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

Page 19 text:

was lhe name attached to a course in spelling, punctuation, neatness, the art of cramming, separating egg yolks, and other fine points. Dr. Robert II. Hamilton's useful information, usually well presented, was studded with interesting pronunciations; his allegorical use of ‘ OUTO-MO'BILE ” for instance, startled us hack to attention. Basic information. mimeographed and distributed several days before each monthly quiz, discouraged us from any interval study. The seatless lab hours developed and made us acutely aware of our leg and detrusor muscles. Additional stimulation was given the first cranial nerve. Acid-base, Henderson, Hnsselbalch, Dr. Robinson, and shifting chloride ions got all hopelessly jumbled together, and it was to take the combined efforts of Gamble, Long and Oppenheimer to untwist and unshift them. Much of the time we didn't know what we were doing, most of the time we had no inkling of why, but we faithfully took volumes of notes on the subject, and by the time National Boards came around we were very glad that we had. Certainly the text was no help. No one was calling us “Doctors yet; no one was using that malignant inflection that was to become so familiar. “What do you think. Doctor? , hut we felt a little more like future physicians in those 8 to 9 Medical Correlation clinics with Dr. John A. Kolmcr. This was real medicine practiced, and we got an enjoyable lift from watching it. Points that seemed obvious at the time were reemphasized, hut information and approach gained here were to he gratefully recalled in future years. Dr. 0. Spurgeon English impressed us with his approach to psychiatric problems, ami for once in our lives at least, made us feel that the gobbledegook concerning supratentorial goings-on was really common sense;

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No teeth visible. I Those of us who were fortunate enough to he awake were treated to an hour in the dark with lantern slides and a discussion of the ear hy Dr. Weston—one of the best organized and delivered lectures given that year. When neuroanatomy came, he, with Dr. Kim tnel, proceeded to give the mechanized blackboards a workout with colored pathways running three boards high. Until the “practical, we actually thought we knew something about the subject, but on cross-, coronal, para-sagittal, and, we suspect, mixed, sections we discovered too late that the red nucleus was not reil enough, that the substantia nigra was only dirt, and that the marking-pin had fallen off of the anteromedial nucleus of the thalamus. Iiow could we ever do a thalamotomy? Anatomy was the vehicle used to introduce us to “Big Ed,” Dr. W. Edward Chamberlain. He proceeded to dispel any misconceptions concerning certain medical sub- jects before we ever bad a chance to form them: then, the jaundiced eye was to be turned and the brow to be raised whenever some mere misguided neurologist thought he was diagnosing multiple sclerosis; what did basilar skull films show, doctor? Dr. Chamberlain gave each of us a copy of a book which told those of us brave enough to read it that we couldn't possibly pass this year, not to mention the three more to follow. After telling us that these were the happiest days of our lives (! , he remarked that seeing each new Freshman Class made him feel a little sad, for our personalities were still intact and lie knew that sooner or later they would undergo such a radical change—deteriorate was the word he used— it was inevitable, a part of the ‘'doctor-complex.' We winder—he inav have been right —it seems to have happened more soon than late with some in our midst. Chemistry — physiological chemistry —

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ttr i We all got “SY “It’s obvious . . .” we all learned what it took to sublimate and harness our ids; numbers of wives arrived for these sessions, and several of us were moved to start planning for old age. With our schedule already bulging with chemistry, anatomy, fraternity parties, and dances, the Powers added Physiology at the second semester. With inadequately filled pens, we awaited Dr. Esther Grcisheimer on the first day; her greeting was, “Now, children, we shall discuss the physiology of the nervous system. We looked around and started to write. More muscles became hypertrophied. Correlation was achieved with anatomic facts, and the race had hit a new pace. We were given some practical information on the special senses, and some information on the cardiovascular system, some of which was good, some had, and some useful. And, suddenly, spring was in the air; the last series of lectures—on renal physiology—was before us. Given by Dr. Morton Oppenheimer, they were probably among the best we heard that (or any other) year. Organized well, and brilliantly explained, these lectures inevitably covered the material beyond our immediate scope. We were basking in this when the low blow struck— an unannounced exam, the day of the last scheduled lecture. Yes, to be counted—an important part of the now considerably lowered final grades. If we were academically asleep, this should have wakened us. If we were alert, we should have realized the portent this incident had in our future dealings with the department next year. If we had stopped and thought, we might have ‘You got the wrong end of the box!”