Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine - Caduceus Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

Page 14 text:

Dr. W. A. Dorland, author of the Dorland Medical Dictionary, added to the pres- tige of the school. In 1915 BMS came under complete control of Loyola Uni- versity. The name Bennett was dropped from the title. This acquisition did not cost Loyola very much, as the BMS administrators had hoped Loyola would help it to become a class AH school. Soon after Loyola's affiliation with Bennett, the AMA began its attempts to close Loyola's medical department, or at least to drop it to a class C rating. The AMA had several reasons for their actions against BMS. First, Bennett was considered a class B school, but its affiliation with Loyola was evidence of BMS' efforts to improve what it felt to be an unjust rating. Secondly, BMS, Loyola's medical department, had the largest graduating class in the nation. This made Loyola appear to be a commercial medical school, existing primarily for profit more than for quality education. But the AMA would not acknowledge that BMS was as large as College Fees A matriculation fee of tive dollars will be charged on entering the college. Fee for first year .... .... S 100 00 Fee for second year .... .. 100 oo Fee for third year ............................. 100 00 Fee fo: fourth year .......................... 100 00 A scholarship ticket which includes all fees for the entire course will be issued for ............... 300 00 payable in advance. Students will be required to deiaosit with the Secretary five dol- lars as security against damage to laboratory or college furniture, to be retumed if not forfeited. . Graduates from other recognized medical colleges may attend a full course of lectures in this college by paying a fee of S50 and matriculation fee. If they apply for graduation they will be re- quired to pay S50 additional and take examinations in the fourth or senior year studies. Laboratory fees 35.00 each. All fees are required to be paid in advance. it was as a result of its being a combina- tion of three medical schools. Loyola even gave its own entrance exam to evaluate its applicants more fully than neighboring schools, but the AMA view- ed this as a method to accept unqualified students. Lastly, Bennett had been founded as an eclectic school which was considered one of the irregular sects practicing medicine. The eclectic dogma denied therapy of bleeding, pur- gery, and emetics, which had been the main tools of regular physicians in the not too distant past. The eclectic motto was: Prove all things, and hold fast to that which is good. As medical knowl- edge advanced, all practicing sects had to adjust their teachings accordingly. BMS had actually been a regular medical school for many years, but kept its eclectic title in name only until 1908. Fr. Spalding, in his report on the beginning of Loyola's school of medicine, cited two examples of how the AMA tried to have Loyola closed. The first involved the AMA's bringing medical officials from Columbus to inspect BMS. These officials completely misrepre- sented BMS to the AMA. Fr. Spalding went to Ohio to defend Loyola's medical department. While there, he visited the medical school of the officials, and was surprised that they considered them- selves to be in a position to evaluate BMS when their institution was pro- foundly inferior to BMS in both facilities and standards. His meeting with the officials from Columbus and the AMA turned into one where the Columbus officials had to defend their medical school instead of Loyola defending Ben- nett. The second example was how the AMA sent a spy to attempt to be admitted into BMS. This man's mission was to try to be enrolled into BMS even though he was unqualified. The purpose of this was to demonstrate that BMS did not maintain its admission standards. The spy tried to weasle his way into the school by stating that his mother was dying, and that he Wanted to make her happy with proof of his entrance into medical school. This spy also took students to some of the lowest saloons on Madison street in an effort to get them to reveal damaging information about the school. Though this spy was never admitted to BMS, the AMA printed an article in the Chicago Tribune stating that Loyola accepted students without high school credits. After clash- ing with the AMA over similar issues for five years, Fr. Spalding sought legal help. These efforts were very fruitful, and Fr. Spalding was surprised with how harmo- nious the AMA became after they met with his lawyers. In 1917 Chicago College of Medicine and Surgery KCCMSJ became interested in uniting with Loyola's medical depart- ment. Though weakly affiliated with Valpariso University, CCMS was being hounded by the AMA to close because it was considered a commercial school. Fr. Spalding did not consider CCMS a commercial college because its buildings and equipment were maintained at the very best levels, limiting its profits. Loyola, which was looking for new facilities at this time, was enticed by the quality of CCMS' physical plant. The school consisted of three adjacent build- ings that were built originally as family dwellings. It was located across the street from Cook County Hospital, and in the center of many large medical clinics. Having opened in 1902, CCMS occupied the buildings that used to house the Women's Medical college of Chicago iWomen's Medical College had been bought by Northwestern in 1892 and moved to the N.U. campus.J. Loyola purchased CCMS for 5B85,000. Classes were begun at the new facilities in 1918. The medical school would continue to use this location for the next 43 years. Thus, in a short eight years C1909- 1918J Loyola assembled the componets of its medical school. Fr. Spalding had accomplished what the AMA wanted to accomplish: he closed four medical schools in forming Loyola's medical school. Approximately 15 years after Loyola founded its medical

Page 13 text:

gave the university a ready-made medi- cal department. The AMA encouraged this consolidation in hopes that the universities would improve the quality of teaching at their medical school. Ironically, at the very time when the Flexnor report was having medical schools closed, Loyola was attempting to establish its own medical department. So there was little sympathy, even hostility, towards its organization. Actually, Loyo- la was one of the first medical schools to follow the recommendations of the Flex- nor report. They raised their admission standards, offered more formal training in the basic sciences, and updated their facilities beyond the levels of some of the more established schools in Chicago. These efforts were ignored by the AMA. In fact the AMA eventually tried to have Loyola closed through subversive means as described below. Loyola administrators, in the prof cess of upgrading the school to a Univer- sity, decided to affiliate with Illinois Medical College KIMCJ in 1909. This, in effect, added a medical department to the school for the first time. Fr. Spalding, who had been a former regent of Mar- quette Medical School, was called upon to develop Loyola's medical school. IMC had been founded in 1894. It was housed in a three story building initially con- structed to be a hotel. Associated with IMC was Reliance Medical College. This was an evening medical school founded in 1907 which used the same faculty and building of IMC. Reliance was also incorporated into Loyola's medical de- partment. Fr. Spalding was approached in 1910 by the Bennett Medical School iBMSJ which was also interested in affiliating with Loyola University. By March of the same year, details had been worked out such that BMS bought out Reliance and IMC, thus becoming Loyo- la's medical depart.ment. BMS had been founded in 1868 as an eclectic school of medicine. The BMS hospital had to be closed to accommodate the new student body of 400 which resulted from the incorporation of the other two schools. The first graduating class in June of 1910 consisted of 62 graduates. 41 from Bennett and 21 from IMC. The students at this time did their clinical rotations at Jefferson Park Hospital which had a 90 bed capacity. f. inf 'gffi .Z Kal! . 44 I ,ff K 1 if Ill . In E ,iwif 1 if-.l Clockwise from top left: Illinois Medical College, Bennett College of Medicine and Surgery. Please see text for details. Medical School, Loyola Medical School circa 1930, and Chicago , . History of Strltch 9

Page 15 text:

department, its rating was raised to class A. But, even while Loyola was rated as a class B school its graduates had one of the highest passing rates of the state medical exam of any medical school in the city. The classes in the early years at Loyola and most other medical schools in the country were structured similar to the six year programs that exist today. Students would attend two years of college, and then advance to medical school. By 1910, a medical degree could be obtained after four years of school, each year consisting of eight months of classes. This was a far cry from the two year curriculum of twenty weeks each, that existed in 1877. As with students today, the last two years of training were made up of clinical rotations done at surrounding hospitals. Since there was no official University Hospital, Loyola used many different hospitals during the various eras of its medical program. Some of the hospitals used from 1917 to 1936 included Willard, Columbus, Alex- ian, Oak Park, Mesercordia, and seem- ingly any hospital that had Saint as its first name. Cook County and Mercy were the main hospitals for clinical rotations. Cook County, located across the street, was a nationally famous hospital offering an excellent faculty and patient popula- tion. Loyola students started using Cook in 1930, and would continue to use it into the late 70's. Mercy Hospital, the oldest hospital in the Midwest, was founded in 1850. This hospital had been strongly affiliated with Loyola since 1919, and in 1937, Mercy became the University Hospital of Loyola fthe equivalent of the relationship between Stritch and Foster McGaw Hospital today.l From the late 20's to the late 40's and beyond, funding was the biggest obstacle Loyola faced. The buildings were too small, so in 1925 they were enlarged with a common facade uniting the three buildings that had been CCMS. This was a patchwork job because finan- cial problems prevented proper im- provements. By the end of the 1940,s the financial situation had gotten so bad that the suggestion was made for the school of medicine to be closed. This was when Cardinal Stritch came on the scene. He was approached on these matters for two reasons: the first was that he had long been committed to the idea of a Catholic medical center to serve the people of Chicagog the other was that he was known to be particularly adept at raising funds. The Cardinal became invaluable to the continuation of the Loyola School of Medicine. He offered monetary support, lent his name to an annual fundraising dinner, acted as mediator between Mercy Hospital and Loyola University. But most important- ly, Samuel Stritch was a major propo- nent of building a new medical school for Loyola since the old facilities were quickly becoming outdated. In 1948, the name of the medical school was changed to Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine because of the tremendous support which the school received from the Cardinal. During the l950's, the Sisters of Mercy announced their intention to build a new Mercy Hospital along South Lake Shore Drive. Because of Mercy's affiliation with the Stritch School of Medicine, it seemed suitable to explore the possibility that the new school of medicine might locate adjacent to the new Mercy Hospital, and this hospital would become the principal teaching hospital for the school. Thus began a lengthy series of negotiations in which Mercy and Loyola-Stritch tried to work out details acceptable to both sides in making this cooperation a reality. After several years of discussion, negotiations ceased with the major area of difference being control of the clinical departments within the hospital. In essence, the discussion seems to have been the classic struggle between community hospitals and their academic affiliates. In May of 1959, Mercy Hospital and Loyola University announced that the two institutions would expand separate- ly. Mercy would build a new hospital on their present site. Loyola would look for a new location to expand since the accrediting association had determined Stritch's facilities and equipment to be inadequate for the needs of medical education. By 1962 the 43 year collabora- tion between Mercy and Loyola had come to an end. Loyola purchased nine acres of property in Skokie in 1958 with the intent to build a 350 bed hospital and medical school on the site. There were several problems with this plan. First, the land needed to be annexed by Chicago to obtain city services. The bigger obstacle was the surrounding neighborhood, which felt the medical center would change the character of the community. In the end, Skokie sued, forcing Loyola to sell its property, but at a 1.7 million dollar profit. Meanwhile, Hines V.A. Hospital was planning to surplus some of its lands because it planned a high-rise replacement of its barrack-style hospital. A study commis- sioned by Loyola determined this to be an ideal location, stating that it would become the geographic population cen- ter for metropolitan Chicago. There was also sufficient land C62 acresl, and the large patient population of Hines V.A. nearby. Loyola purchased the land in 1961 for a price of one dollar. This f 1 lil, la -.4 .- A Ag v . Ubi.. ' , W'-1 , S Y 1 ll rf' ' , I I IQ5 Surgery in 19205 Photo taken from student's seat in amphitheaterfclassroom