175 Years, 175 Stories: Part 1
1
Dean of the Medical School
Abram Sager, M.D., 1850-1851, 1859-1861, 1868-1875
Sager was instrumental in the formation of the Medical Department and became its first elected dean. As a teacher, he is said to have come to class with a frog in his pocket, insects fastened to his hat, and a snake that escaped into the classroom. He performed what was probably the first C-section in Michigan in 1869. He was a modest man and was said to have a kindly manner with patients. He retired after 33 years of service at the university, due in part to the formation of the Homeopathic Department, which he strongly opposed.
Samuel Denton, M.D., 1851-1853, 1857-1858
Denton — a dignified gentleman who favored the wearing of a high hat — had a large general practice and had an excellent reputation for sound judgment and skill in diagnosis and treatment. He was also an inaugural member of the Board of Regents and later a state senator.
Silas Douglas, M.D., 1853-57, 1862-68
Douglas persuaded the Regents to allocate money for a chemical laboratory, the first university building in the country built solely for chemistry. Douglas’ service at the university ended in 1877 due to a discrepancy in accounts — though the state Supreme Court ruled in his favor.
Victor Vaughan, M.D., Ph.D., 1891-1921
Vaughan, the first dean of the Medical School appointed by the president and Board of Regents (previous deans were elected), served for 30 years. An expert in toxicology and infectious disease, he was called upon by the U.S. Army to investigate the 1918 influenza pandemic. His study of poisons led to his role as an expert witness in many criminal and civil trials. Vaughan recognized that “poisoned” milk was caused by bacteria and, in 1885, discovered tyrotoxicon, a poison that forms in dairy products. A student organization removed his name from their group in 2019 because of his support for eugenics (Wrong Side of History).
Hugh Cabot, M.D., 1921-1930
Cabot envisioned a health care system with full-time, hospital-based group practices where patients would pay according to their means. His insistence that faculty should be full-time and should not work in private practice on the side led to a rift and ultimately a request for his resignation by the Board of Regents.
Frederick Novy, M.D., Sc.D., 1933-1935
Novy studied in Europe in the laboratories of Pasteur and Koch. At U-M, his bacteriology class was so successful that it became a requirement for students in the Medical School. Along with Vaughan, he helped educate the public about germ theory, food poisoning, disinfection, and controlling diphtheria and typhoid fever.
Joseph Johnson III, M.D., 1985-1990
Johnson was dean during several significant building openings: the new University Hospital and A. Alfred Taubman Center in 1986, as well as MSRB I and II. Cancer and geriatrics Centers of Excellence were designated by the Board of Regents while he was dean as well.
Giles Bole, M.D., 1990-1996
The Medical School curriculum began a new curriculum during Bole’s tenure and reduced class size from 207 to 170 to better serve students. The school also moved up the U.S. News rankings from 16th to 9th and was redesignated one of the top members of the NIH Medical Science Training Program.
Allen Lichter, M.D., 1999-2006
Lichter’s term saw the introduction of a new curriculum, one of the first in the nation to put students in patient care settings earlier in medical school. He made significant gains in the recruitment and retention of top faculty and oversaw more scholarship funding than any public medical school in the nation.
Moses Gunn, M.D., 1858-1859
Gunn brought a cadaver with him to Ann Arbor and performed a dissection in front of guests — possibly the first such demonstration in Michigan. He was the third faculty member appointed to the Medical Department. He also served as a surgeon for 11 months in the Civil War and saw active duty during General McClellan’s peninsular campaign.
Corydon Ford, M.D., 1861, 1879-1880, 1887-1891
Paralysis in one leg as a child led him away from the family vocation of farming and toward medicine. Ford was one of the most tolerant professors when women were admitted to the Medical School in 1870. After his last lecture in 1894, he turned wearily to an assistant and said, “My work is done.” He collapsed on his way home and died the next morning.
Alonzo Palmer, M.D., 1875-1879, 1880-1887
Palmer, who oversaw the start of the three-year curriculum at the Medical School in 1877, advocated the blend of basic science with clinical practice in medical education. He served for six months as a regimental surgeon in the Civil War and as president of the American Medical Association during the war.
Albert Carl Furstenberg, M.D., 1935-1959
During his 24-year tenure at U-M — second in duration only to Vaughan — Furstenberg helped the medical school become the largest in the country. His leadership, described as “stable yet enthusiastic,” launched the Medical School into the ranks of fully modern institutions. His friendships with philanthropists Sebastian Kresge and Charles Stewart Mott helped facilitate their financial contributions, with impacts still being felt today in the Kresge Hearing Research Institute, C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, and more. Furstenberg was the last dean to divide his time between departmental administration, private practice, and direction of the Medical School.
William Hubbard, M.D., 1959-1970
Just 39 when he became dean, Hubbard was the Medical School’s first full-time dean — without private practice and departmental administration responsibilities — and helped redefine the role in part through a focus on the importance of translating medical research advances into educational programs for students and practicing physicians.
John Gronvall, M.D., 1970-1982
Gronvall led the Medical Center through a period of growth that included record enrollment and big increases in the number of women enrollees. The Inteflex program, in which 50 select incoming freshmen could complete undergraduate and medical studies in a total of six years, started during his tenure.
James O. Woolliscroft, M.D., 2007-2015
Woolliscroft devoted his career to improving physician education. Nationally, Woolliscroft was among the first to advocate for reform in the teaching and assessment of students’ clinical skills. In 2008, he led U-M’s effort to purchase former Pfizer property, now the interdisciplinary research hub known as the North Campus Research Complex.
Marschall S. Runge, M.D., Ph.D., 2015-2025
Runge was CEO of the U-M health care system, which he worked to expand statewide, championing a name change to Michigan Medicine. The network of health care centers grew to include UM Health-West in Grand Rapids and UM-Health Sparrow in Lansing. At the main medical campus, Runge oversaw construction of the D. Dan and Betty Kahn Health Care Pavilion.
Sources: “Michigan Medicine History: The Future of Possibility” and “175th Anniversary: University of Michigan Medical School,” Michigan Medicine; The University of Michigan, An Encyclopedic Survey; History of the University of Michigan (U-M Press, 1906); Not Just Any Medical School: The Science, Practice, and Teaching Of Medicine at the University of Michigan, 1850-1941 (U-M Press, 1999); Medicine at Michigan: A History of the University of Michigan Medical School at the Bicentennial (U-M Regional, 2017)