Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of University of Illinois at Chicago (1921) [PAGE 10]

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HISTORICAL SKETCH xviii COLLEQE OF M E D I C I N E

xix

' ' THEREFORE, B E I T RESOLVED t h a t the Bureau of Medical Education and Licensure of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania do hereby withdraw all recognition of the medical courses given in the University of Illinois College of Medicine and t h a t the graduates of this school be refused the privilege of admission to the Pennsylvania State Medical Examinations." Since other states threatened to follow the action of Pennsylvania and prohibit our graduates from practicing in them, there was nothing left to do b u t to return to the old basis of extending our course over four calendar years. Thus our efforts and hopes to comply with t h e desires of the Army were defeated. The next real activity was our participation in the development of the Students Army Training Corps. The first of October, 1918, with considerable ceremony the Army and College of Medicine inducted our students into the S. A. T. C. This organization was partly under the control of the Army and partly of the University. We gave printed cards to the students, certifying t h a t they had been thus inducted, b u t we soon found out t h a t they were not in the Army at all, although they had thought they were and so had we. When a student was called by a local examining board he presented his card, b u t the board considered the card a joke, and so did we a little later. We organized an examining board under the direction of Major A. J. Ochsner. T h e physical fitness of our students will always be a m a t t e r of pride; instead of a high percentage being unfit for service we found n o t more t h a n 1 % to 2 % unfit. A few days after the physical examinations were over, Army officers appeared and began giving the students military drill. The students did not know whether they were in t h e Army a t all, and if they were they did n o t know whether they were still in t h e M . E . R. C. or in the S. A. T. C. But a spirit of patriotism accompanied by loyalty prompted the students to follow all orders and suggestions made by Army officers. Our officers worked away and finally succeeded in getting a large number of our students in the S. A. T. C. But weeks passed before any headway could be made in getting t h e M . E . R. C. students transferred to the S. A. T. C. This was due to some hitch in the regulations whereby the Surgeon General's office could not let its men loose. I have one letter from Captain stating t h a t the M . E . R. C. was defunct, and another stating t h a t " i t exists as much as before and has about 18,000 men in it, and Members of the M. E . R. C. may enter the S. A. T . C. only by transfer under orders of the Surgeon General or the Adjutant General." I t is thus quite readily understood why the students did not know whether they were in the S. A. T. C. or in the M . E . R. C. At this time we were obliged t o shift our students from the three-term system previously advocated by the Surgeon General's office to the four-term system adopted for t h e S. A. T. C. The teaching problem was becoming more and more serious. One after another the men felt it a duty to get into active service, and one after another they were released and t h e additional burden of carrying their classes fell upon those who remained. I t soon become apparent t h a t the teaching force was becoming so reduced in number and overburdened with work t h a t no more men could be released. Some of those remaining resigned with t h e hope t h a t they could t h u s take a more active part in the medical work of the Army and Navy, Others sought additional service on local medical examining boards, etc. The various departments took on new enterprises. The Department of Anatomy, for example, was requested by t h e Surgeon General to get out a Manual of Surgical Anatomy for the Army, which later was adopted by the Navy. Other departments were working in other lines. All were inspired with a desire to do more t h a n could possibly be done. Soon the announcement came t h a t a District Military Inspector and a District Educational Director were to establish themselves with headquarters in the Lewis Institute. This gave us much hope. The Dean was t o articulate with the District Educational Director, and the Commanding Officer a t the School with the District Military Inspector. With this reenforcement things began to shape themselves fairly satisfactorily. The barracks were being prepared and the regulations by the Army and N a v y for barrack life, with allowances, were explained to the students. T h e students were not long in finding out t h a t the N a v y offered a little better, pay, etc,, t h a n the Army and they at once began making applications for transfers to the N a v y . Finally the barracks were ready for the students. They were to have two hours of study each evening under military supervision. Everything went satisfactorily excepting t h a t the students looked at the books for this period b u t they did not study. The class work at first was badly broken u p ; the officers had much paper work; t h e barracks had to be cleaned; mess had to be served, and a thousand other little things had to be done. We frequently received orders telling us to dispatch at once several privates for duty in the barracks and were thus often obliged to interrupt lectures b y reading the names of those who were to report at once—and report at once they did.

< >ul. they went, pell-mell. We complained to the District Educational Director who i-Miifcwrod with the District Military Inspector and the order came back to our Com11landing Officer not to interrupt the classes. Things were beginning to run smoothly when the influenza came and the students were stricken en masse. While the deaths wm: few, the entire morale was broken; study was well nigh impossible. As the stu«IfnI<H began to recover from the influenza and its terrifying influence, another but ntildctr disease attacked them about as fast as they were able to get out on the streets m their new and attractive uniforms. This disease I.may for the sake of gentility call *'< 'horche la femme". This disease had not reached its height when the Armistice • •Mine, and the order for demobilization. At this time the District Educational Director wrote to us as follows:—"You have n-nMved notice direct from Washington t h a t the Students Army Training Corps is it I Mml. to be disbanded. Whatever your experience with the corps has been you will • in doubt regret t h a t an experiment so pregnant with possibilities in the field of educaIUMI had to be abandoned without sufficient opportunity, as many believe, to enable su mi re judgment of the possibilities to be formed. The most t h a t has been accomplished is to develop the faults of the system. But we were merely passing through the developmental period, the same as must be done in any new enterprise. The faults discovered MIMI removed would enable its merits to be recognized and weighed." I Educationally we were left in a badly confused condition. We might have run 111rough, the remainder of the year on the quarterly system b u t could not hope to easry 11- on as a permanent arrangement because of the greatly increased expense involved. 11 we were to change back to the semester system it seemed best to do so at once. So nl the beginning of February, 1919, we switched back to the semester system. We therefore had at t h a t time classes on the three-term system, four-term system, a n d i!i«' two-term system. Students and faculty entered into most hearty co-operation in getting out of the mix-up. We managed to satisfy the requirements of the most * \n,cUng state boards and were finally back on a pre-war basis at the beginning of the i'X'O session. < hie of the first things to be undertaken after the close of the war was a renewed * (Tori, to acquire clinical facilities. The various standardizing agencies in medical *'ilunation, such as the Council on Medical Education, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Federation of State Examining Boards, long have realized t h a t tin* outstanding defect in medical schools was the lack of clinical facilities. To overrome this defect they have made educational and legal requirements such t h a t t h e medical schools are obliged to ' ' o w n or entirely control a hospital. This hospital ttli«Mild be in close proximity to the college and have a daily average of not less t h a n '00 patients who can be utilized for clinical teachings." These conditions were n o t fully met by our College of Medicine and it became obvious in 1918 t h a t we must act 'ijn-rdily or lose our A rating. Moreover we would run the chance of having our graduates refused recognition in our own state. Our first efforts were directed toward obtaining contracts with a sufficient number of hospitals to meet these requirements, I»uI. our efforts were successful only in part. M a n y private hospitals were willing t o *- I,«MH1 teaching privileges but in none could we *' definitely control" the clinical material. We finally came to the conclusion t h a t we must obtain funds for a hospital or quit. I'li-Midcnt James presented the situation to the last General Assembly which approIHinted $300,000 for a clinical building. This building is to be devoted to the investigation and treatment of those diseases which belong in the fields of general medicine, Hiirp.ery, obstetrics and gynecology, but it will not provide for the teaching and investing ion which must be developed in connection with the specialties such as crippled and «It I<Mined children, the demented and insane, venereal diseases, tuberculosis, cancer, disuses of the eye, ear, nose and throat, etc. I t s purposes are clearly set forth b y President James in the following words: " T h i s clinical building will not be a hospital »u mi ordinary sense at all. I t will not undertake to treat the general run of hospital I*nMerits. Its facilities will be reserved for 'cases', t h a t is, for patients whose cases areni interest from the standpoint of medical science and art. Provision will be made h»r keeping chronic cases of interest and special value for instruction and scientific (imposes for a length of time determined solely by the scientific value of the case." The University had decided to go ahead with the construction of this building on I lot adjoining the present School of Pharmacy when certain other ideas began to t a k e * hlmpe. The Director of the State Department of Public Welfare, upon entering t h e uinte service was deeply impressed by the enormous sums expended in housing the sick •mil the lack of any well-defined effort to find out the causes of sickness. This impres•"i«»n is well expressed in his own words: " U p o n entering the state service as director of public welfare in 1917, without knowledge of the subject, I found t h a t the thing which