Harvard School of Public Health - Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

Page 12 text:

Department of Public Health Practice Front Row (left to right) RICE, CAPLAN, VARLEY, LEAVELL, ROBERTS, SNEGIREFF Second Row (left to right) BREED, RYDER Third Row (left to right) AYRES, LOMBARD, APPLE, HAGER, REED, PAUL, FRECHETTE, NORTON, SIMMONS,. DUNNING, FOSTER, DICICCO, SPENCER, MCCONNELL Fourth Row (left to right) CATH, MACLEOD, MASON, HALLOCK, KLEIN, PARAD, LOMBARD, DAVIS, HARE Teamwork is the dominant theme of the Department of Public Health Prac¬ tice. Dr. Hugh R. Leavell, a man whose modesty belies his international repu¬ tation, has assembled a team of men and women distinguished for their teaching, research and community service. Each of these represents a particular field of public health and has students specializing in that field. These specialties consist of Medical Care, Public Health Nursing, Tubercu¬ losis Control, Mental Health, Health Education, Public Administration and Cancer Control. The Whittier Street Field Training Unit, the Wellesley Human Relations Service and other community research projects provide evidence of the integration of the team. From these diverse approaches, students are taught both their own subject and its place in the field of public health. After a period of basic training, the students abandon the ivory tower and rub shoulders with the masses of men as field work is substituted for didactic teaching. Public Health Practice majors are divided into small groups, each of which is assigned a field project for the second semester. The scope of these ranges from a performance budget for the City of Brookline to the activities of the Cambridge Community Services. With the faculty available as con¬ sultants, the students learn the difficulties of practical public health problems. The international aspects of public health are also stressed. With the help of foreign students public health problems of other countries are integrated into the teaching program. The Department hopes to widen its horizons by exchange of staff with Public Health Schools and Organizations throughout the world.

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Department of Biostatistics What may appear to some people to be the ‘“seeds of heresy” are sown early in the academic year when the Department of Biostatistics, under Dr. Hugo Muench, attempts to provide a “minimum background in critical quantitative thinking and statistical technique” for all students. Basing its teaching program on an honest consideration of the fundamental differences in the background and ability of the various students, the staff undertakes this challenging task with exceptional vigor. Subjected to a maze of lucid explanations by Dr. Jane Worcester and an endless supply of tutorial patience by Miss Margaret Drolette, the student must possess great evasive ability indeed if he is to weather the storm without learning the basic concepts presented. If the final evaluation could but show that the students understand statistics as well as the staff understands the students, the whole venture would be an unqualified success. How the staff is able to escape the students long enough to conduct the myriad other activities of the Department is a mystery to many observers. Since they feel it more useful and important to give aid and guidance to outside workers rather than to conduct any major research program themselves, they work on research projects with members of many other universes —a truly broad approach to our earthly problems. For the weekly staff seminar Dr. Robert Reed returns from his ecological duties and reverts to biostatistics. To perpetuate all these activities and to develop a few stars of its own, the Department conducts an advanced training program for its junior members under a grant from the National Heart Institute. Seated (left to right) MUENCH, DROLETTE, SHEPS, WORCESTER Standing (left to right) BARTHOLOMAY, BAILEY, BOWDEN, CHATFIELD, REED

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Department of Epidemiology The department of epidemiology started in 1922 under Dr. Rosenau with a worldwide outlook which has been continued and extended under the present professor of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology—John E. Gordon. Students soon learn that not only is epidemiology the diagnostic discipline of Public Health but that its scope extends far beyond the boundaries of com¬ municable disease. The Department has done much to pioneer this broader concept so that we now take for granted the inclusion in our courses of studies of world population, alcoholism and accidents on the Mystic River Bridge. Special courses provide opportunity for students to continue work in their own fields, whether this is veterinary medicine, tuberculosis or international health. Current research,in keeping with a broad outlook,includes field and labora¬ tory studies of congenital anomalies, especially retrolental fibroplasia, mon¬ golism and malformation of the central nervous system. Work on enteric diseases in the military, cancer and diabetes continues. Abroad, the Department is concerned with field studies on population dynamics in the Punjab, and the frequency and spread of intestinal infection in Alaska. At the end of the first semester, having initiated the Class into the Royal Order of the Shillelagh, Professor Gordon left for his world tour. During part of the time he will hold a travelling professorship in Japan. His experiences will doubtless be recounted next year to portray the current interaction of the World, the Flesh and the Devil. Seated (left to right) PUGH, RUBENSTEIN, HABEGGER, WESSELHOEFT, INGALLS Standing (left to right) POPE, PHILBROOK, PEMBERTON