University of Kansas School of Medicine - Jayhawker MD Yearbook (Kansas City, KS)

Page 8 text:

Dedication I'

Page 7 text:

Dedication . ,..n......... hh. .. .... 'Wahl Hall, 1956 - 57

Page 9 text:

-Hafvzq 'Roaewell Wahl When the history of the University of Kansas School ofMedicine is written, after time has been allowed for proper perspective. no man will occupy a more significant place in its history than Harry R. Wahl. He was born in Minnesota a little more than seventy years ago, the son of a physician. Stimulated to some degree, no doubt, by the environment in which he grew up, he chose a career in medicine, receiving his M.D. degree from Johns Hopkins University. By this time he had decided upon a life of teaching and research and, developing special skills in the fields of pathology and bacteriology, he continued along the academic road. In 1924 he came to the University of Kansas School of Medicine, still in its immaturity and struggling with the inevitable problems ofadolescence. He arrived at a time when the entire University as well as its medical school was under serious stresses and strains in relationship to state government. He found an institution whose financial requirements for both life and growth were profoundly misunderstood by the people of the state and their legislative representatives. In fact, not too many years before, a governor of Kansas had publicly stated that a medical school was unnecessary in what was then a basically agricultural state, and perhaps ought to be closed. Notwithstanding these serious problems and the inevitable crossc urrents of jealousy and rivalry which they tended to encourage, Dr. Wahl and a group of his associates were able to lift up their eyes and see the possibility of a great medical center to serve the needs of the people of Kansas and the middle west in general. For the next twenty-four years, quietly, firmly, through thick and through thin, he stubbornly clung to the vision and built for its achievement. He steered the School of Medicine through the devastating period of drought and depression when lesser men would have long since given up. He proved himself impervious ,zo personal abuse on the part of jealous or frustrated men who sought the use of the Medical School for their personal aggrandisernent, and gradually - sometimes imperceptibly - his vision began to take shape. Today, as we view our modern productive medical center, bubbling with vitality from both teaching as well as research, we must not forget that without the footings and foundations laid by this quiet, dedicated man and a small corps of colleagues, this growth would not have been possible. Because. of the swiftness of the passing parade of life, one is rarely aware ofthe small but significant things which are the measure of any man - the individual encouragement, the personal loan at a crucial moment, the intellectual courage in refusing to bend standards - these are so often taken for granted, yet in sum total are a major part of the description of a man and his contribution. Not many today can remember or even conceive that for many years Dr. Wahl was chairman of the Department of Pathology, and an active teacher, Dean of the School of Medicine, pathologist to the University Hospitals and Director of the University Hospitals, a total responsibility now carried out by at least six full-time men. Yet as one who has sat in at least one of his chairs and who has broad knowledge of the study of the development of the University of Kansas Schoolof Medicine, my greatestadmiration is for his unswerving devotion to the conception that our Medical School could and should grow to the position of physical and functional prestige which it now enjoys. Through drought, through depression, through legislative apathy and political venality, through professional crosscurrents and impatience, he never gave up the dream. All of us who have ever had connection with the University of Kansas School of Medicine in whatever capacity and have achieved satisfaction and pride from this connection owe him a debt of immeasurable magnitude. Yet he would never have believed that such a debt really existed, for this quiet, modest little man, with a determination of iron, had the satisfaction that comes to but few in a lifetime - namely, seeing his dream come to reality. Franklin D. Murphy, M,D, 7