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

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ROBERT H. HAMILTON Ph.D., M.D. Throughout this time academic pursuits were not his sole interest. While in college, he met a charming University of Texas co-ed. Miss Angie Stiles. A few years later, during his stay at Minnesota. l)r. Hamilton re-met this young lady, now I)r. Stiles, a resident in Obstetrics-Gynecology. They were married in 1933. The following year was one of travel for the Hamiltons. He was awarded a National Research Council Fellowship for study in Europe. The Doctors Hamilton spent a very enjoyable year working and visiting many of the lesscr-seen parts of England. Holland, and Switzerland. After a short tenure teaching physiology at Minnesota, on his return from Europe. Dr. Hamilton was invited by Temple University to accept an assistant professorship in the Department of Biochemistry and to become the director of the hospital chemistry laboratory. January. 1936, marked the beginning of an association which has now spanned almost three decades, a period rewarding for both Dr. Hamilton and the medical center. Eight years after his arrival at Temple, in 1944, he was appointed Head of the Department of Biochemistry. During the early years of World War II, feeling that his medical services might be required. Dr. Hamilton filled a void in his extensive professional career — that of internship. He completed this requirement at Temple University Hospital over the course of two years, while still executing his teaching duties. 5

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DEDICA TION OF 1963 SKULL TO By establishing its new medical research building this year, Temple University Medical Center has taken a giant stride towards promoting the new frontier of medicine. The Class of 1963 is pleased to dedicate its yearbook to a man who has helped Temple reach great heights in the past and who shall be an integral part of its new frontier. Thus we salute Dr. Robert H. Hamilton ... a great medical educator. When a student has successfully completed the course in Biochemistry at Temple Medical School, he can safely say he has mastered many of the basic concepts. That this is so is due to a great extent to Dr. Hamilton, who established the standards of accomplishment which we students must attain. To surmount the multiple difficulties, innate in supervising the instruction of a basic medical science demands a teacher of great merit, a man of sincere interest in the student, a man of extensive professional qualification. Such a man is Dr. Hamilton. He is a medical educator who believes that not only must academic learning provide factual information and stimulate one to probe and reason, but it must also create a genuine desire in the student to seek further knowledge. Robert Houston Hamilton was born in Corsicana, Texas on September 12, 1906. His father, a former professor of Humanities at Baylor University and later president of Howard Payne College, was then a Judge in the Texas judiciary. His mother, a teacher by profession, personally undertook her son’s schooling until he entered high school. At the age of sixteen he entered the University of Texas. In his early years, his chief interest lay in mathematics. During high school he became a part-time tutor of this subject, and then majored in mathematics at college. While in college, he began to focus his energies on chemistry. The year 1926 brought his Bachelor’s degree, and the following year a Master’s degree in organic chemistry. In 1927, he left Texas for the University of Minnesota where he became an instructor in biochemistry. He spent seven productive years there, teaching and studying. He attained a Doctorate in biochemistry in 1933. A steadily growing interest in medicine finally culminated in Hamilton’s receiving an M.D. degree two years later. 4

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Dr. Hamilton’s wife, Dr. Angie Hamilton, a woman of professional achievement in her own right, was an Associate in Physiology at Temple for some years after private practice. She later left Temple to assume a research position in the Harrison Department of Surgical Research of the University of Pennsylvania. Today, retired from medicine, she is an accomplished sculptress and painter. Dr. Robert Hamilton is a man whose time and talents are occupied by many things. He has long been active in professional societies, having held the chairmanships of the Physiological Society of Philadelphia and the Biochemist’s Club of Philadelphia. His duties at the medical center are concerned not only with teaching and research, but also extend into administration. He is a member of the Admissions Committee, Graduate Study Committee, Fels Foundation Management Committee, and is one of the faculty representatives on the University Trustees’ Medical School and Hospital Committee. He is also a Counselor to the Temple Chapter of the Society of the Sigma Xi. The Hamiltons take an active role in church activities, Dr. Hamilton having served as a deacon of the Second Baptist Church in Germantown. An admitted do-it-yourself proponent, he has constructed a Hi-Fi recording set, and possesses a fine set nf nower tools to handle all the caroentrv 6