic-tions may lay in the use of psychedelic drugs such as ibogaine, derived from a root found in Gabon, Africa. He learned about it in the 1980s at a sleep medicine workshop. “Studies outside the U.S. showed that a single dose reverses the effects of the addicted brain in 48 hours—little or no withdrawal, no cravings. Ibogaine seems to help people catch up on lost dreaming and reverse the sleep impairment of the addicted brain.” Only a few small preclinical trials have been conducted since 1993 in this country, where ibogaine is illegal. These were both promising and controversial. Outside the United States, a handful of clin-ics apply this “herb” to addiction treatment and many other serious neuropsychiatric maladies.

Dr. Friedrichs retired from clinical practice in 2000. He and his wife, Gerry, raised three daughters, losing the youngest to melanoma in 2007. They divorced in 1991, and Dr. Friedrichs later remarried. He and his wife, Lucy, a retired music therapist with two daughters, have been married 15 years. The combined family includes seven grandchildren.

A longtime resident of the suburbs of Milwaukee, Dr. Friedrichs continues to pursue his interests in sleep, addiction, and correctional medicine through seminars and study. His hobbies over the years have included tennis, photography, play-ing bridge with friends, and volunteering at his church and singing for its choir. “It’s been a satisfying and meaningful life, with several challenging moments, but never anything close to a malpractice suit,” concludes the good-humored Dr. Friedrichs.

More than 50 years ago when he was a third-year medical student being interviewed by his soon-to-be alumni magazine, Dr. Friedrichs envisioned a future where he would “settle in a medium-sized city in the Midwest,” practice medicine, and deeply care for his patients. Well, due in part to his Northwest-ern education and the strong foundation it provided for his career path, Dr. Friedrichs’ dreams came true as he helped his patients to sleep well, dream again, and heal themselves.

“I ALwAYS TAUghT MY STUDENTS ThAT YOU hAvE TO bE NONJUDgMENTAL AND COMPASSIONATE wITh PATIENTS…IT’S gOOD TO ENgAgE YOUR EMOTIONS AS A PhYSICIAN, bUT DON’T TAkE ThE PATIENT’S PRObLEMS AND FEELINgS ON YOUR OwN ShOULDERS. ThAT’S SYMPAThY; YOU wANT TO DEMONSTRATE EMPAThY.”



Third-year student Monica Krcmarik found her calling to medicine through volunteering. As a high school student in Riverside, Illinois, she spent nearly every Sunday morning at nearby Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood. “I was bringing mail to patients and talking with them,” she recalls. “I saw the medical profession as an outsider and how it worked and moved fluidly.” During the summers, if she wasn’t working, she would volunteer during the week as well. By the time she graduated, she knew she wanted to be part of that profession.

MICRO-AND MACRO-APPROAChES wILL ShAPE ThIS STUDENT’S PATh



Krcmarik attended Marquette University in Milwaukee as a premedical student. There she volunteered for two service projects that took place in Appalachia. “These weren’t medi-cally based, but I was working in some very poor, rural areas. Poverty breeds poor health because of lack of access, educa-tion, and other reasons,” she says. “Those two experiences opened my eyes to how much need exists and how little help is available to people serving those communities.”

As a junior she traveled to Honduras with Global Medical Brigade. The “brigades” consist of volunteer physicians, resi-dents, and medical and premedical students, among others. “In Honduras I saw medicine as purely a doctor-patient inter-action,” shares Krcmarik. “There was no bureaucracy, no insur-ance, nothing that clouded that intimate relationship. I helped triage patients who were going to see the physicians at the clinic we set up, and I loved seeing how much of a difference we made right then and there.”

These experiences also awakened her interest in studying for a master’s in public health (MPH) degree. Krcmarik looked at a number of medical schools that offered both degrees. She chose Northwestern because it allows the completion of the two degrees in four years, whereas most other schools required a fifth year of study.

She was also drawn to Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine’s “progressive curriculum.” She explains, “It has the perfect blend of classic lecture experiences and small-group learning formats in which you’re working with your peers to teach each other, such as problem-based learn-ing groups and small groups in the Patient, Physician and Society [PPS] course.” PPS runs all four years, twice weekly in the first and second years and monthly during the third and fourth. The course includes ethics classes and discussions of health economics, public health, and law and medicine.

Like generations of medical students before her, Krcmarik approached the third year and seeing “real patients” with some trepidation. She completed her primary care clerkship as her second rotation after the three-month surgery clerk-ship. “I wasn’t as skilled at that point in setting the stage and being able to handle the patient interview efficiently in the 15-20 minute outpatient visit,” recalls Krcmarik. “That first week was challenging but I pushed myself to alter my approach as I went along so that I could get it done in that time frame. Everyone says the learning curve is steep in the third year and it’s true. My confidence has really grown since I first started.”

During the first and second years, Feinberg School stu-dents work with patient actors to hone their interviewing and physical exam skills in preparation for their clinical years. Krcmarik also signed up for the extracurricular Patient



Perspectives during her first year. In that student-run program, students meet weekly with patients and follow them through their care over several weeks. “I volunteered to be president of it in my second year because I loved the program so much,” says Krcmarik. “At least half the first-year class participated when I was running it. It’s a terrific program that helps us become more comfortable in that setting, even before we start delving into medical issues.”

Krcmarik followed her primary care clerkship with rota-tions on neurology, psychiatry, pediatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology, and will finish with the three-month medicine clerkship. She shares, “I’ve enjoyed all the rotations I’ve done so far, but I’m leaning toward internal medicine as my future specialty.” The youngest of 13 children, Krcmarik has two brothers who went into internal medicine, and her grandfa-ther was a well-known general practitioner in Chicago.

She talked with internist Edward S. Friedrichs, MD ’58, when he visited Chicago earlier this year. “He described how you see all the pieces of the puzzle and then have to put them together in just the right way to make a diagnosis and develop a treatment plan,” says Krcmarik. “That’s exciting to me, to be the first point of care. At Northwestern we often refer to spe-cialists because we have so many good ones right here, but when you’re out in a community practice, internists may do

many of those things on their own in consultation with a specialist. I enjoy the challenge of thinking about these differ-ent aspects of medical care all at once.”

The MPH course work added yet another dimension. Krcmarik’s mentor in that program, Karen Sheehan, MD, MPH, associate professor of pediatrics, described to her how medical education starts with the microscopic view of medi-cine through the basic science and anatomy courses in the first two years. In the public health curriculum, students receive a macroscopic view of health and disease.

“I saw how these different perspectives blended together,” says Krcmarik. “I learned how the various components of behavior, lifestyle, nutrition, sanitation, and everything else come into play to affect what you’re seeing in the microscopic setting.” Last summer, Krcmarik completed her 200 contact hours for her MPH thesis project with Dr. Sheehan, who is medical director of the Injury Prevention and Research Center at Children’s Memorial Hospital.

“I think my educational experiences have made me a much more conscientious medical student,” reflects Krcmarik. “I believe that’s how I will be as a future physician, too. When I talk to my patients, I explore their social issues and what exactly brings them to the clinic or hospital now. Understanding the whole picture can help me help them improve their health.”

Ward Rounds caught up with medical student Monica Krcmarik one day during her clerkship in obstetrics and gynecology. Assigned to the labor and delivery floor at Prentice Women’s Hospital, she worked with other students, midwives, residents, fellows, and faculty members such as Dr. Michael Socol (opposite page, lower left photo). In addition to her medical studies, Krcmarik is also earning an MPH degree in Northwest-ern’s combined program that allows her to complete both degrees in four years.



Physical therapy (pt) serves as an important

component of the healing process.

Founding its program more than 80 years ago,

Northwestern offers the oldest, continuously

operating pt school in the country.

1980

t h e

gREAT r e f o r m e r s

One of the first to offer graded courses, Northwestern keeps reformist spirit alive in designing

its ever-innovative curriculum


When the medical department of what was then called Lind University opened in 1859, it announced a five-month plan of instruction—“commencing on the second Monday in October next, and ending on the first Monday in March.” Lind was a casualty of the Civil War, closing in 1863, but its medical faculty quickly estab-lished the Chicago Medical College with Nathan Smith Davis, MD, as president and then dean. In 1870 the col-lege became affiliated with Northwestern and 14 years later the union was completed.

Northwestern required students, many of whom came to medical school without much formal education, to simultaneously attend what was called the “junior” and “senior” departments. The junior department courses consisted of five to six lectures a day and “demonstra-tions” focused on anatomy, physiology, pathology, public hygiene, and inorganic chemistry. (Now the Feinberg School limits lectures to about 10 hours a week the first two years.) Students in the senior department spent time on surgery, diseases of women and children, and “dissec-tions under the demonstrator.”

while the practice of medicine has radically evolved over the last century and a half, it seems that the structure of the medical school curriculum,

altered several times since the school began, hasn’t really changed all that much.

Turns out even Northwestern’s founding fathers saw the need for learning basic science and clinical training—in that order.

“While there have been significant and substantive changes over the years in medical school curricula, the basic scaffolding of pre-clinical education in the first two years versus clinical education in years three and four may look the same,” says Patricia M. Garcia, MD, GME ’91, MPH, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecol-ogy at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. She serves as her department’s program direc-tor of undergraduate medical education.

That’s not to say there haven’t been historic transfor-mations in medical education during the last 150 years.


patients,” read the course work program at the time. The number of instructors had doubled, and depart-ments had grown to 18 with the addition of pediatrics, gynecology, dermatology, nervous and mental diseases, physical diagnosis, laryngology, and rhinology.

Some 20 years later the program boasted that North-western was the first medical school in the United States to establish a graded course of study. The curriculum advanced the student from “fundamental laboratory courses to the clinical bedside subjects.”

In 1910 a report described Chicago as being the “plague spot of medical education,” but Northwestern emerged unscathed. Written by Dr. Abraham Flexner and sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the report applauded the medical school for its entrance requirements. “It requires

Back in 1869 all students who could be “induced” to attend a third year were encouraged to revisit those departments they thought “profitable to attend.” Grad-uation involved three years of study in medicine and sur-gery, good attendance in lectures, an upstanding moral character, and that the “man” had reached the age of 21. For some years, Northwestern offered the only medical school curriculum in America that made mandatory three years of college instruction.

By 1890 another month had been added to the col-lege year, changing the minimum requirement—three years of study, seven months a year—to become a physi-cian. A fourth year of instruction had been added to the Northwestern curriculum but was optional. The idea of boosting clinical work picked up steam. “Each student is brought into personal contact with a large number of


a high school education or the equivalent, followed by a year of college, which it does not get,” stated the report, making reference to the lack of applicants with college experience. Dr. Flexner went on to praise Northwestern for achieving reforms in medical education, saying “the Chicago School that is now the medical department of Northwestern University had the courage and virtue to make the start in reform.”

By 1932 it was harder to get into medical school; 85 credit semester hours of college were required. North-western’s curriculum continued to be heavy on labora-tory (781 hours) and recitation (258 hours) the first year. By 1941 a bachelor of medicine degree was granted after the completion of four years of course work. Students still needed “to be 21 years of age, have good moral character, pay all fees, attend four full annual courses of lectures of eight months each, dissect the median half of the human body, be in attendance upon clinics, pass all final exams, and spend a year as an intern at an approved hospital.”

Even as late as 1949, a bachelor’s degree was not required for admission, but the medical school’s catalog mentions that “three-fourths of the freshman class has a degree, and so it is very desirable.” In 1951 the medical school dropped the fifth-year internship requirement (it had started way back in 1919). The last class required to complete an internship before earning the MD degree entered in 1946 and graduated in 1951. This anomaly explains why the school has two Classes of 1951—one completed a five-year (1946–51) and the other a four-year (1947–51) program. Northwestern was one of the last medical schools to drop the fifth year. State regulators began to require the MD degree to work “as a physician,” and there was a trend toward residency programs.

Medical education was extensively revised in 1956, with less emphasis on formal instruction and an increase in “free time,” according to that year’s curriculum program. Students started to work in small groups and began devoting their third year to hospital clerkships. Fourth-year students were assigned to outpatient clinics. Faculty members encouraged students to appreciate “the total patient” and understand that medicine “must be a process of continual learning in which medical school makes up only the beginning.”

In 1961 the medical school launched a new program, now known as the Honors Program in Medical Educa-tion (HPME), in which talented high school students were given the opportunity to complete work toward the MD degree in a minimum period of six years. The program participants spent the first two years taking lib-eral arts courses on Northwestern’s Evanston campus. The HPME program has since been expanded to eight years, giving students the time to study abroad or engage in research projects.


P icture a medical school where first-year students are paired up with a panel of patients their

very first week of training and con-tinue interacting with those same individuals over their four years of study. That scenario would be in stark contrast to the curriculum stage now, where students have mainly basic sciences and smaller portions of topics devoted to patient-centered medical care in the first two years, with full-time patient care beginning in the third year.

Beginning in the 2010–11 aca-demic year, Northwestern’s medical school curriculum will be vastly different, shares John X. Thomas Jr., PhD, senior associate dean for medi-cal education and professor of physiology. Dr. Thomas is on North-western’s curriculum renewal com-mittee charged with redesigning the school’s educational program.

“Now, our medical school could be viewed as preclinical for two years and clinical for the following two years. What determines entry into clinical medicine is the calen-dar,” he says. “Our future curriculum will have students engaging in full-time clinical duty earlier and perhaps returning to basic science later in training. We need to be flexible, allow students who show compe-tency the privilege of moving on to the next phase of training, and recog-nize that our students don’t all learn the same or come to Northwestern with the same backgrounds.”

Dr. Thomas and others on the committee say they aren’t starting with any particular premises or notions. He remarks, “It’s a white board and there’s no protection of courses or anything about the curric-ulum. The only premise is that we will be using the eight competencies to define the curriculum.”

Visit http://www.feinberg .northwestern.edu/AWOME/ Competencies/index.html to learn more about the competencies.

The driving force behind the change is the recognition that the curriculum can no longer be identical for each person. Medical students are adult learners who come to medi-cal school with a wide variety of life experiences and goals. Reading and lectures provide essential informa-tion about diseases and conditions but putting that learned material in the context of patients helps stu-dents make the connection, accord-ing to Dr. Thomas.

Patricia M. Garcia, MD, GME ’91, MPH, associate professor of obstet-rics and gynecology and director of

undergraduate medical education for her department, agrees. “We need to make the curriculum flexible and adaptable to the strengths of the stu-dents,” she remarks. “Not everyone starts at the same point and pro-gresses in the same way.”

Today students in obstetrics and gynecology clerkships, for example, all rotate in the specialty in the same identical manner, despite their differ-ent and unique life experiences and capabilities. “I might have a student who worked in a family planning set-ting over the summer and already

has skills that some of the other stu-dents may not have,” explains Dr. Garcia. “This new approach to medi-cal education would give us the opportunity to let that advanced stu-dent more quickly move on to the next level.”

What do medical students think of such changes? First-year student Michael Kryger of Winnipeg, Canada, is happy with the way he is now acquiring knowledge. “Everyone learning at the same time helps us to work together,” he says. “I don’t mind the lectures because they’re teaching the basics.”

Jonah D. Fleisher, a fourth-year student from Oak Park, Illinois, and a member of the curriculum commit-tee, is pretty sure it’s time for change.

“Students learn differently now in our heavily technological and multi-media-rich environment, and I think the curriculum can be tailored to meet those needs better than it cur-rently is,” he says. “We still focus too heavily on lectures and on mem-orization without clinical application. Students learn far more quickly and effectively when the learning points are applied to real patients.”

FUTURE CURRICULUM ACCELERATES MOvE FROM bOOkS TO bEDSIDE


DIRECT PATIENT INTERACTION

TEACHES STuDENTS MORE

THAN THEy CAN EVER

lEARN FROM BOOKS AND

lECTuRES AlONE.


There were many graduate medical education pro-grams available early on in the school’s history, says Sharon L. Dooley, MD, GME ’77, MPH, senior associ-ate dean for graduate medical education and professor of obstetrics and gynecology, but it was not until 1966 when the Northwestern University Medical Center (the consortium of five teaching hospitals and Northwestern University) was established. Today known as the McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University, it offers 22 residency programs and 56 fellowships in surgical and medical subspecialties.

Dr. Garcia says she smiles when she thinks about the changes that have been made just since she was in medi-cal school at the University of Illinois at Chicago 25 years ago. “We had a one-week class—‘Realities of Med-icine’—that touched on economics, ethics, legal aspects of medicine, having difficult conversations, engaging patients, everything. Now, here at Northwestern, stu-dents spend a significant part of their time learning com-munication skills, professionalism, and ethics as part of the Patient, Physician & Society [PPS] course that’s embedded in the curriculum, beginning in the first year.”

Northwestern made its last major curriculum revi-sion in 1993, when the school moved from a traditional curriculum to far fewer lectures (usually two hours a day), as well as to a more active, problem-based learning thread, explains John X. Thomas Jr., PhD, senior associate dean for medical education and professor of physiology.

“In general, schools that have reduced lecture hours have shown improvement on exam results. The students are more able to own what they learn and are more apt to retain the information.”

According to Dr. Thomas, the last curriculum renewal focused 95 percent on the first two years and only about 5 percent on the two clinical years—that imbalance was quickly remedied a few years later. “In 1999 we began the process to look at continuous improve-ment in the curriculum and to think about how we could enhance clinical education. Since 2001 the curriculum has been changed to establish a core clerkship in emergency medicine and intensive care, and we decreased the require-ment for doing unspecified electives.”

Northwestern also carved out one day a month in the third year and one afternoon a month in the fourth year for focusing on interdisciplinary medicine. Remarks Dr. Thomas, “It’s like continuing education.” Now, the cur-riculum committee members and the administration are working on a comprehensive redesign of the curriculum, which they plan to launch in 2010–11. (See sidebar on opposite page.)

“While we may retain certain elements of the curric-ular structure from the past, such as the experimental advantage of an apprenticeship model,” says Dr. Garcia, “the future curriculum will have to focus more on teach-ing students how to become lifelong learners in addition to imparting knowledge, skills, and behaviors necessary for the practice of medicine.”


The medical school’s three enduring missions—education, clinical care, and research—have not only worked together to produce well-rounded physicians during the past 150 years but they also have shaped and continue to change the physical environment—classrooms, hospitals, and laboratories—of today’s academic medical center complex.

COLLAbORATIvELYCOOPERATIvE SPACE PLANNINg gUIDES gROwTh OF ACADEMIC MEDICAL CENTER

CONSTRUCTIvE


Passavant Memorial Hospital (bottom right) quickly joined the Montgomery Ward Memorial as one of the early structures to rise on the Chicago campus.

{1928As the Montgomery Ward Memorial became the first medical school structure on Northwestern’s Chicago campus in 1926, it was no coincidence that hospital partners would soon spring up in the Streeterville neighborhood. In fact, the opening of the then newly constructed 200-bed Passavant Memorial Hospital (formerly at the south-east corner of Superior Street and Fairbanks Court) closely followed that of the Mont-gomery Ward Memorial on May 21, 1929.

“A teaching hospital has three basic aims: first, to provide medical care for the sick and injured; second, to provide a training ground for students at all levels; and third, to conduct medical research on the cause and cure of disease,” described the late Leslie B. Arey, PhD, professor emeritus of anatomy, in his book Northwestern University Med-ical School 1859–1979. “Since the medical school or University has never maintained a general hospital of its own, clinical instruction has depended either upon friendly agreements with separate institutions or upon more binding contracts of affiliation.”

These allied institutions have evolved right alongside medical school buildings on the Chicago campus for the past 83 years. After the opening of Wesley Memorial Hospital (formerly kitty-corner from Passavant) in 1941 and that of the Veterans Administration (VA) Research Hospital in 1953, the University followed with the dedication of the Morton Medical Research Building in 1955. When the medical school celebrated the completed Searle Medical Research Building in 1965, North-western students and faculty looked forward to learning and teaching in the then new Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC) as well as Prentice Women’s Hospital. Located on Superior Street, these facilities both were completed in the mid-1970s. Although the exterior view of the 18-story RIC hasn’t changed much since opening in 1974, internal upgrades have kept the hospital at the forefront of rehabilitation med-icine. In the mid- to late-1990s, the facility underwent a $47 million renovation that enhanced patient care and the flow of clinical services. In 2002 the RIC opened a state-of-the-art brain injury unit.


1930SToward the end of the 20th century buildings on the Chicago campus continued to

rise to great heights, as the medical school and its clinical partners embraced all the benefits of technology and aesthetics of modern architecture to advance their patient care, research, and educational goals. In early 1990 the medical school gained cutting-edge research laboratories and classroom space with the opening of the Tarry Research and Education Building. Northwestern Memorial Hospital (NMH) replaced itself with a $580 million, 2 million-square-foot inpatient and ambulatory care center in May 1999. The latter facility, housed in the hospital’s Galter Pavilion, features the outpatient physician practices of the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation (NMFF)—among the top faculty practices in the country.

Welcoming the new millennium and heralding all that the future of medicine and science holds, the Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center of Northwestern University opened to much fanfare in April 2005. The facility, designed to accelerate multidisciplinary translational research, added much-needed research space—216,810 square feet, to be exact. It also provided room for two large lecture halls, a food court, and the future addition of a 15-story tower. The newest kid on the block, the replace-ment Prentice Women’s Hospital is the latest physical addition to the academic medical center. Completed in October 2007, this modern facility (at the corner of Chicago Avenue and Fairbanks Court) has expanded Northwestern Memorial’s ability to offer comprehensive health care to women at all stages of life from labor and delivery to cancer care.

As locals like to say, Chicago only has two seasons: winter and construction. In recent times building and making space for new facilities on and around the medical complex has marched on throughout the year. Through rain, sleet, and snow, con-struction crews were hard at work this winter building the foundation of Children’s Memorial Hospital’s replacement facility adjacent to and west of the new Prentice. Slated for completion in 2012, the future high-rise building will be known as the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. A few blocks to the southeast, demolition teams have almost cleared the land once occupied by the VA Lakeside Medical Center. NMH and RIC plan to develop the space to enhance their clinical services and patient-focused programs as well as their research and educational activities.

1948


1960S

With Lake Michigan providing a constant and dramatic backdrop, this aerial shot shows a full shot of Northwestern’s Chicago campus. Parking lots would slowly but surely give way to parking garages in the growing Streeterville neighborhood.

By the late 1950s, the academic medical center complex had significantly grown in stature. Among the newcomers was the VA Research Hospital (far left), completed in 1953.

{

{1957


Although real estate in the densely occupied Streeterville community remains at a premium, that fact hasn’t deterred further expansion of the medical school complex. NMH recently purchased two existing nearby office buildings. The hospital acquired the building at 676 North St. Clair Street to boost its outpatient care space and provide closer access to the offices of faculty outpatient practices. Last year NMH connected the facility to its Galter Pavilion via a pedestrian bridge. Northwestern Memorial also now owns the building at 211 East Ontario Street, where the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center houses its new Lakeside Community-Based Outpatient Clinic (Lakeside CBOC). This recent acquisition provides increased space for nonurgent patient care services and administrative offices—all part of a joint space-planning strategy that Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and other McGaw Medical Center members have been employing to better serve the needs of their constituents.

“High-acuity–care needs should be in buildings in close proximity to clinical care facilities. In other words, we should take care of the sickest patients as close as possible to the hospitals on campus,” explains Eric W. Boberg, PhD, executive director for research and research assistant professor of medicine, who is responsible for research space management and strategic space planning at the medical school. “In terms of the logistics of space allocation, clinical facilities have a higher priority relative to adminis-trative offices.” Similar prioritization strategies are also driving research laboratories and education space, according to Dr. Boberg.

1970

By 1970 the Montgomery Ward Memorial (center) included Morton and Searle building connections. Originally a four-story parking garage built in the 1920s, the Carriage House (far left) became a high-rise residential and commercial building in the 1960s that provided nearby housing for students and residents as well as Northwestern Memorial employees, nursing students, and patients. Renamed the Galter Carriage House after Chicago philanthropists Jack and Dollie Galter, the building was demolished in May 2006.

{


1982

2009

As the medical school and its partners set their sights on a bright future, the Chicago campus can only go upward and onward!

{

Following this plan, the medical school has steadily consolidated and relocated its administrative functions to improve efficiency and free up space for clinical, research, and educational activities. For example, the University-owned Rubloff Building and Abbott Hall—both located within a stone’s throw of Lake Michigan—house many medical school administrative functions as well as academic department offices and centers from the Office of Alumni Relations to the NUCATS (Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences) Institute. This summer the offices of the dean and other executive functions will move to the 12th floor of Rubloff. Their departure from the Montgomery Ward Memorial and Morton Building will allow for the construction of additional laboratory space.

Resources such as the Galter Health Sciences Library and the Augusta Webster, MD, Office of Medical Education, both on the first floor of Ward, remain in key locations that lend themselves well to the education of students—the lifeblood of any academic institution. “Ease of access is one of our guiding principles,” says Dr. Boberg of the medical school’s space planning process. “Approaching how we utilize our physical environment in a thoughtful fashion ensures that we effectively address the needs of our Chicago campus community and successfully collaborate to reach the goals of our academic medical center.”

©2009 Google


Born in 1817 in a log house in central New York, Nathan Smith Davis, MD, began his medical education at the age of 17 as an apprentice with a local physician. He worked for his board, including, by some accounts, attending to his teacher’s horse and cow. He later entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Western New York and graduated in 1837.

Subsequent years were spent in private practice and further academic study. His resolution presented to the New York State Medical Society to “elevate the standard of medical education in the United States” led

to the establishment of the American Medical Association (AMA) in 1847. Since that time, he has forever been known as the “father” of the AMA.

In 1849 Dr. Davis and his wife and two children moved to Chicago where he became a department chair at the newly opened Rush Medical College. One year later, he became chair of medicine and was instrumen-tal in founding Mercy Hospital, Chicago’s first hospital to augment the classroom instruction of medical students. In 1859 he and others founded the Medical Department of Lind University, which later became the Chicago Medical College. Dr. Davis played a pivotal role in its later affili-ation with Northwestern University and he served as a University trustee until his death in 1904. He was 87.

Dr. Davis was a leader in Chicago’s history, having founded the Chicago Medical Society, the Chicago Historical Society, the Chicago Academy of Sciences, and Union College of Law (which later became the Northwestern University School of Law), where he served as a pro-fessor of medical jurisprudence.

nathan smith davis

History-making Personified

The story of Northwestern University’s Feinberg

School of Medicine often tells itself through the

tales of notable people whose determination,

perseverance, fresh ideas, and sometimes chance

encounters led the way in establishing our institu-

tion’s stature in the world of medical education. In

remembering their paths, today’s medical profession-

als draw inspiration and courage to set their own.

Their accomplishments have made ours possible:

Then and Now.

Notable faculty, alumni who’ve made history for the medical school near and far—even in space!



Mary Harris Thompson, MD 1870, was Northwest-ern University Medical School’s first female gradu-ate and was the first female surgeon in the United States. She attended Chi-cago Medical College, (the

predecessor of Northwestern University Medical School) in 1869, the first and only year the college accepted women until becoming co-educational in 1926.

As was customary at the time, this New York native needed to attend only one session to receive her medical degree from North-western since she already held an MD degree from the New Eng-land Female Medical College of Boston. The other two female students in her class were not so fortunate. The school asked them to leave at the end of the session because male students and faculty complained that women in the classroom inhibited discussion of “indelicate” subjects. Although agreeing to be observed in teaching situations, some patients also felt uncomfortable in the presence of female students.

Despite the controversy surrounding the medical school admittance of women, Dr. Thompson became a leader in her cho-sen profession. In 1870 she founded the Hospital for Women and Children, the first hospital staffed by female physicians. When Dr. Thompson started the hospital, there were only two others in the Windy City—neither allowed female physicians on staff. In fact, one of them, Marine Hospital, did not even accept female patients!

Dr. Thompson established the Woman’s Hospital Medical Col-lege of Chicago in 1870 and helped found Chicago’s first nursing school in 1874. She also developed a number of surgical instruments and procedures.

Dedicated to her patients, she cared for them to the very end of her life until she suddenly suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. Dr. Thompson died on May 21, 1895, at age 66.

mary harris thompson

Daniel Hale Williams, MD 1883, gained the distinction of becoming Northwest-ern’s first African American medical graduate and medi-cal school faculty member. A strong advocate for the education of African Amer-icans in medicine and nurs-ing and health care for the underserved, he founded Chicago’s Provident Hospital, the country’s first black-owned and –operated interracial medical institution, in 1891. He would later help found other such hospitals across the country.

In July 1893 he performed one of the first successful open-heart surgeries in the country, suturing the pericardium on a victim of a stab wound to the heart. President Grover Cleveland appointed Dr. Williams surgeon-in-chief at Freedman’s Hospital in Washington from 1894–98. During his career he was instrumental in the found-ing of the National Medical Association, the only professional orga-nization of its day open to black physicians, and the American College of Surgeons.

Born in 1856 in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, to free parents of European, Native American, and black heritage, he was apprenticed to a Baltimore shoemaker when he was 11 years old, after his father died of tuberculosis. A few months later, he ran away to Rockford, Illinois, where his mother and sisters had moved to be with family. By age 17 he was running his own barbershop in southern Wiscon-sin. At age 22 he began an apprenticeship with noted Civil War surgeon Henry Palmer, MD, followed by medical training at Chi-cago Medical College, later to become Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.

Dr. Williams died on August 4, 1931, at age 75. On September 9, 2004, the medical school celebrated the dedication of its 182-seat Daniel Hale Williams Auditorium in the McGaw Pavilion—named in honor of the school’s first African American graduate.


daniel hale williams


In 1969 John A.D. Cooper, MD ’51, PhD ’51, became the first full-time president of the Association of American Medical Col-leges (AAMC), which until that time had been run by an executive direc-tor. Moving with the orga-nization from Evanston, Illinois, to Washington, he was instrumental in forming national policy on medical education during his 17-year tenure with the AAMC.

Named one of the five most influential people in medical and health education by U.S. News & World Report in 1981, Dr. Coo-per published more than 300 articles on biomedical research, medi-cal education, health policy, and medical care.

After receiving a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from New Mexico State University in 1939, he served in World War II and rose to the rank of first lieutenant in the Sanitary Corps of the Army. Fol-lowing his military service, he attended Northwestern University where he received both his MD and PhD degrees. After his graduation, Dr. Cooper joined the faculty and was associate dean of the medical school from 1959–63, then associate dean of faculties and dean of sciences from 1963–69. He died on January 27, 2002, at the age of 83.

john a.d. cooper


The medical school’s first Native American graduate, Carlos Montezuma, MD 1889, was born in 1865 in central Arizona as a Yava-pai Indian named Wassaja. Captured by a raiding Indian tribe when he was five years old, he was sold for $30. Carlo Gentile, an Italian-born photographer, bought the boy’s freedom, gave him a new name, taught him English, and enrolled him in school.

Dr. Montezuma graduated in 1884 from what would become the University of Illinois; he was that institution’s first Native Amer-ican graduate. He went on to medical school at Northwestern and then worked as a physician in the West for the Bureau of Indian Affairs for a time. He eventually returned to Chicago where he developed a successful private practice.

An ardent supporter of Native American rights, he believed that the future of his people depended on their assimilation into the white man’s culture. He fought for the elimination of the Bureau

of Indian Affairs and Indian reservations. Instrumental in starting the Society of American Indians, he deliv-ered his famous “Let My People Go” speech at its 1916 conference, again call-ing for the end of the bureau. In his later years he authored a newsletter called Wassaja, named after his originally given boy-hood name meaning “sig-naling or beckoning” and dedicated to furthering the same cause.

In later years, Dr. Mon-tezuma reconnected with his Native American roots. In 1922, ter-minally ill with tuberculosis, he traveled to the Yavapai’s Fort McDonald Reservation in Arizona where he died one year later.

carlos montezuma


Transplant surgeon Dr. Thomas E. Starzl earned his MD and PhD degrees at Northwestern in 1952. Known as the “father of transplantation,” he per-formed the first successful liver transplant in 1967 at the University of Colo-rado, where he would

eventually be named chair of surgery. Joining the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Medicine in 1981, he led the team of sur-geons who performed the city’s first liver transplant. Twenty-nine more liver transplants followed that year, launching the univer-sity’s renowned liver transplant program. Dr. Starzl followed that feat with the first multiple organ transplant in 1983, the first heart and liver transplant in 1984, and the first liver and intestine trans-plant in 1990.

In 1980 he introduced the anti-rejection medications anti-lymphocyte globulin and cyclosporine and in 1989 was instru-mental in developing tacrolimus, a drug that significantly increased survival rates in transplantation patients.

Dr. Starzl grew up in Le Mars, Iowa. He earned a bachelor’s degree in biol-ogy at Westminster Col-lege in Fulton, Missouri, before arriving at North-western. He later went on to residency training at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Miami, and the Veterans Admin-istration Research Hospi-tal in Chicago.

In 1996 the University of Pittsburgh’s transplant center was renamed the Thomas E. Starzl Trans-plantation Institute, where he is director emeritus. Author or coauthor of more than 2,000 scientific articles, his autobiography, The Puzzle People: Memoirs of a Transplant Surgeon, has been translated into several languages. Dr. Starzl received the 2004 National Medal of Science for “his unique contributions to basic and applied science that resulted in the emergence of organ trans-plantation as a widely available treatment.”

thomas e. starzl


As the first physician in space, Joseph P. Kerwin, MD ’57, marked his place in the history of space travel and medicine. He served as a science pilot aboard Sky-lab 2, the first manned mis-sion to the Skylab 1 space station, where he studied the adaptation of the crew to zero gravity. His mission along with other Skylab operations proved that humans could live and work in space for extended

periods. It also proved to be “one great leap” for Northwestern as this proud alumnus carried a University pennant on board.

Besides his role as an aerospace physician, Dr. Kerwin was called on to be a space repairman, too! Launched on May 25, 1973, the crew’s first order of business was to fix damages to the Skylab sta-tion. Attached to 60-foot life lines, he and Commander Charles Conrad Jr. moved outside the spacecraft. They used a cutting tool and their own muscle to free a stuck solar panel. The crew returned home after a record four weeks in orbit.

Following the flight, this native of Oak Park, Illinois, became director of Space and Life Sciences at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. He resigned from NASA and the U.S. Navy in 1987. From then until present he has held man-agement positions in private industry. He was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1997.

He is one of several coauthors of the book Homesteading Space: The Skylab Story (University of Nebraska Press, 2008).

joseph p. kerwin

Visit www.wardroundsonline.com to learn more about the accomplishments of other notable Northwestern faculty and alumni such as:charles h. mayo, md 1888, who along with his brother William J. Mayo, MD, established the famed Mayo Clinic . . .

howard t. ricketts, md 1897, who identified the causative microorganism of Rocky Mountain spotted fever . . .

t.k. lawless, md ’19, an African American dermatolo-gist who made great strides in the treatment of leprosy and syphilis . . .

augusta webster, md ’34, the first woman in the coun-try to head a department at a major teaching hospital . . .

ralph s. paffenbarger jr., md ’47, drph, a renowned epidemiologist whose groundbreaking research gave credence to the heart healthy benefits of regular exercise . . .

ora hirsch pescovitz, md ’79, gme ’85, a nationally recognized pediatric endocrinologist and researcher and an academic medical center leader. . .


1957Professor C. Murphy Combs (right) points

out the finer details of the human body to students in gross

anatomy class.


INTER-TIMED

1859The medical school’s first session begins in early October.

1859Mercy Hospital ends affiliation with Rush Medical College and begins its association with the medical department of Lind University.

1871

1873

1867

1869

1863

1865

1859

1861

1866Cook County takes over city hospital.

1867First tunnel built under Lake Michigan brings fresh water to city inhabitants.

1867Wilhelm Waldeyer-Hartz defines cancer as cell division that becomes uncontrolled.

1868Gerhard Henrik Armauer Hansen studies leprosy and in 1873 discovers the bacteria that causes the disease.

1869Edmund Andrews, Mercy Hospital, introduces antiseptic techniques.

1868Meat inspection is instituted at the stock yards.

1869Board of Health initiates vaccination of all children.

1871The Great Chicago Fire nearly destroys city.

1861–65Congress establishes act to create ambulance corps.

1861–65U.S. Civil War spurs industrialization in Chicago.War begins under President Abraham Lincoln’s watch.

1863Lind University reorganizes as Lake Forest University.

1866Nathan Smith Davis assumes presidency of the medical school, succeeding Hosmer A. Johnson. He serves until 1870.

1870Nathan Smith Davis becomes dean, serving until 1898.

1869Mary H. Thompson is one of first three women admitted.

1859

HISTORy of the MEDICAL SCHOOL

HISTORy of CHICAGO and the WORLD

HISTORy of MEDICINE


1866Medical thermometer is developed by Sir Thomas Clifford Albutt.


1889Significant events in the history of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine have

coincided and interconnected with those of the city in which the medical school was born 150 years ago. The medical and public health milestones of Chicago as well as the world give context to the medical school’s establishment, rise, and continued success at home and abroad. The following timeline gives us a broader perspective to enjoy and appreciate all that Northwestern has accom-plished in medicine and science with the support of a city that is second to none.

1887

1889

1883

1885

1879

1881

1875

1877

1876Association of American Medical Colleges begins. Northwestern University is a founding member.

1876City’s Department of Health is established.

1882Robert Koch identifies the bacteria that causes tuberculosis.

1882Julia Foster Porter opens hospital for the care of children at Halsted Street and Beldon Avenue.

1887NIH traces its roots to a laboratory of hygiene established within the Marine Hospital Service, predecessor to the U.S. Public Health Service.

1886Haymarket Riot derails labor union support with anarchy.

1888Visiting Nurse Association of Chicago is formed.

1889A fourth year of curriculum is introduced but not required.


1891

1895Joseph DeLee establishes the Chicago Lying-in Hospital to provide obstetric care for Chicago’s poor.

1900The flow of Chicago River is reversed.

1895Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen discovers X-rays.

1898Sir Almroth Edward Wright develops vaccines for typhoid.

1899Felix Hoffmann and Heinrich Dreser develop new method and preparation for aspirin.

1899Walter Reed initiates experiments that lead to the source for yellow fever.

1902Walter Sutton begins work to clarify the role of chromosomes per Mendel’s theories of heredity.

189090,000 Chicagoans die from cholera after major rain storm washes sewage into Lake Michigan. 1893

World’s Columbian Exhibition puts “White City” on the map.

1891Provident Hospital opens for the care of patients of all races. Its founder is alumnus Daniel Hale Williams.

1894The Maurice Porter Memorial Hospital is chartered. In 1903 its name is changed to Children’s Memorial Hospital.

1901Nathan Smith Davis Jr., son of founder Nathan Smith Davis, becomes dean. He serves until 1907.

1902Karl Landsteiner identifies blood types.

1903

1905

1899

1901

1895

1897

1891

1893

1905Cook County Hospital becomes the largest hospital of its kind in the country, starting the first blood bank.


HISTORy of MEDICINE

1898Frank S. Johnson, son of founder Hosmer A. Johnson, becomes dean. He serves until 1901.


1891The four professional schools—medical, law, pharmacy, and dental— affiliate with Northwestern.


1921

1919

1921

1915

1917

1911

1913

1907

1909

1908The Department of Health hires first nurses after success of using Visiting Nurse Association members to fight scarlet fever.

1907Arthur R. Edwards becomes dean, serving until 1916.

1910Paul Ehrlich’s work on immunology leads to the development of chemotherapy.

1913Northwestern faculty and alumni help form the American College of Surgeons.

1912Sterilization of water begins and reduces typhoid fever rate to lowest among major cities by 1917.

1914–18World War I grips the nation.

1918Great influenza outbreak sweeps nation and kills some 50 million people. 318 die in one day—October 17— in Chicago.

1911Two years of college now are required for admission.

1917Arthur I. Kendall becomes dean after serving as acting dean from 1916-17. He serves as dean until 1924.

1921

Frederick Grant Banting and Charles Herbert Best isolate insulin from the pancreas.

1906Eduard Zirm successfully transplants a human cornea.

1915S.S. Eastland rolls over in Chicago River, killing more than 800 passengers and crew.


1923

1935

1937

1931

1933

1927

1929

1923

1925

1928Sir Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin.

1922Founders’ Day tradition starts.

1924James P. Simonds becomes acting dean.

1923Elizabeth J. Ward announces gift of $3,200,000 to the University for a memorial to her husband, Montgomery Ward.

1925Irving S. Cutter becomes dean, serving until 1941.

1927Archibald Church Library is dedicated.

1931Ernst August, Friedrich Ruska, and Max Knoll build the first prototype of an electron microscope.

1933James P. Simonds again serves as acting dean.

1933The Chicago World’s Fair, known as “A Century of Progress,” takes place.It celebrates the city’s centennial.

1927Babe Ruth hits record 60 home runs.

1929Stock market crashes, starting the Great Depression.1924

Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb face murder charges in Chicago.



HISTORy of MEDICINE


1953

1949

1951

1945

1947

1941

1939

1943

1939World War II begins with invasion of Poland.

1941Japanese attack Pearl Harbor.

1950Richard H. Lawler performs the first human kidney transplant in Chicago.

1946Northwestern establishes first medical school partnership with U.S. Veterans Administration.

1949Richard H. young becomes dean, serving until 1970.

1951 Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago receives its charter from the state of Illinois.

1953James Watson and Francis Crick identify the structure of DNA.

1953Jonas Edward Salk develops a polio vaccine.

1941J. Roscoe Miller becomes dean, serving until 1949.

1944George H. Gardner becomes acting dean.

1953

1943Willem J. Kolff develops a kidney dialysis machine.


1955

1967

1969

1963

1965

1959

1961

1955

1957

1955Chicago is one of the first cities to use the new Salk vaccine.

1956Chicago introduces water fluoridation program.

1968Chicago hosts Democratic National Convention during a tumultuous time in the nation’s history.

1958Our Lady of the Angels School fire kills 92 children and 3 nuns.

1956Curriculum is revised; lecture hours are reduced; junior clerkships are instituted; and more electives are offered.

1967Christiaan Barnard performs first human heart transplant.

1968Robert A. Good performs first bone marrow transplant.

1960Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago affiliates with Northwestern.

1965Searle Building is dedicated.

1968Women’s Hospital and Maternity Center receives charter. It becomes “Prentice” in 1973 and opens its doors as a Northwestern Memorial Hospital facility in 1975.



HISTORy of MEDICINE

1957Ian Donald starts using ultrasound for medical diagnosis.


1985

1985

1981

1983

1977

1979

1973

1971

1975

1975City Council revises municipal code to delineate duties of Board of Health and Department of Health.

1973Completion of Chicago’s Sears Tower makes it the tallest skyscraper in the world.

1974The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago relocates to Northwestern’s Chicago campus.

1970James E. Eckenhoff becomes dean, serving until 1983.

1983Researchers identify the retrovirus (HIV) responsible for AIDS.

1977First MRI scanner is tested by Raymond V. Damadian.

1977Lake Shore Center is purchased and opens for student housing.

1983Harry N. Beaty becomes dean, serving until 1997.

1983Chicago AIDS Task Force is established.

1978Louise Brown, the first test tube baby, is born on July 25.


1987

1999

2001

1995

1997

1991

1993

1987

1989

1990First NIH gene therapy trials begin.

1990Tarry Research and Education Building opens; Method Atrium construction is completed, uniting Searle, Morton, Ward, and Tarry buildings.

1995Children’s Memorial Institute for Education and Research opens its doors.

1997Harvey R. Colten becomes dean, serving until 1999.

1999Most Northwestern Memorial Hospital facilities consolidate in new replacement hospital and ambulatory care pavilion.Lewis Landsberg becomes dean. He serves until 2007.

1995July heat wave causes 514 to die in the Windy City.

1996Sir Ian Wilmut successfully clones a sheep named “Dolly.”

1994Michael Harrison perfects techniques for performing fetal surgery.


HISTORy of MEDICINE

2000Human genome is sequenced.



2009

2009

2005

2003

2007

ThE FUTURE OF NORThwESTERN

2009Chicago vies for 2016 Olympic bid.

2005Surgeons in France perform first face transplant.

Building on 150 years of

excellence, the medical

school moves into the future

where alignment, innovation,

and impact will drive our

vision to remain leaders and

innovators in medicine and

the care of patients.

2002Northwestern University’s Board of Trustees renames the medical school in honor of benefactor Reuben Feinberg.

2005Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center is dedicated on the former Passavant Pavilion site.

2009Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine celebrates 150 years of excellence!

2007J. Larry Jameson becomes dean.


1959Medical students enter-tain alumni attending a reunion dinner with a

skit from Quo Vadis Medicus? A little culture.

from buildings to departments, tangible evidence of

donor generosity can be found throughout the medical

center complex

Today’s medical school campus reflects the vision, commitment, and investment of some of the Chicago area’s most generous and ardent philanthropists. Continuing in

perpetuity, transforming gifts have helped shape the course of Northwestern. These philanthropic investments in facilities

and programs allow us to “dream big” and pursue excellence in research, teaching, and clinical care each day.

treasured nomenclature


Elizabeth Ward (above, right) chose to memorialize her husband, A. Montgomery Ward, the pioneer Chicago catalog retailer who died in 1913, by contributing a transformational gift toward the construction of the first building on Northwest-ern’s Chicago campus. This building would house the medical and dental schools.

The Montgomery Ward Memorial was dedicated in 1926. The building continues to be considered the gateway to the medical school campus. Its lobby—with its ornate, painted ceiling and bas relief—features the recently refurbished por-traits of the Wards as well as a portrait of philanthropist Reuben Feinberg and his brothers Samuel, Louis, and Bernard.

morton medical research building

Margaret G. Morton

Margaret Gray Morton, a Class of 1939 alumna from North-western University’s School of Education, made a gift to construct and endow a hospital in memory of her husband, Joy Morton, founder of the Morton Salt Company. A neurosurgical hospital was proposed but restrictions on building during World War II prevented the immediate execution of her wish. After the war, the runaway costs of construction became pro-hibitive. With the consent of heirs and the courts, it was finally decided to construct a building devoted primarily to research.

The seven-story Morton Medical Research Building articu-lates with the south wing of the Montgomery Ward Memorial. Dedicated in September 1955, it was the first new medical facility built by the University since the completion of the Montgomery Ward Memorial in 1926.

montgomery ward memorial

A. Montgomery and Elizabeth Ward

The Searle, Morton, and Tarry buildings were all contiguous with the then-current complex, allowing for easier collaboration

and sharing of equipment and space.


In May 1965, a 15-story research building was dedicated and named for John D. Searle (above, left), chair of the Board of Trustees of Northwestern University and the principal private donor. The Searle Medical Research Building extends from the east wing of the Montgomery Ward Memorial to Superior Street and connects with the east wing of the Morton Building. This facility, devoted to research laboratory space, was the first major addition of space in nearly half a century on the campus.

The Searle family has continued to have a vital impact on the medical school’s research enterprise. In 2005 Northwestern received a major grant from The Searle Funds at The Chicago Community Trust to attract outstanding researchers in genetics and molecular medicine, the neurosciences and functional imaging, as well as bioengineering and advanced medicine. This gift was in addition to a grant to the Chicago Biomedical Con-sortium (CBC), a collaboration of Northwestern, the Univer-sity of Chicago, and the University of Illinois at Chicago that aims to support and stimulate innovative multi-institutional collaborations in research and education and to enable the Chicago area to become a leader in the biomedical sciences.

The Searles created the Searle Leadership Fund in the Life Sciences to recruit nationally recognized biomedical scientists who will have an unusually strong impact on Northwestern’s research reputation in the international community and maxi-mize synergies within the Northwestern research community. Together these grants have enabled the city of Chicago to begin to transform itself into an important biomedical center.

mcgaw medical center of northwestern university

Foster G. and Mary McGaw

In 1973, the Northwestern University Medical Center was renamed the McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern Univer-sity (“McGaw”) in recognition of a transformative gift to the University from Foster G. McGaw and his wife, Mary. Foster McGaw was the founder and guiding force behind the American Hospital Supply Corporation.

With the benefit of the McGaw’s generous gift, the member institutions have flourished into a great academic medical center comprising Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, the new Prentice Women’s Hospital, the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Children’s Memorial Hospital, the Jesse Brown VA Hospital, and Evanston Northwestern Healthcare (ENH). As of June 30, ENH will no longer be a McGaw Medical Center member.

The McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University’s global and principal function today is to sponsor, organize, coordinate, and supervise the graduate medical education (GME) programs and activities maintained by its member insti-tutions. With more than 1,000 trainees, the Northwestern McGaw consortium is one of the largest GME sponsors in the country—a laudable achievement made possible in part by the great generosity and foresight of the McGaw family.

searle medical research building

The Searle Family


George W. Tarry, MD, an esteemed medical school faculty member for nearly 40 years, and his wife, Edwina, left a legacy at Northwestern that will continue to impact the Feinberg School’s students, faculty, alumni, and staff. Edwina completed her graduate studies in education at Northwestern and was always supportive of Dr. Tarry’s work at the medical school.

Over the years, the Tarrys made gifts that culminated in the leadership gift to name and construct the 16-floor Tarry Research and Education Building, which opened its doors in 1990. The Tarry Building was Northwestern’s first major research investment in a quarter century, adding as much modern research space as collectively had the original campus complex. The building houses important space for education, including student laboratories and the Traisman Student Center. At the time, the new facility energized the growth of the school’s research enterprise. Within six years, the medical school’s research funding grew by 88 percent, more than double the rate of growth for medical schools nationwide.

naming of the ken and ruth davee department of neurology and

clinical neurological sciencesThe Davee Foundation

The Department of Neurology set an exciting precedent in May 1999 when it gained the distinction of being the first named department at the medical school. The Ken and Ruth Davee Department of Neurology and Clinical Neurological Sciences was made possible through a transforming gift of endowment from The Davee Foundation.

The department name honors both the memory of alumna Ruth Dunbar Davee’s late husband, Ken, a Chicago philanthro-pist who died in 1998, and the Davees’ longstanding, generous support of programs at Northwestern.

tarry research and education buildingGeorge and Edwina Tarry

The Searle, Tarry, and Lurie buildings each—in their eras— represent a recognition that medical research plays an increasingly

important role in the practice of medicine and in the education of physicians and scientists.


The late Reuben Feinberg, who died in 2002, was instrumental in directing gifts from the Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation to Northwestern University Medical School, which resulted in the school being renamed Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.

The Feinberg brothers Bernard, Louis, Samuel, and Reuben created the Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation to honor their parents. Over the years, the Foundation also has funded and named leading research institutes at the medical school, including the Feinberg Cardiovascular Research Institute and Frances “Evelyn Feinberg Clinical Neuroscience Research Institute.

The Feinberg Foundation continues to be an important phil-anthropic partner in the school’s efforts to increase its impact and prominence as part of a great academic medical center.

robert h. lurie medical research center of

northwestern universityAnn Lurie

In April 2005 the Feinberg School of Medicine dedicated the new 12-story Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center of North-western University. Chicago philanthropist Ann Lurie made the leadership gift to Campaign Northwestern to name the building in honor of her late husband, Robert H. Lurie. Among other notable commitments, the Patrick and Shirley Ryan Family and Northwestern Memorial Hospital also made leadership gifts to help construct the building. The facility, located at the southeast corner of Superior Street and Fairbanks Court, is designed to encourage basic, clinical, and translational researchers to collabo-rate across disciplines, creating the potential for novel solutions to scientific challenges. Investigators associated with the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern Uni-versity, as well as scientists in the areas of genetics and molecular medicine, neurosciences, bioengineering and advanced medicine, and infectious diseases are conducting research in the building.

In 1989 Ann and Robert Lurie made a commitment to endow the cancer center, and in October 1991, the Cancer Center was dedicated as the Robert H. Lurie Cancer Center of Northwestern University. This title was modified in 1998, when the National Cancer Institute awarded the Cancer Center the highly competi-tive “comprehensive” designation—reflecting its dedication to the highest standards of cancer research, patient care, prevention, and education.

In addition to these transformational gifts, Lurie recently pledged an extraordinary commitment to Children’s Memorial Hospital (CMH) to help establish a new, world-class medical center devoted exclusively to the care of children. The gift—the largest in the hospital’s 125-year history—will be used to create CMH’s new replacement hospital on Northwestern’s Chicago campus and to enhance its pediatric research initiatives. When the hospital opens in 2012 it will be named Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago in honor of Ann Lurie and her late husband and in recognition of the gift.

naming of the feinberg school of medicine

The Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation


we are forever grateful for the partnership and foresight of these extraordinary donors.

we also are indebted to the many individuals, corporations, and foundations that continue to

support our greatest aspiration—to have a palpable impact on the

health of humankind.


generational Advancement

Alumni families strengthen their bonds at (and to) the medical school


Susie Morris readily admits that she grew up wanting to be like her father because of his excitement for his profession, which later shifted from a focus on anesthesiology to pain man-agement. And she developed her affection for Northwestern due to Dr. Morris’ passion for the place that helped him achieve his career goals. The recently retired alumnus and former clinical fac-ulty member at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City would tell Susie and her sister stories about his days at Northwestern. In 1996 he flew to Pasadena, California, to join some former classmates to root for the Wildcats during their unsuccessful attempt to triumph at the Rose Bowl.

“My dad doesn’t do sports. He’s not into football,” says Susie in explaining Dr. Morris’ enduring devotion to the purple and white. “He just loves Northwestern and loves being a doctor. He practices medicine with the enthusiasm of a kid.”

Relaxing at his mountain ranch in Price, Utah, anesthesi-ologist David J. Morris, MD ’73, went to his mailbox one day and spied an envelope from Northwestern

addressed to his oldest child. His daughter, Susie, a graduate of Smith College in Massachusetts who had been working as a research assistant in Boston at the time, had applied to several medical schools, including her dad’s alma mater.

“Susie was still in Boston,” recalls Dr. Morris. “I couldn’t help myself; I opened the envelope. It was a letter of acceptance. I was so excited I screamed into the house at my wife, who ini-tially thought there was something wrong. We immediately called Susie and told her. Of course I begged her forgiveness for opening her mail!”

Susie, now a third-year student at the medical school, remembers the day slightly differently than her proud father. “I was in a foul mood because I was moving out of my apart-ment,” she shares. “When he called with the news, I thought he was playing a mean joke on me. I made him read the letter sev-eral times and then I had my mom read it. In the end, it turned out to be a very good day. I had gotten my first choice.”

Since its founding 150 years ago, Northwestern has always attracted the best and the brightest applicants. Every year those who accept coveted spots in the entering class bring with them unique attributes that contribute—immediately and in the future—to the medical school’s legacy of excellence. Some share their knowledge in research. Others offer their experiences in community service. And, in almost every new class, several are legacies in and of themselves. Related to Northwestern alumni, these students’ DNA had a presence on campus well before they entered this world as newborns.

“Our alumni are an excellent source of referrals, providing the school a rich pool of potential candidates—especially their own family members,” remarks Warren H. Wallace, MD, associate dean for admissions and a faculty member in internal medicine. “From a recruiting point of view, someone with an interest in the medical school independent of our advertising efforts already is partly in the door. Legacy applicants have a connection with the school beyond just looking at the web site. As students, legacies bring a sense of the school’s history with them when they attend Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.”

Family tradition, fond memories, funny anecdotes, and, above all, an outstanding medical education count among the many factors that influence a legacy applicant’s or student’s desire to become a physician and graduate from the same insti-tution as a loved one. “In some families, parents or grandparents have shared with their kids from a young age how much they enjoyed their experience learning at the medical school,” says Dr. Wallace. “This younger generation then grows up thinking that Northwestern is a neat place because people they know and respect had a wonderful time and got a great education.”

The Morris FaMily

lITTlE DID MEDICAl STuDENT DAVID MORRIS (lEFT) SuSPECT

IN THE EARly 1970s THAT HE WOulD BE ENJOyING THE WHITE

COAT CEREMONy OF DAuGHTER SuSIE SOME 30 yEARS lATER

AT HIS VERy OWN AlMA MATER.


The rosene-MonTella/clark FaMily

Just as Dr. Morris served as an unsuspecting role model for his daughter, so did Karen Rosene-Montella, MD ’77, for son Brian Clark, a third-year medical student at Northwestern.

Chief of medicine at the Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, Dr. Rosene-Montella doesn’t recall any undue influence on her son to follow in her footsteps and attend her alma mater but when he did indeed do both, she was thrilled. “It has been fun for me to watch him make Northwestern his first choice,” says this professor of medicine and obstetrics and gynecology at Brown University, “and truly enjoy medical school.”

Born in Washington state but raised in Rhode Island, Brian had little contact with Northwestern despite periodic visits to see extended family members living in the Chicago area. Like his decision to become a physician, he came to appreciate the medical school after his own independent assessment. “It’s funny, after talking with some classmates who said their physician parents worked a lot and pushed them to go into medicine, I had the opposite response,” reflects Brian. “My mom worked full time but she managed to be excellent at her job and, at the same time, be there for my sister and me. She demonstrated that you could be a good physician and a good parent. It is possible to do both.

“As for Northwestern, my mom may have said, ‘Why not apply there?’ but really it was the one school with which I had the greatest connection,” he says. “Being an outdoorsy person, I never wanted to live in a big city but the first time I toured the campus, I fell in love with the school.”

For some alumni the family ties that bind them to their alma mater may have just a few branches on the proverbial fam-ily tree, with the majority having familial connections that

only go back one generation. And then there are other North-western legacy families, whose ancestors hob-knobbed with the original founders of the medical school.

David N. Danforth Jr., MD ’71, for example, traces his Northwestern lineage back through his late father, David N. Danforth, PhD ’38, MD ’39, to his grandfather, William C. Dan-forth, MD 1903, to his great-grandfather, Isaac Newton Dan-forth, MD. Although Isaac earned his medical degree at Dartmouth, this nonalumnus made his mark nonetheless at Northwestern in the late 1800s. One of the founders of Wesley Hospital and dean of Northwestern University’s Woman’s Medi-cal School (1893–99), Isaac not only spent time with Nathan Smith Davis, MD, but also wrote his biography, The Life of Nathan Smith Davis 1817–1904. The book first appeared in print in 1907 and was dedicated to the memory of two Vermont physi-cians—Isaac Danforth, MD (1763–1851), and Samuel Parkman Danforth, MD (1810–65). Indeed, the Danforths have been involved in medicine since the founding of this country.

“The first Dr. Danforth was Samuel Danforth, who lived in the late 1700s in Boston,” shares Dr. Danforth Jr., who possesses the saddlebags of his great-grandfather, Isaac, who made house calls on horseback in Vermont before moving to Chicago. “He was one of the six founders of the Massachusetts Medical Society and was a physician to Paul Revere.”

A senior investigator in the surgery branch of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, Dr. Danforth Jr. grew up in Evanston observing his father’s and grandfather’s “love of and devotion to” medicine. Both faculty members at the medical school and specialists in obstetrics and gynecology, the senior Drs. Danforth practiced together for a number of years. In 1965 the medical school named Dr. David N. Danforth Sr. chair of obstetrics and gynecology—a position he held until 1972.

So with all of his family history and literally living within a couple of blocks of the Evanston campus, did the junior Dr. Dan-forth feel any pressure to join the family business and school? “No, not all,” assures Dr. Danforth Jr., who earned his under-graduate degree at NU and who looks forward to this coming academic year when his only child, Laura, starts her college stud-ies at Northwestern. “My father and grandfather wanted it [med-icine] to be my decision. They always were very supportive.”

As a medical student, Dr. Danforth Jr. went on rounds with his father as well as observed deliveries. He even attended his dad’s lectures. Says this third-generation Danforth medical school graduate, “He treated me like any other attending physician or faculty member would.” Just as today’s alumni enjoy discussing medical issues with their children now at Northwestern as well as at other medical schools, Dr. Danforth Jr. cherished this time in

The danForTh FaMily

MEDICAl STuDENT BRIAN ClARK (lEFT) HAS HElPED

HIS MOM, DR. KAREN ROSENE-MONTEllA, BECOME

REACquAINTED WITH NORTHWESTERN. IN FACT, SHE

GAVE A GRAND ROuNDS lECTuRE IN THE NEW PREN-

TICE IN APRIl 2008.

his medical education. “It was wonderful to have access to some-one who was such an excellent clinician,” he recalls. “My father was stimulated so much by his work that his enthusiasm quickly passed on to me. He would often say the same about his father.”

Interestingly, when Dr. Morris rotated through Evanston Hospital as a senior medical student in the early 1970s, a chance meeting with Dr. Danforth Sr. left him with a lasting impression and a sense of gratitude for the teachers who taught him at Northwestern. The budding physician saw a group of attendings and residents looking at X-rays of a type he had never before seen. They were images of a pregnant woman’s pelvis that were taken because it was feared that her baby may not fit out the birth canal. He remembers, “One physician noticed my curiosity and said, ‘Is this something that interests you?’ He then started his lecture all over again to include me. Later he invited me to his home for dinner to further discuss my interest in his specialty. This man was Dr. David Danforth, a well-respected specialist and department chair. I was absolutely amazed.”

Stories abound about the exacting standards Loyal Davis, MD, neurosurgeon and chair of surgery (1932–63) at Northwestern, demanded of his students. Yet there was a

“behind the scenes” softer personality whose bluster shielded a more caring and sensitive man. No one knew that better than members of the Rideouts, another family with generational con-nections to Northwestern. Molly Rideout Johnson—whose father, William E. Rideout, MD, graduated from the medical school in 1929—worked for Dr. Davis as a departmental secre-tary for several years during the 1950s.

“Dr. Davis hid his acts of kindness but I personally witnessed them,” recalls Johnson. “He would interview residents and stu-dents one by one and really get to know their situations. If he felt that money was preventing talented people from getting a medi-cal education, he would find ways to help them.”

While Johnson, who also developed and managed children’s and teen programming as part of the professional staff at a nearby YWCA, didn’t attend the medical school she felt very much a part of the Northwestern community. In 1955 her husband, Jerome “Joe” L. Johnson, MD, earned his medical degree at Northwestern. In fact much of Johnson’s work with Dr. Davis went to support Joe, who also worked odd jobs, through medical school. “As a physician, my father was drafted during WWII,” she says. “He came back from Okinawa, Japan, weighing 80 pounds and suffering from various tropical diseases. He had to recover for several years before restarting his medical practice. Joe’s father had also died. So we all did what we needed to do to make ends meet.”

As a medical student Dr. Johnson, now a retired California-based cardiologist, has his own Loyal Davis memories. He shares, “If a student or resident scrubbed into Dr. Davis’ operating room with shoddy, worn shoes, he would have someone go into that person’s locker and replace the shoes with new ones without the

The rideouT FaMily

The johnson FaMily


SEVERAl GENERATIONS OF lEADERS AT NORTHWEST-

ERN INCluDED MEMBERS OF THE DANFORTH FAMIly.

PICTuRED ClOCKWISE FROM uPPER RIGHT ARE DRS.

ISAAC DANFORTH, DAVID DANFORTH SR., AND

WIllIAM DANFORTH.

individual ever knowing the source of the gift.” Dr. Davis provided the new shoes, not out of fastidiousness, but because he often knew that students couldn’t afford to replace them on their own, according to Dr. Johnson.

Although he didn’t follow the lead of his physician father and brother, who both graduated from the University of Chica-go’s medical school, Dr. Johnson did instill in his daughter, Susan Rideout Johnson, MD ’84, GME ’87, a passion for medi-cine and an interest in Northwestern from a very young age. “Our home life revolved around medicine, with conversations about my dad’s medical cases at the dinner table,” says Susan, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician who practices general and complementary medicine. “When I was about five years old, I would go on nursing home rounds with my father. He’d hold hands with patients. He made house calls at night. I loved that type of patient interaction. It was a great way to see my dad.”

Susan had heard about Northwestern her entire life. She knew in high school that she wanted to be a pediatrician but she initially rebelled and decided to study geology and marine biol-ogy. She remarks, “I wanted nothing to do with my father’s pro-fession.” In her senior year of college, Susan came to realize she wanted to “treat people rather than fish” as her father describes her decision, and she applied to Northwestern—a place in the Midwest that felt familiar to her thanks to periodic visits to see family in the Chicago area.

Now practicing in and around Sacramento, California, Susan credits her medical school education and residency in pediatrics with giving her a tremendous advantage over her peers. She remarks, “Due to my training and having the oppor-tunity to see so many children at Children’s Memorial, I honed my ability to know when a child is sick or well better than many of my non-Northwestern colleagues.”

According to Fazen family lore, as a young man Louis E. Fazen Sr., MD 1900, quickly traded 5:30 a.m. stints milking the cows on his father’s Wisconsin farm for

work as an apprentice at a local Racine pharmacy. In the 1890s, pharmacists offered remedies to the sick for whatever ailed them. This “healing” environment prompted this dairy farmer’s son to develop a keen interest in becoming a physician—a very well-educated one.

“During this pre-Flexner [a report that revolutionized medical education in the United States and Canada in the early 1900s] era, the role of a physician was not that much different from a pharmacist except that physicians had, perhaps, one more year of education,” explains Louis E. Fazen III, MD ’69, of Southborough, Massachusetts. “My grandfather felt he needed much more than that probably because he already knew so much about drugs. He wanted to get a medical education at a four-year school and Northwestern was one of the few in the country to offer one.”

More than 100 years ago the 80 or so miles between Racine, in southern Wisconsin, and the Windy City involved at least a day’s journey by horse or carriage. While trains did exist, the eager Northwestern student from Racine didn’t have the financial means. So he looked to nearby Lake Michigan for an answer to his transportation needs and found it in steamer ships that, at that time, commonly ferried people and cargo around the Great Lakes. Says Dr. Fazen III, “Obtaining a four-year education was a huge burden for my grandfather. He often worked the steamer ships for his passage to Chicago.”

Adopting an “off to war” mentality, the senior Dr. Fazen also eloped with his high school sweetheart before leaving for Northwestern and the unknown. They traveled to nearby Kenosha, Wisconsin, and married in 1896 without their parents’ knowledge. When Dr. Fazen Sr. received his MD degree in the summer of 1900, he returned to his hometown and the couple wed again for the “first” time in front of family and friends. Fifty years later and with five living children and several grand-children, this husband and wife finally revealed their secret by first celebrating a “46th” wedding anniversary and then, two months later, a “50th” anniversary much to everyone’s surprise.

“It’s crazy to think about what my grandfather felt he needed to do to become a physician,” remarks Dr. Fazen III, a pediatrician who is now doing volunteer work with the Indian Health Service in Arizona and Montana, “but the spirit of put-ting your whole self into medicine and caring for patients has always been very much a part of my family.” And so has the tradition of attending Northwestern for medical school.

Inspired by his surgeon father and, in turn, later motivating his own son, Louis E. Fazen Jr., MD ’41, attended Northwest-ern after years of hearing his father share tales about the medical school. “He would talk about how he and other students would

The Fazen FaMily

The eckenhoFF FaMily


DR. SuSAN RIDEOuT JOHNSON (ABOVE) INITIAlly

VEERED AWAy FROM MEDICINE BuT IN THE END

BECAME A MEDICAl SCHOOl AluM JuST lIKE HER

FATHER, DR. JOE JOHNSON (lEFT), WHOSE FATHER-IN-

lAW DR. WIllIAM RIDEOuT WAS A GRADuATE OF THE

ClASS OF 1929.


go out at night and get bodies out of the graveyard because there weren’t enough cadavers for study,” recalls the junior Dr. Fazen, a retired surgeon who early in his career operated and was in practice with his father—Racine’s first surgeon. They saw patients in offices that were a part of their family home and were affiliated with St. Mary’s Hospital where the senior Dr. Fazen served as chief of staff for 25 years. “Fortunately when I went to medical school, they furnished us with the cadavers we needed!”

The fourth generation of the Fazen family to become an alumnus of the medical school came from the Larson side of the clan. Louis Fazen Sr.’s great-grandson Theodore Larson III, MD ’81, a neuroradiologist practicing in Colorado, also had heard about the adventures of the man for whom Northwest-ern’s Louis E. Fazen Sr., MD 1900, Memorial Student Scholar-ship Fund was established in 2000. Shares Dr. Larson, “His first patient was apparently inebriated and was hit by a horse and buggy right outside his office in Racine.” Although family tra-dition might have dictated Dr. Larson’s path to Northwestern, he came to his own conclusion that he would receive the best education at the medical school after earning a biomedical engi-neering undergraduate degree on the Evanston campus. “My father probably influenced me the most,” he says. “While he was not a physician, he greatly admired my great-grandfather and he aspired that one of his children would become a doctor.”

Another branch of the Fazen family tree became entwined with that of the late James E. Eckenhoff, MD, dean of the medi-cal school from 1970–83 and founder of Northwestern’s

Department of Anesthesiology, through his son, Roderic G. Eckenhoff, MD ’78. During Rod’s first year at the medical school, his parents arranged for him to meet Maryellen Fazen, the daughter of Dr. Fazen Jr. and his wife, Helen, at a Nathan Smith Davis Club dinner. An undergraduate biomedical engi-neering student at Northwestern, Maryellen was finishing her senior year.

“I knew nothing of this setup,” recalls Dr. Eckenhoff, vice chair for research and Austin Lamont Professor of Anesthesiol-ogy and Critical Care at the University of Pennsylvania. “Suddenly Lou Fazen appeared with Maryellen in tow and everything else faded away as we discovered all of our similar interests. Our first date, scuba diving off the Evanston shore, happened a week later—Lake Michigan in November, clearly this was love!—and the rest is history.” The two married in 1976 during Maryellen’s final months of doctoral work in neuroanat-omy at the medical school. Parents of four children, they now work as a team at Penn on the mysteries of anesthesia and Alzheimer’s disease.

The tradition of entering the medical profession continues today for later generations of Fazens—alas, just not at North-western for the moment. Louis E. Fazen IV, the son of Dr. Fazen III, is currently a third-year MD/PhD student at Yale. Although accepted to his dad’s, granddad’s, and great-granddad’s alma mater, the youngest Louis E. Fazen felt closer connections to the East Coast where he grew up. A highly recruited medical school applicant, his son made the decision that was right for him, according to Dr. Fazen III.

“Northwestern has been very much part of the fabric of our family, and we all came to the medical school in our own way,” he says. “There are many more people in our family who will become eligible for subsequent generations of Fazen family ties at Northwestern!”

Like living trees, family trees depend on the strength of their roots and fertile ground to grow strong and stand tall. For the past 150 years, Northwestern has provided an environment that nurtures and supports all—blood related or not—who have come to the school for their medical education. Thanks to their “purple and white” roots, Northwestern’s legacy families have added many branches to their genealogically grown trees that will, no doubt, continue to reach for the sky for many years to come.

DR. lOuIS FAzEN SR. (uPPER RIGHT) HANDED DOWN

HIS lOVE OF NORTHWESTERN TO SEVERAl FAzENS

WHO FOllOWED HIM, INCluDING HIS GRANDSON, DR.

lOuIS FAzEN III (BOTTOM RIGHT). WHIlE NOT BORN A

“FAzEN,” AluMNuS DR. ROD ECKENHOFF MARRIED

INTO THE FAMIly.


The medical school entered the computer age with this

“high-tech” digital computer facility. Originally housed in the Department of Physiology,

it served as a research and teaching resource for faculty

and students. The IBM 1710 System (foreground) shared space with online surgical

facilities (background).

1959


A sesquicentennial celebration only comes around once. Thanks to the efforts of many in the Northwestern commu-nity—alumni, faculty, staff, and students—the medical school’s rich history over the past 150 years has been shared and retold so that we better appreciate and again remember its impact on our past, present, and future. And among the chief storytellers has been Ron Sims, Special Collections librarian in Northwestern’s Galter Health Sciences Library.

Understanding the importance of preserving the school’s leg-acy, Sims has spent more than a decade overseeing the medi-cal school’s collection of rare books and artifacts ranging from an invoice from a dentist billing Lt. General George Washington for work on his false teeth in 1799 to photos of notable alumni and faculty throughout the ages. Under normal circumstances, Sims and the Galter Library receive hundreds of inquiries each year for help with tracking down historical information. Just imagine how a 150th anniversary can affect the request rate!

Creating timelines, compiling statistics, and providing back-ground material, Sims and his colleagues have enhanced our appreciation of the key events that have occurred since the medical school opened its doors in 1859. Their knowledge and expertise has made possible, for instance, this special sesquicentennial issue of Ward Rounds. And due to their passion for history, Northwestern has been able to proudly celebrate during this historic anniversary year. For that pleasure and much more, we applaud the work of the entire staff of the Galter Health Sciences Library, under the direction of Jim Shedlock, and thank them all very much.

A THANk yOUof historic proportions

The Galter Library’s Jim Shedlock (left) and Ron Sims help preserve the medical school’s history.


The sustainability of our natural resources and protecting our environment affects all of us on planet Earth, in our communities, and at Northwestern. For example, the University recently participated in Earth Hour, a global initiative to raise awareness about climate change by reducing electrical usage via a voluntary blackout. For the scheduled one-hour event at 8:30 p.m. on March 28, Earth Hour organizers urged the world to turn off unneeded electrical items to reduce energy consumption. The University joined the effort by encouraging its constituents on the Evanston and Chicago campuses to turn off non-essential electrical items both at work and at home.

In this special issue recognizing our sesqui-centennial, Ward Rounds has gone green, too! By switching to Utopia Two–Xtra Green, a “green powered” recycled paper

that contains 30 percent post-consumer recovered fiber, Ward Rounds will help, on an annual basis, to:

Save 211 trees

Save 146.2 million BTUs or what would be needed to power 1.6 homes

Save 27,885 kilowatt hours of electricity offset by the purchase of renewable energy

Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 77,028.2 pounds of CO2—equivalent to the amount emitted by 6.96 automobiles per year

Reduce wastewater by 77,002 gallons—enough to fill 0.1 of an Olympic-sized swimming pool

Reduce solid waste by 12,741 pounds or what would fill 0.4 garbage trucks

gO gREEN PLEASE!

Every “green” choice we make today will help to ensure another 150 years and

more of excellence for our medical school. With the greening of Ward Rounds, we’re helping to make a difference

that will have an impact well into the future. So whenever possible, go Green Please!

And always Go Purple!

The medical school was originally affiliated with Lind University. Which year did the Chicago Medical College affiliate with Northwestern?A. 1859 B. 1870 C. 1902 D. 1956

The term “Dean” was not established until the Chicago Medical College affiliated with Northwestern. Who was the first leader of the medical school to hold the title? A. N.S. Davis B. Irving S. Cutter C. Hosmer A. Johnson D. Richard H. young

What medical school organization is 141 years old?A. Medical Alumni Association B. Student Senate C. Nathan Smith Davis Club D. Women’s Faculty Organization

The first medical school building was established at this intersection in Chicago.A. Halsted and Belden B. Superior and Fairbanks C. State and 22nd Street D. Calumet and 26th Street

In which year was the current core curriculum adopted by the medical school?A. 1859 B. 1964 C. 1987 D. 1993

SESqUIvIAL PURSUIT?????How well do you know your Northwestern trivia and the people and places of the medical school? Test your sesqui IQ, and try your hand at these historical NU brainteasers (answers below). Visit www.wardroundsonline.com for more sesquicentennial fun and games.

1

3

54

2


Answers: (1) B; (2) A; (3) A; (4) C; (5) D.

spring 2009volume 26, number 1

Senior Executive Director of CommunicationsTom Garritano

Interim EditorCheryl SooHoo

Contributing WritersJanet DeRaleauEileen NorrisMichael NyquistAnn Ross

Editorial BoardCharles V. Clevenger, PhD ’86, MD ’87Colleen M. Fitzgerald, MD ’96, GME ’00Lisa M. Godsel, PhD ’97James P. Kelly, MD ’83John B. Nanninga, MD ’63Lawrence J. Pass, MD ’77Bonnie L. Typlin, MD ’74Ukeme Umana, MD ’85Paul D. Urnes, MD ’59Diane Bronstein Wayne, MD ’91David P. Winchester, MD ’63J. Larry Jameson, MD, PhD,

Vice President for Medical Affairs and Lewis Landsberg Dean

Rebecca A. Cooke, Senior Associate Dean for Administration

Ginny Darakjian, Assistant Dean for Alumni Relations

Katherine E. Kurtz, Dean for Development

Robert M. Rosa, MD, Dean for Regulatory Affairs and Chief Compliance Officer

Alumni AssociationBonnie L. Typlin, MD ’74

PresidentF. Douglas Carr, MD ’78 President-elect

Ward Rounds is published quarterly for alumni and friends of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and the McGaw Medical Center graduate medical education programs. Material in Ward Rounds may not be reproduced without prior consent and proper credit. Address all inquiries to the Office of Communications, Northwestern Univer-sity, Feinberg School of Medicine, 303 East Chicago Avenue, Rubloff 9th floor, Chicago, IL 60611-3008, 312/503-1246, or [email protected].

©2009 Northwestern University

Ward Rounds is a federally registered trademark of Northwestern University.

DesignPivot Design, Inc.

Principal PhotographyAndrew Campbell

Archival images appearing in this special issue of Ward Rounds courtesy of the Galter Health Sciences Library Special Collections, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois.

Celebrate your alma mater’s 150th anniversary in style! Visit our online store at www.fsm150.com to purchase sesquicentennial memorabilia. Mugs, pens, clothing, and more collectibles displaying Northwestern’s unique commemo-rative sesquicentennial logo can all be yours for today and forever. Purchase items for yourself, your family and friends, or your classmates during this special year in your medical school’s history.

Act soon while limited-supply items are now available— and enjoy!

www.fsm150.com

here’s to 1859!

spring 2009, volume 26, number 1

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