Jefferson Medical College - Clinic Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

Page 23 text:

I came to Jefferson Medical College as Dean in July 1967, but I had known Dr. Peter Herbut for about four years before this time. We had met on several occasions, and I had an opportunity to talk with him at length one evening when I sat next to him at a dinner of the College of Physi- cians of Philadelphia. I have worked directly under the supervi- sion of many men, but I never respected anyone more than President Herbut. He was a very strong individual and he was inclined to firm opinions, but he never formed them without considerable fore- thought. He depended on his closest asso- ciates for advice and suggestions before he made up his mind on a certain issue, and I found that he rarely came to a faulty conclusion. When his decision was made, however, it was usually a final one and thus a dependable one. This made it satisfying to work with him because his associates could proceed on the basis of his decision and not expect that he would begin to waiver or seriously modify the situation after the hard work of implementation had been undertaken. Peter Herbut was not an original Jefferson- ian, atlhough the Alumni Association made him an honorary alumnus shortly before he died, and he was very pleased. He was born in western Canada, and he took his professional education at McGill University in Montreal. He came to Jefferson as a young man, and no one ever became more devoted to this medical school and then to the new University. Since I, too, am not an original Jeffersonian, I never had an op- portunity to meet the great men of the past but, to me, Peter Herbut was not only a professor of pathology, an administrative chairman of a department, the father of Thomas Jefferson University, and the first president of the University, he was prob- ably the greatest Jeffersonian I have ever known! William F. Kellow, M.D. 19