ABOUT THIS BOOK

A study of the union of science and medicine in a particularly illustrative institutional setting

Making Medical Doctors is not a conventional institutional history, but rather a study of the union of science and medicine in a particularly illustrative institutional setting. Its general subject is the institution where science and medicine most dramatically came together: the modern medical school and medical center. Its particular subject is the medical school and center of Vanderbilt University, which was rebuilt in the 1920s as a model for medical education and research. Making Medical Doctors also explores the intellectual and financial sources of institutional development: the worlds of Abraham Flexner, Frederick T. Gates, and Henry S. Pritchett, three foundation masters of the early 20th century. It examines closely the vanished medical world of that generation of doctors who reached the height of their influence in the period between the two world wars and describes how they actually did medicine, surgery, and science.

The convergence of science and medicine in the 19th and 20th centuries produced what we know today as modern medicine. The balance of power and interdependence between science and medicine have changed vastly from the 1920s and 1930s, as Vanderbilt’s story clearly illustrates.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Timothy C. Jacobson is the editor of the Chicago Times Magazine.

REVIEWS

“In many ways, this is the best one-volume history of an American medical school yet to appear. Thoroughly researched, unusually well written, it traces the modern history of a major Southern medical school against the background of national currents in science, medicine, and philanthropy.”--American Historical Review

“This book is well documented and intensely readable; it makes a valuable contribution to the history of medical education in the United States and the part played by Vanderbilt University.”--New England Journal of Medicine

“Making Medical Doctors is not a conventional institutional history but rather a study of the union of science and medicine in a particularly illustrative university setting. The joining is told by recounting the history of one of the nation’s most distinguished medical schools—the Vanderbilt University Medical School, which was rebuilt in the 1920s as a model for medical education and research.”--Journal of Southern History

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction

1.
Prologue: Three Men and a Celebration

PART ONE:
QUESTION OF POSSIBILITY

2.
The True Measure

3.
Gathering Substance

PART TWO:
DESIGN FOR PERMANENCE

4.
An Alliance

5.
The New Man

6.
Courts and Corridors

PART THREE:
ON TECHNIQUE

7.
Medicine

8.
Surgery

9.
Science

PART FOUR:
CHALLENGE AND RESPONSE

10.
Dependence

11.
Service and Science

Notes

Suggestions for Further Reading

Index