175 Years, 175 Stories: Part 5
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PATHOLOGY LEADER
After graduating cum laude from the Medical School, Gerald Abrams (M.D. 1955) continued at U-M, completing his internship and residency in pathology before being appointed to the faculty in 1959. Abrams left for two years of military service before returning to spend his entire career in the Department of Pathology. He became an expert in both gastrointestinal and cardiovascular pathology. A devoted teacher and mentor, Abrams contributed to the education of nearly 10,000 graduates of the Medical School. In 2014, the Department of Pathology established the Gerald D. Abrams Collegiate Professorship through donations made by former medical students and residents in honor of his teaching career.
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BIOCHEMIST, ROSE GROWER, AND ... SLEUTH?
During his 42-year career at the Medical School, Adam Christman, Ph.D., conducted pioneering medical research that helped solve multiple criminal cases. One of Christman’s major achievements was developing a carbon monoxide detection method. In 1936, a young woman named Bernice Blank died after a fire in her home. Forensic pathologists, using Christman’s method, discovered that Blank was dead before the fire ever started — a clear indication that she had been murdered. Her husband was convicted of the crime. Outside the lab, Christman was an award-winning gardener who was known to many simply as “the man who grows roses.”
Source: Ann Arbor District Library
FIRSTS
Empowering women for me, is about opening up doors and providing opportunities for women to succeed. Talent comes in many shapes, sizes, and colors. It is not defined by gender or race but rather by mind and soul. I seek to empower all people to create dreams and then to be able to reach for their dreams.
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Karin Muraszko, M.D., professor of neurosurgery and former chair of the department, was the first woman to head a neurosurgery department at any medical school in the U.S. She has spina bifida and has also been an advocate for accessibility, especially in the design of the new University of Michigan Health D. Dan and Betty Kahn Health Care Pavilion. “You won’t get to the front desk in a wheelchair and find yourself incapable of seeing someone easily,” Muraszko says.
Sources: Michigan Medicine social media; The Society of Neurological Surgeons; Medicine at Michigan, Winter 2023
Photo credit: Erica Bass, Michigan Photography
Every human deserves an advocate. But women — and particularly women during their reproductive journeys — most certainly deserve advocates and voices of support. Many pregnancies are profoundly complicated, and those women and families deserve providers who walk that walk with them, hold their hands, and have the medical knowledge and skills to help them through whatever they may need. And that is who and what I wanted to be.”
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Deborah Berman (M.D. 1999, Residency 2003, Fellowship 2010), professor of obstetrics and gynecology in the division of maternal fetal medicine. She leads the Perinatal Wellbeing Program at University of Michigan Health Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital. The program is the first of its kind in the nation to offer evidence-based music therapy in addition to other services tailored to the needs of pregnant people.
Photo: Daryl Marshke, Michigan Photography, 2016
In 1978, the Board of Regents approved a plan to build a new general adult hospital with an adjoining outpatient facility on the bluff overlooking the Huron River. The massive facility won funding from the state of Michigan as well as donors led by A. Alfred Taubman. The outpatient building was named in his honor. On Valentine’s Day 1986, staff and students rolled patients in their beds from Old Main into the new University Hospital.
Source: “From the Diag to the world: 175 years of U-M medical history,” Michigan Medicine
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National Medal of Science winner
Former President Joe Biden awarded Huda Akil, Ph.D., the National Medal of Science in 2023. Akil is the Gardner C. Quarton Distinguished University Professor of Neurosciences at U-M, and she received the nation’s highest scientific honor for her groundbreaking research investigating the genetic, environmental, and developmental factors that shape the risk of mental health disorders.
Source: Medicine at Michigan, Spring 2025
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ATOMIC ENERGY LEADER
John C. Bugher (M.D. 1929, M.S. 1931) worked for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission from 1951–1955. He helped test fission and thermonuclear devices, leading to improved weapons, and his work contributed to developments in uses of atomic energy in the medical field. Bugher attended the First International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1955 as an official advisor to the U.S. delegation.
Source: Rockefeller Archive Center
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TYPE 2 DIABETES DISCOVERY
In 1958, Stefan S. Fajans (M.D. 1942), then a professor of internal medicine in the division of metabolism, endocrinology, and diabetes, began studying a Michigan family with more than 360 members spanning seven generations. That family, which became known as the “R-W pedigree,” included 74 members with a form of non-insulin–dependent diabetes. However, the disease appeared unusually early in this family — it was diagnosed in children and adolescents, unlike the usual onset of type 2 diabetes after age 40. Fajans’ study of this family, as well as others, led him to name this subtype of type 2 diabetes as Maturity Onset Diabetes of the Young (MODY) in 1964. This form of diabetes appears in approximately 50% of each successive generation and is due to a mutation of a single gene. Fajans co-published the first paper to describe a genetic marker of MODY and the gene itself.
FIRSTS
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Comparative Neuroanatomy Genius
Elizabeth Crosby attended the University of Chicago, where she earned her Ph.D. in neuroanatomy in 1915. For her thesis, titled “The forebrain of Alligator mississippiensis,” she meticulously dissected the brain of an alligator and drew what she saw. The work remains important today. In 1918, Crosby became the first woman to become a full professor at the Medical School. She also was the first woman to give the Henry Russel Lecture, the highest honor given to U-M senior faculty. Crosby was a renowned scientist who researched comparative neuroanatomy, which compared vertebrates to discover how the human brain evolved and functions. President Jimmy Carter awarded her the National Medal of Science in 1980 for her groundbreaking research in this field. At U-M, the Elizabeth Crosby Award has honored students and faculty for their excellence in the basic sciences since 1957.
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NEUROSURGERY COLLABORATIONS
During World War II, Richard Schneider, M.D. (Residency 1948) served in North Africa, Italy, and France on the neurosurgical service of the 36th General Hospital. After the war, Schneider finished his training at U-M and joined the faculty in 1950. He became internationally recognized for his work with brain and spinal cord trauma and was the first to describe a number of clinical syndromes of partial spinal cord injury. Collaborating with Elizabeth Crosby, Ph.D., he was able to describe in detail the anatomic alterations in these clinical syn- dromes. Together they authored numerous landmark papers and the classic textbook Correlative Neurosurgery. Schneider made major contributions to the field of head protection, and many of his concepts translated into better helmets for various sportsCopy
Source: History of the U-M Department of Neurosurgery
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A SCHOLARLY NEUROLOGIST
While he was chair of the U-M Department of Neurology from 1950 to 1977, Russell Nelson DeJong (M.D. 1932) expanded the department and helped make neurology a major specialty. He authored more than 200 publications, including The Neurologic Examination, based on lectures he had given to medical students. He was one of the founders of the American Academy of Neurology and served as the first editor-in-chief of its journal, Neurology.
I never touch the brain. It’s sacred. … The whole goal is to extract the tumor without disturbing the normal brain. It’s as if the brain is asleep and you want to sneak in and remove the tumor and never wake the brain up.
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Keith Black (M.D. 1981, Residency 1987), a renowned neurosurgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, was quoted in TIME magazine in 1997. He appeared on the cover of that issue, which was devoted to “Heroes of Medicine.” In addition to performing about 250 brain surgeries a year, Black is also known for his discovery that the peptide bradykinin can be effective in opening the blood-brain barrier.
Sources: TIME, October 1997; Discover, April 2004
Without my instruction at U-M it would have been impossible for me to do my bit in serving my fellow beings. The uplifting and broadening influence [was] greater than would be possible in other schools for women.
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Susan Anderson (M.D. 1897), a.k.a. “Doc Susie,” was a physician who practiced in a Colorado gold rush town. She helped pay for medical school by working at the Catherine Street Hospital (an old U-M hospital building), where she may have contracted tuberculosis.
Source: Medicine at Michigan, Spring/Summer 2014
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THE HUNT FOR A BIOTERRORIST
A Senate intern opened the letter on October 15, 2001, and white powder slipped out of the envelope, cascading over her dark skirt and shoes. She stood very still and said quietly, “I have a problem.” This and other anthrax-laden letters confirmed what the whole country had been fearing: After the 9/11 attacks, there was now another threat looming in the form of bioterrorism. The FBI created the Anthrax Task Force, and FBI supervisory special agent R. Scott Decker (Ph.D. 1982), fresh from leading a team of hazmat specialists at Ground Zero, was assigned to it. Decker and his team requested anthrax samples from labs across the country, painstakingly working to match the DNA of the attack spores. They discovered a match to a flask of liquid anthrax in a lab in Fort Detrick, Maryland. But who had access to the liquid, and who had the expertise to dry it into a powder and mail it, were still unknowns. The team eventually identified a strong suspect, but he died by suicide in 2008, preventing the case from going to trial. Still, the work Decker and his team did created a robust process for investigating future bioterrorism threats and earned them the FBI Director’s Award for Outstanding Scientific Advancement in 2009.
Source: Medicine at Michigan, Fall 2018
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Mother of industrial health
“When I talked to my medical friends about the strange silence on [industrial medicine] in American medical magazines and textbooks, I gained the impression that here was a subject tainted with Socialism or with feminine sentimentality for the poor,” said Alice Hamilton (M.D. 1893). “The American Medical Association had never had a meeting devoted to this subject, and except for a few surgeons attached to large companies operating steel mills, or railways, or coal mines, there were no medical men in Illinois who specialized in the field of industrial medicine.” Hamilton was a leading expert in the field of occupational health who laid the foundation for industrial safety standards. While working as a professor at Northwestern University, she volunteered to help people in poverty access medical care at Hull House in Chicago. There, she noticed a pattern in the illnesses of the people she helped: their workplaces. Hamilton began investigating the health impacts of lead, carbon monoxide, phosphorous, and other hazardous chemicals that were being used in factories. Her research led to laws protecting the health of workers in the U.S. In 1919, Hamilton became the first woman to join the faculty at Harvard University.
FIRSTS
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First Asian female graduates
In 1892, two young Chinese women arrived at U-M to begin their medical studies. They used English names and wore Western clothing during their time in medical school: Shi Meiyu became Mary Stone (above) and Kang Cheng became Ida Kahn (right). But at their graduation ceremony in 1896, they wore traditional Chinese attire to symbolize their commitment to return to China and blend the medical cultures of the two nations. They were among the first women physicians in China, and both went on to direct hospitals in major cities.
Source: Medicine at Michigan, Fall 2010
FIRSTS
75 & 76
First Asian female graduates
In 1892, two young Chinese women arrived at U-M to begin their med- ical studies. They used English names and wore Western clothing during their time in medical school: Shi Meiyu became Mary Stone (above) and Kang Cheng became Ida Kahn (right). But at their graduation ceremony in 1896, they wore traditional Chinese attire to symbolize their commit- ment to return to China and blend the medical cultures of the two nations. They were among the first women physicians in China, and both went on to direct hospitals in major cities.
Source: Medicine at Michigan, Fall 2010
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A GIANT IN NEUROSCIENCE
Bernard William Agranoff, M.D., directed the Mental Health Research Institute (now the Michigan Neuroscience Institute) at U-M from 1983-1995. He studied the biochemistry of the brain and was the first to show that memory requires protein synthesis. He made numerous other seminal discoveries and foresaw the importance of neuroimaging in understanding brain disorders, helping to establish a PET facility at U-M.
Source: Michigan Neuroscience Institute
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ELECTROCARDIOGRAPHY PIONEER
Our modern understanding of the electrocardiogram is thanks, in large part, to the work of Frank N. Wilson (M.D. 1913), who spent his career in cardiology at U-M. He is responsible for developing nine of the 12 leads that are still used in ECGs today. He also created Wilson’s central terminal, which is still part of the standard ECG apparatus. In addition to his research on the ECG, Wilson trained many cardiologists, including a good number from Latin American countries. In 1942, he traveled to Brazil on a trip sponsored by the U.S. State Department to help establish the specialty of cardiology in that country.
Sources: “A brief review: history to understand fundamentals of electrocardiography,” Journal of Community Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives; “War, Medicine, and Cultural Diplomacy,” U-M College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.
Intrigued by growth as the unique property of living systems, I was captivated upon first observing, early on in graduate school, the speed, efficiency, and adaptability of the growth of bacterial cells such as Escherichia coli. I resolved to learn all I could about how cells grow, and to do so by exploring the physiology of bacteria.
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Frederick Neidhardt, Ph.D., joined the U-M faculty in 1970 as professor and chair of the Department of Microbiology. He later served as vice president for research. Neidhardt’s research focused on the molecular physiology of E. coli growth.
Source: Obituary in Small Things Considered
I was proud to have played a role in the success that my team had at Michigan; however, I was pretty sure that I wasn’t going to have the long-term success in professional hockey that players like Mike Knuble had experienced. So, I hung up the skates and focused on academics. … I felt very proud and relieved that I was able to walk into Coach [Red] Berenson’s office each year after I had returned to Ann Arbor and let him know that I was achieving success in a challenging academic program.
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Justin Clark (B.S. 2002, M.D. 2007) was a member of the U-M ice hockey team for four seasons, winning two national championships in 1996 and 1998. He’s now a neurosurgeon at Great Lakes Neurosurgical Associates in Grand Rapids.
Credit: U-M Bentley Historical Library
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BRAIN TUMOR MOTIVATES AMA PRESIDENT
Speaking at an American Medical Association meeting in Florida in 2024, Bobby Mukkamala (M.D. 1995), who was then AMA president-elect, had “a total brain fart moment,” he says. Audience members thought he might be having a stroke, but it turned out to be an 8-centimeter temporal lobe tumor. Shortly after diagnosis, he had virtual consults with five leading experts in his condition. Surgery happened not long after, and he healed quickly. That experience gave him even more insight into the work he hopes to accomplish as AMA president.
Mukkamala is a leader in the Flint community, where he maintains a private otolaryngology practice and has spearheaded efforts to mitigate lead exposure following the Flint water crisis. He says a typical resident of his hometown wouldn’t have received the same level of care that he had gotten for his tumor. “We need to close that gap between being in Flint and having the world’s best access to care and being two blocks from this guy in Flint and having the worst access to care.”
Sources: “AMA president-elect’s surgery to remove brain tumor a success,” ama-assn.org; Medicine at Michigan, Summer 2024
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GASTROENTEROLOGY LEADER
H. Marvin Pollard (M.D. 1931, Residency 1933), whose career at U-M lasted nearly four decades, made significant contributions to the field of gastroenterology and to pancreatic cancer. He served as head of the section of gastroenterology from 1940 to 1972. Pollard led a research team that invented the world’s first fiberoptic gastroscope in 1956. It became the prototype of the instrument that is now universally used in gastrointestinal diagnostic procedures.
Sources: “Medical School professorships honor Pollard, Rosenthal,” University Record; New York Times obituary
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RENOWNED VIROLOGIST
Lawrence Corey (M.D. 1971, Residency 1973), professor of laboratory medicine at the University of Washington, pioneered the development of antiviral therapy for human chronic viral infections. As a world-renowned virologist, he’s worked in a variety of areas, including diagnostic virology, antiviral therapy, viral immunology, and vaccine development. He helped lead the national trials for COVID-19 vaccines in 2020, and he has led an HSV research program that has been continuously funded by the NIH since 1978.
FIRSTS
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Desegregating hospitals
“Segregation and discrimination are environmental factors and are just as damaging to health as water pollution, unpasteurized milk, or smog,” Paul B. Cornely (M.D. 1931, Ph.D. 1934), said on more than one occasion. A leading public health practitioner, he was the first Black man in the U.S. with a doctorate in public health. Even though he graduated from the Medical School, he was not allowed to do residency at U-M because of his race. The unnecessary death of an African American woman, hastened by discrimination at segregated hospitals like the one where Cornely worked, became a driving force of his life’s work. For the next 40 years, he would be a fierce champion of equal health care for all, leading to the desegregation of America’s hospitals.
Source: “The Dignity of Man,” Heritage Project
FIRSTS
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Desegregating hospitals
“Segregation and discrimination are environmental factors and are just as damaging to health as water pollution, unpasteurized milk, or smog,” Paul B. Cornely (M.D. 1931, Ph.D. 1934), said on more than one occasion. A leading public health practitioner, he was the first Black man in the U.S. with a doctorate in public health. Even though he graduated from the Medical School, he was not allowed to do residency at U-M because of his race. The unnecessary death of an African American woman, hastened by discrimination at segregated hospitals like the one where Cornely worked, became a driving force of his life’s work. For the next 40 years, he would be a fierce champion of equal health care for all, leading to the desegregation of America’s hospitals.
Source: “The Dignity of Man,” Heritage Project
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TRAILBLAZING NEUROLOGIST
Eva L. Feldman (Ph.D. 1979, M.D. 1983, Fellowship 1998) is one of the world’s leading authorities on neurodegenerative disease. Her groundbreaking biomedical research and clinical care contributions span numerous critical areas of neurodegenerative disease, particularly amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, cognitive decline, neurologic complications of diabetes, and environmental toxins’ impact on the nervous system. Her pioneering research is also focused on developing stem cell therapies to treat these diseases. Feldman is the W. Albers Distinguished University Professor and Russell N. DeJong Professor of Neurology, and she serves as director of both the NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies and the ALS Center of Excellence at Michigan Medicine.Copy
Source: U-M Medical School
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MOOD DISORDER QUESTIONNAIRE
Robert M. A. Hirschfeld (M.D. 1968) was internationally recognized for his research on the diagnosis and treatment of depression and bipolar disorder. He is known for developing the Mood Disorders Questionnaire (MDQ), one of most widely used screening tools for bipolar disorder that has been translated into 19 languages.Copy
Source: “In Memoriam: Robert M. A. Hirschfeld, MD, 1943–2023,” Journal of Clinical Psychiatry
Epidemiology must constantly seek imaginative and ingenious teachers and scholars to create a new genre of medical ecologists who, with both the fine sensitivity of the scientific artist, and the broad perception of the community sculptor, can interpret the interplay of forces which result in disease.
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Thomas Francis, Jr., M.D., was recruited to start the Department of Epidemiology at U-M’s School of Public Health. The same year, Francis was appointed director of the Commission on Influenza of the U.S. Army Epidemiological Board. Francis isolated the influenza B virus and helped develop flu vaccines. When Jonas Salk, M.D., came to U-M in 1941 to pursue postgraduate work in virology, it was Francis who taught him the methodology of vaccine development. Salk’s work at U-M ultimately led to the polio vaccine.
Source: “The Legacy of Thomas Francis Jr.,” U-M Office of the President; “The First Flu Shot,” U-M Heritage Project
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“Safe, effective, and potent.”
Jonas Salk, M.D., came to U-M for a research fellowship and faculty appointment in virology and went on to develop the first successful polio vaccine. The vaccine was tested in a clinical trial led by his U-M mentor, Thomas Francis Jr., Ph.D. , who announced in 1955 that it was up to 90% effective in preventing paralytic polio.
Kids who were part of the 1954 vaccine trial were dubbed “polio pioneers.”
Sources: “Who was that? The people behind the names of Michigan Medicine places and more,” michiganmedicine.org; U-M School of Public Health 1955 Polio Vaccine Trial Announcement
Credit: U-M Bentley Historical Library
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MEMORIES OF THE 1950s
“The medical atmosphere in the ’50s contributed to my decision to do a [Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation] residency,” said Carol Goodman Matheson (M.D. 1953, Residency 1957). “Wounded war veterans were still being treated in hospitals. The poliomyelitis epidemic was at its height, and treatment personnel were greatly needed. The simplest description of our training is ‘hands-on.’ We were taught to evaluate and diagnose not only using our book knowledge, but also by observation, palpitation, motion, measurement, and intuition.”
After working as a nurse’s aide during WWII, Matheson went to the Medical School and became one of the first residents in the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation department.
“Some snippets of memory come to mind in recalling those experiences of more than 50 years ago:
- The respirator center on the top floor of the hospital with rows of ‘iron lungs’ and other respirators, in the morning was abuzz with therapists and doctors on rounds; in the evening, quiet except for the sound of [“The Mickey Mouse Club”] on the one television (a program not to be missed by patients or staff); at night in the dim light, the sighing of the machines in a regular cadence keeping life flowing.
- The memorable hands-on experience of donning masks and gowns and actually treating polio patients in the acute stage of their disease. Their tolerance and courage through that early painful phase of treatment with Kenny packs and gentle exercise was inspiring to us all.
- The exciting announcement of the successful results of the Salk vaccine trials, which I witnessed on April 12, 1955.
- The strength, both physically and emotionally, of the physical therapists in handling challenges, such as gait-training sessions for paraplegics in cumbersome braces.”
Source: Obituary in Medicine at Michigan, Summer 2021