As the “new guy” at the 179-year-old Medical College of Georgia, I have taken it upon myself to learn about the history of the School of Medicine. In that task, it has been my great pleasure to read and listen to the words of our Medical Historian in Residence Dr. Lois Ellison. She is a wonderful resource who can accurately link us to the past.

 

Recall that when the School of Medicine graduated its first class of four students in 1833, there were only six physicians on the faculty – an enviable 0.66 student-to-teacher ratio! The school was closed from 1861 to 1865 during the War Between the States, after which it reopened with 47 students. In 1873, MCG was renamed the Medical Department of the University of Georgia, the state’s flagship university located in nearby Athens.

 

But in 1910, the Abraham Flexner report became a turning point for medical education in the United States and Canada and a low point for MCG. Mr. Flexner wrote, “If the sick are to reap the full benefit of recent progress in medicine, a more uniformly arduous and expensive medical education is demanded.” Due to tenuous financial support and the loose affiliation with UGA, Mr. Flexner recommended MCG close or relocate to Athens. The “fix” that led to MCG’s survival was a stronger affiliation with UGA and the university’s assumption of control of its property and academic curriculum under a single board of trustees.

 

In 1933, the school’s name was changed to the University of Georgia School of Medicine. That same year, the financial crisis of the Great Depression caused the newly established University System of Georgia Board of Regents to reach a decision to close the medical school. That decision was reversed by a grassroots effort of statewide alumni and Augusta citizens, and the support of Gov. Eugene Talmadge. Just a year later, the Council on Medical Education and Hospitals dropped the school from its Class A list of medical education institutions. Dr. G. Lombard Kelly, the school’s new dean, began an aggressive program to correct deficiencies and Class A status was restored by 1936.

 

In 1950, only four years before my birth, the medical school became an independent operating unit of the University System of Georgia and resumed the name Medical College of Georgia. Until then, the top MCG administrator had been the medical school dean. This role changed with the appointment of Dean Kelly as the first MCG president. Dr. Edgar Pund became president in 1953 and on July 1, 1955, the full-time MCG faculty was organized.

 

The advocacy of Dr. Kelly and others along with the 1950 election promise of Gov. Herman E. Talmadge, led the Georgia General Assembly to approve construction of MCG’s teaching hospital, the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Hospital, in 1951. The hospital opened in 1956, the same year that the University System of Georgia approved transferring the UGA nursing program to MCG in Augusta.

 

The next 50 years at MCG paralleled developments across the United States. The relocation of the School of Nursing converted MCG from a medical school to a health sciences university with two schools. The Schools of Allied Health Sciences, Dentistry and Graduate Studies were approved in the 1960s.

 

Buildings were constructed for education, science and medical care. Faculty asserted their rights to self governance. Higher school accreditation standards were imposed, and successfully met. Student class size grew to meet the national demand for health care providers. Unfortunately the cost and availability of health care to the public moved in opposite directions. Competition for ever-shrinking health care, research and higher education dollars has sharpened the rhetoric at all levels, and has contributed a philosophical and economic rift colloquially called the “town and gown” divide.

 

I am proud to serve as the 26th “permanent” medical school dean. Since 1970, the School of Medicine has had more acting or interim deans (10) than permanent ones (eight).   There have been seven MCG presidents since 1950, including Dr. Dan Rahn who has served since 2001.  The year I arrived, the first class of 190 medical students – up from the previous 180 per class - was accepted. We now employ over 600 faculty in Augusta. In 2001, we earned maximum accreditation from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which in 1942 assumed approval responsibility for medical educational programs. Our next LCME site visit comes in January 2008, and we are committed to meeting the committee’s highest standards.

 

So as the “new guy,” I have immersed myself in the often tumultuous history of this fine institution. History can teach us a lot. However, history’s march does not change present day realities or set the course for a successful future. The world has become infinitely more complex in my own lifetime, and the health care environment surrounding MCG and Georgia is more complex than it has even been. That trend will continue.

 

Survival requires change – always has, and always will. When faced with change, some become wistful. I encourage those who are…“affected with or betraying vague yearnings or mournfulness or unsatisfied desire to understand”, to carefully study our school’s long history, and to place current events in the proper historical context. For in the words of noted psychologist, Arnold H. Glasgow, “The future is the past returning through another gate.”

 

It has been nearly 100 years since The Flexner Report recommended closing the MCG School of Medicine. May 24th we will welcome J. Roy Rowland, M.D. Distinguished Lecturer, Dr. Kenneth Ludmerer from Washington University in St. Louis, to address the faculty from his authoritative perspective on American medicine. The title of his address will be, “Time to Heal, or Time for Flexner-2?”

 

I hope that you will attend this named lecture. Dr. Ludmerer’s remarks should help form the course of future progress at Georgia’s first and only public school of medicine.

 

Sincerely,
D. Douglas Miller, M.D., C.M.
Dean, MCG School of Medicine