Iowa Medicine: Prospect and Retrospect

IOWA MEDICINE: PROSPECT AND RETROSPECT* WILLIAM B. BEANj Thishappy occasion ofcommencementpunctuatesaperiodoflongwork with an exclamation point ofaccomplishment. Ijoin with other members ofyour faculty, your families, and friends in congratulating you on passing the mosteasily identifiable, ifnot necessarily the most important, milestone ofyour lifelong program of medical education for the care ofyour patients . In this time offurious uneasiness and confusion, ofgloom, sorrow, and despair, the academic world has burst out ofwhat may seem to have been planned lassitude with an explosive force few would have predicted evenfour years ago when you came to medical school. I cherish the chance to speak to you about your opportunities and responsibilities. Perhaps the cynical will consider it unsolicited advice forced on reluctant neophytes. I enter upon my difficult mission with the intensity ofstressing what is good and emphasizing what is great about medicine, about your college ofmedicine, and about our part ofthe country. I underline my conviction that this is a.great university and agreat college ofmedicine.We must ever be mindful ofA. N. Whitehead's injunction, "The aims were great, their virtues were great, and their vices were great. They had the saving merit ofsinning with cart-ropes. Moral education is impossible, apart from the habitual vision of greatness. Ifwe are not great, it does not matter what we do or what is the issue" [i, p. 123]. Wewillbeno morethanunnoticed sands dropped and buried with millions more at the bottom ofthe hourglass oftime. * Commencement comments made to the medical graduating class, University of Iowa, June 1969. (Editor's note: One hundred years ago this September, the University oflowa College ofMedicine opened its doors. It was the first coeducational medical school in the world; ten ofthe first class ofthirty-seven students were women.) t Department ofInternal Medicine, University oflowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52240. 49I Centennials In emphasizing the positive, I shall suggest goals and objectives we should think about. As an example of what this college of medicine has done, I shall recall an episode largely unknown or forgotten as one ofthe high points in the history ofyour school. It is worth reminding you that ioo years ago there must have been much excitement here at our university over plans for the establishment of this medical college. Next year we will be celebrating the hundredth anniversary ofits opening. Centennials occurring this year exemplify two aspects ofAmerica. One became a great unifying force; one described a physically dividing fact in the structure ofthe United States. You recall that at high noon, on Monday , May io, 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah territory, overlooking the great Salt Lake, rail lines converging from the East and from the West were united in the completion of the first transcontinental railroad. It hardly matters that Leland Stanford, president ofthe Central Pacific Railroad , the western line, given a silver mall, made a prodigious swing, missing the silver spike and hitting the rail. This was the sign for telegraphs to flash all over the country, and as by magic a great ball dropped from the Capitol's dome in Washington, setting off whistles, cannon booms, parades , and a great spate of oratory. Ultimately, Stanford did hit the silver spike. Then, Thomas C. Durant, the chieffigure in management, called the "builder ofthe Union Pacific," ofwhich he was vice-president in his turn, made a mighty effort. Another mighty miss! The men hooted, howled, slapped one another, beat their thighs, and turned somersaults. The other fact was the existence ofthe Colorado River which is a physical elementwhich separates parts ofthe country into sections.John Wesley Powell, in May 1869, set forth with a bunch ofhearty colleagues in the firstjourney down the hitherto untested rapids and rocks ofthis river of mighty gorges and white water. Later he contributed much to our knowledge ofthe mineral resources ofthe country. So we have national themes ofconnection and separation. The Crisis ofOur Times When the uneasy feelings of student restlessness and faculty concern about the curriculum began to produce major effects nearly a decade ago, one was aware oftwo phenomena. First, there were increasing social pres492 William B. Bean · Iowa Medicine Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Summer 1970 sures for better medical care and more medical care which were surprising...