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

Page 20 text:

ROBERT M. BUCHER, M.D. Dean of the Medical School When one commits thoughts to the printed page of a yearbook, he hopes that the words may be so arranged as to provide a message, both timely yet timeless in the sense that it will serve as a true portrayal of the present scene for many years to come. Each graduating class has its own personality but description of this defies language. Each one seems better than the last and this is as it should be if our profession is to continue to advance. Perhaps that which is most distinctive is the period of time during which this group lived and studied together; this is the only common ex periencc they have all shared or ever will share. In previous years one might have thought of distinguishing characteristics of the period as they affected the intramural atmosphere, such as educational ferment. “growing emphasis on research, “concern for the necessity of preventing the curriculum from becoming longer, ami many others. But there is a far more dramatic factor characterizing the time in which this Class of 1964 occupied die classrooms, laboratories, clinics and hospital wards — a factor which is significantly affecting die lives of our entire population — a social revolution, the magnitude of which is still to become known. In this struggle of a race to achieve its full birth-right, not all of the issues are clear and it is indeed possible that many of these issues are beyond the comprehension of our current understanding. Although each citizen will participate in the study i and solution of this problem, the role of the physician will be a particularly critical one. Traditionally he who practices medicine has been concerned with the treatment of human ills, regardless of their origin or of the circumstances of his patient. More recently, however, the physician lias become concerned with the many influences of social and economic factors on the basic physiology of the body, and thus unavoidably becomes concerned with any factor which affects the ecology of his patient. During the next months and yean our profession should sene to inject the cool reasoning of science together with compassion and equanimity, in order to prevent excessive emotionalism on either side of the struggle from erupting into violence. The physician has always been accepted in time of strife in either camp, and has been recognized as one whose dedication and knowledge rise above human differences. He has always been a calming influence and an ambassador without portfolio, and has even been able to advance his knowledge and effectiveness in the time of strife. This challenge is presented to you with the hope that when this book may be looked through again ten or more years from now, the efforts of our profession and those of compassionate people everywhere will have led us out of confusion into a more orderly and peaceful time Robert M. Bucher, M.D. Dean ROBERT M. BUCHER. M.D. 16 Dean of the Medical School

Page 19 text:

dministration MILLARD E. GLADFELTER Ph.D, D.Sc. in Ed., LL.D., Litt.D., L.H.D. President of the University HOWARD W. BAKER. M.D. Chief Administrator of Temple University Medical Center

Page 21 text:

LEROY E. BURNEY, MX), Vice-President of Health Sciences MEDICINE FOR A NEW AGE 1970 A prophet in our clay is a rash individual who must cope wit!) the speed, diversity and even the violence of change. One cannot avoid, however, a responsibility to recognize change and hopefully give it some intelligent direction. To predict the future, one must know the past. What have been some of the strengths at Temple? It has placed the highest values on students, faculty, ad-ministation and physical plant in that priority. This will continue. Your school has always believed its primary concern and responsibility is to teach the medical student, providing a sound educational experience and environment for him. This will not change, although methodology and content will and should. I have noted in my three years at Temple two conditions that do not always exist in every medical school: first, the faculty’s warm, friendly and personal interest in the student and, second, a spirit of friendliness and complete cooperation between the faculty in the basic sciences and the clinical fields. I would hope and expect that in spite of our family becoming larger in the next six years, this friendly spirit, interest and cooperation will continue and expand. Temple, in its teaching, has stressed the value and importance of the patient as a whole person, a human being. You are taught to treat a person with coronary occulsion, not to treat the disease as an isolated, unrelated entity. This difference in attitude may be a subtle one but it is vitally important. Technical competence alone is not enough. We arc more than a group of technicians: wc are a profession. Over 100 years ago, Virchow said that “Medicine is a social science in its very bone and marrow ... it unites in itself all knowledge of the laws which apply to the body and the mind.” A lavman recently emphasized this view when he quoted a comment of the president of a state medical society, who said. 140 years ago. “Clinical medicine is an unceasing employment of means for the accomplishment of specific or definite objects. Considered in relation to our knowledge of these means, the profession is a science — in relation to the application of them, it is an art. He who acquires the former, only, is learned: he who relies on the latter alone is ignorant, empirical and criminal; he who encompasses both reaches the highest attainable perfection. A university should constantly seek new knowledge. To answer this need, Temple's research and graduate training programs are expanding at a rapid rate. This is as it should be. Students benefit from a faculty engaged in research and graduate training and from their own active participation in research programs. This experience gives to the student an outlet for his own questing spirit and is a source of forming objective, disinterested judgments based upon exact ev idence, valuable in the development of a good physician. Other changes will occur by the time you return as an alumnus in 1970. New courses such as genetics and biometrics will be emphasized. There will be increasing teamwork with the social sciences, greater interdependence with the other schools of the Health Sciences and the University, increasing emphasis upon the training of allied health scientists, with perhaps a school encompassing these areas, and finally, a fuller realization of our opportunities and responsibilities in continuing education. In the final analysis, all of these changes will result in helping you and the other students leam the “three C’s” of education . . . curiosity, competence and conscience. I look forward with real pleasure to seeing you back here in 1970 when we can review together the realism or rashness of my prophecies.