Temple University School of Medicine - Skull Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

Page 15 text:

We started what was to become a daily exercise that shrimp and braised parsnips, found in the abdomen, suggest perforated ulcer; that patients are divided into three classes: the rich, the poor, and those who still have their tonsils; that pigs live longer if they don't make hogs of themselves; that without pepper and salt, the urine of diabetes insipidus is not as delicious as that of d. mel-litus; that there is no merit in getting any hot ideas, because the Germans, Himmelhoch and Piffeldorfcr, had the same ideas 22 years before. Many of us bought stacks of books and struggled home under them. One year later we were to crawl back with them and offer them for sale. After scanning the bulletin board for class schedules we allowed ourselves to be propelled, by sur- face tension, into the elevator which deposited us on the third floor. We entered the Auditorium, where we met as a group for the first time, to be greeted by Dr. Parkinson and part of his staff. There, four years later, the Freshman class was fortunate enough to convene and listen . . . The class met for the first time in the Auditorium

Page 14 text:

... on 22, 1937 . . . one hundred and eleven of us started classes. Fifty-nine colleges had deposited us on Temple's doorstep where we were impressed by the names of the Pioneers in Medicine on the building’s facade and by the fact that Dr. Kolmer gets up at 4 A. M. to study. We had moved into flats, lodgings, boarding houses, apartments and many other sordid substitutes for Home. Everybody shook hands with everybody. The gregarious Jake Benson walked up to a nice young chap who was standing on the campus and said, Hi, chum, where do you hail from?” Why, I’m from Michigan,” his chum replied. Hey, that’s swell,” yelped Jake, I’m a . . . Blah Blah . . . (five minutes of this) . . . Well, so-Iong, kid, be seein’ you.” To which his newly found friend replied, Yes, I think you will, in anatomy class probably; my name’s Huber—Dr. Huber.” The grapevine met us p.d.q. and informed us that a mysterious they” were out to get us, that we’d never finish, that we’d better look sharply at our neighbor because he probably wouldn't be with us long. The knowledge we eagerly sought was to be granted. We were to learn, among other things, The bulletin board offered a clue to puzzled neophytes Kay Risk arrived at Broad Street Station Helen Crocker started her medical library with a small purchase

Page 16 text:

... to tliE intioductoiy acHfiz±± o £11 ox n S. J oxtjy, zA{.f2 Ladies and gentlemen of the Freshman Class, we welcome you to .Temple University Medical School not with hackneyed phrases, nor do we intend to dwell eloquently upon the glorious past of the heroes of medicine. We welcome you and hope you will earnestly assess your opportunity. When you entered this room this morning, you entered upon an entirely new adventure. You have deliberately chosen life's most difficult study, the vast accumulated literature of the healing art. Gone with the wind are the campus activities of your academic collegiate days. No longer may you tread the walks over lawns and pause under the trees to group and chat. Nor during the evening hours may you now huddle beneath the elms, the beeches, the firs or maples and ecstatically sing the old Alma Mater. Gone are the days when you can assume only five majors. The comic strips on the blackboard in Professor Befuddle’s room as extemporized by the wag of the class are no longer possible. Gone are wild cheers of acclaim for making the team's winning point. Gone are the happy times of carrying the victors on your shoulders as the college band blares. Nostalgia of major grade may be yours, many times. The memories of the relatively care free college days are to be cherished indeed. The old halls and scenes are to be revisited some day—but now, today, you have chosen to enter upon a new way of life. You have chosen to assume a classroom day from 8 or 9 A. M. to 5 P. M. You have chosen to live in rented rooms of private dwellings instead of the happy club life of the dorm. Your latch key lets you into the front door of a row dwelling, and all the houses on the other side look like yours, and the back fence is only a yard away. Your rooms become the four-walled cells that chain you to the books far into the night. Yes, you have chosen the most expensive • course in time, effort and money that civilization has to offer any student. Four years of strenuous nerve-wracking grind, followed by a two-year hospital apprenticeship without any pay. Did you ponder all this as you answered the application questionnaire? You are a chosen few out of the hundreds applying. Do you possess a sense of obligation? And to whom? Avoid next June the heartache of the home-folks that a failure report would occasion. Who are the ones who have struggled in the financial sense and out of saved earnings, thus, back you? Have you developed a sense of accountability? Do you know that, sitting on these benches, your medical education cost is supplemented by tax-payers' money? Then, by what moral right can there be indifference to the allotted task? Can you afford to be truculent? By any right of imagination, can you assume that pull will take the place of work? Or a very airy glad-hander? Would you merely waft your way through? Let’s be serious. Start working today and don't let up until next May. Play the game, and play it hard. The days of pioneering are still at hand. Glorious achievement is yours if you will. Position, place and honor await. Your name may be engrossed in the literature of medicine tomorrow. Your experiments may lighten a vast human burden. Medicine is the most highly personalized service the world knows. In doing well by yourself, doing well by the friends and relatives so eager and expectant, by doing well by your patient, doing well by your community, doing well by your State, doing well by the Nation, you will be doing well for Eternity. Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many.” • 12 •