University of Missouri School of Medicine - Mutation Yearbook (Columbia, MO)

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PROLOGUE DEDICATION ADMINSTRATION FACULTY CLASSES NURSING GRGANIZATIGNS ADVERTISING STUDENT DIRECTORY frlik

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The agricultural community of Plymouth County, Iowa may well recall with pride the wintry day in February, 1915, when W. Earl and Elizabeth Wilson announced the birth of a son-Vernon Earl. While the early years on their farm provided little indication of the direction his interests would eventually take, the Wilson's observed and nurtured his increasingly ap- parent intellectual interest. In nearby Kingsley he completed his secondary education in 1931 and studied the following year at Mount Morris College, Illinois. The Depression Years forced this little religious college to close its classrooms and Vernon Wilson to interrupt his education. At the age of 30, after serving some three years with the 7th Fleets' Mine- sweepers in the Pacific Theatre during the second war, Vernon Wilson re- turned to school. From 19-16 to I9-1-7 he attended Itasca College near the headwaters of thc Mississippi in Coleraine, Minnesota, then returned to Indiana for a year at Manchester College in North Manchester. This same year he married Ula Rhone Miller whose charm and understanding light- ened the toil of the ensuing difficult years. The closeness of their family, now including a boy and girl, bespeaks the solidarity of this union. His academic excellence, interest in the life sciences, and association with a general practitioner prompted Vernonls enrollment in the School of Med- icine at the University of Illinois. Fulfilling the remaining undergraduate requirements concurrently during the first two years of medicine, he re- ceived his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Illinois in 1950. Despite the rigors of a medical school curriculum he also culminated an interest in pharmacology by receiving, not only his Doctorate in Medicine, but a Master's degree in pharmacology from this University in 1952. Dr. Wilson graduated as a member of Alpha Omega Alpha honorary medical fraternity and contributed to the area of renal pharmacology with papers considering the role of pressor amines and nephro calcinosis in kidney func- tion. From 1950 to 1952 he had prepared his thesis as a research assistant in the school's Department of Pharmacology. It was here that he came to know a man who, in the final analysis, may be responsible for his presence at the' University of Missouri Medical Center. Dr. Carl Pfeiffer, former chairman of the Department, recognized the tremendous administrative potential in his student's remarkable organizational ability, energy, and affability. In 1953, immediately following his internship at Illinois Research and Edu- cational Hospital Dr. Vernon Wilson was appointed Assistant Dean and Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Those qualities of leadership and administrative acumen which had so impressed his former chief became obvious to all who benefited from his six year tenure at Kansas. In 1959, after serving as Associate Dean and Assistant Professor of Pharmacology, then Acting Dean of the School of Medi- cine and Acting Director of the University of Kansas Medical Center he joined the faculty at the University of Missouri School of Medicine as Dean and Director. Almost immediately he formulated long-range plans for the Centerls growth and began working to expand the school physically and intellectually. Real- ization of the latter is seen in the many brilliant additions to the faculty which have followed his arrival, and evidence of the former in the present construction enlarging the plant in Columbia with imminent construction of a Veteran's Administration hospital and Intensive Psychiatric Care Unit, and the afliliation with the Kansas City General Hospital group, Childrcn's Mercy Hospital-K. C., Mo. and Missouri Institute of PsychiatryfSt. Louis. The Dean has recently been elected to his second three-year term of the Executive Council of the Association of American Medical Colleges. In this and his participation on the Liaison Committee of the A.M.A. and A,A.M.C., he has helped to establish policies set and standards at the na- tional level for medical schools throughout the country. He has spent a great deal of time and eH'ort in participation in meetings and visitations on accreditation of various schools throughout the country. The myriad of tasks incident to carrying such aspirations to fruition has necessitated frequent trips from Columbia to outlying medical communities and far distant universities. To cope with these needs and yet fulfill his obliga- tions at UMMC a new dimension in mobility has been provided by the Dean. His blue and white Bonanza must be a familiar sight to control towers across the midwestern states. The burden of administrative decision in a medical setting is a. formidable responsibility in itself, but to provide the correct steps in effecting a rapidly expanding medical community whose responsibility to the people increases with its expansion is formidable in thc extreme. It is to a man who has been instrumental in catalyzing such an expansion that this book is dedi- cated-Vernon E. Wilson, M.S., M.D. 7 5 5 s , f ': ,+L f1'f ' ' - 'fliif 42112 if 7 93. f I -.sig ' .5 1 x - , Bi? el - N- . , si' s- f fs' ,m tv . W N , V. 5 I' , W-Ami