175 Years, 175 Stories: Part 8
“Arriving Home” on Ingalls Mall, U-M Central Campus
Credit: Christopher Billick/VP Communications/University of Michigan
Sacred moments are short spans of time in which people experience personal connection, powerful emotions, or spiritual qualities of transcendence and boundlessness. Sometimes referred to as ‘sudden intimacies,’ sacred moments can occur at times of crisis or grief and can connect people in unexpected and meaningful ways. These highly memorable moments, where time is described to ‘stand still,’ leave participants with a sense of joy, peace, and empathy for the others involved.
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Sanjay Saint, M.D., M.P.H., executive director of the Sacred Moments Initiative, a program designed in part to improve communication between patients and providers. He is also chief of medicine at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System and the George Dock Professor of Internal Medicine at U-M.
Source: Sacred Moments Initiative
FIRSTS
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Depression Center founder
John F. Greden, M.D., is the founder of the Frances and Kenneth Eisenberg and Family Depression Center, the country’s first center dedicated to research and treatment of depression and bipolar illnesses. Greden served as its executive director from 2001-2021. He led efforts to establish similar programs across the country and integrated them into the National Network of Depression Centers. Most recently, he has led national, multisite efforts to find genetic markers that can help doctors choose the best antidepressant medications for patients, leading to better treatment results. Greden is the Rachel Upjohn Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences.
Source: U-M Department of Psychiatry
Photo credit: E. Bronson, Michigan Photography
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MENTAL ILLNESS EXPERT
Raymond W. Waggoner (M.D. 1924) chaired the U-M Department of Psychiatry from 1937–1970. In that time, he set up one of the country’s first psychiatric units in a general hospital. He was one of the first psychiatrists to see mental illness as both an emotional and physical problem. In the 1940s, Waggoner helped to standardize the mental fitness criteria used in screening potential soldiers in the Selective Service. After the war, he helped design the selection process for the Peace Corps. Waggoner maintained a strong interest in medical ethics and values throughout his career. The Raymond W. Waggoner Lectureship on Ethics and Values in Medicine was established in 1995 in his honor.
Source: U-M Department of Psychiatry
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THERAPY FOR ADRENAL GLAND DISORDER
In the 1950s, endocrinologist and professor of internal medicine Jerome W. Conn (M.D. 1932, Residency 1934) discovered the disease now known as primary aldosteronism, or Conn’s Syndrome. Conn’s research demonstrated that the disease, caused by an adrenal tumor secreting excessive amounts of the adrenal hormone aldosterone, was a major cause of hypertension. He determined primary aldosteronism could be cured through the surgical removal of the adrenal tumor.
Source: U-M Bentley Historical Library
TRANSFORMATIVE PHILANTHROPY
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BUILDING A HOME FOR DISCOVERY
William N. Kelley, M.D., was chair of the Department of Internal Medicine from 1975-1989, transforming it into one of the top recognized research engines in the country. He had a reputation for creating an environment of possibility and progress. During his tenure, U-M was awarded the first NIH grant, proposed by Kelley and his colleagues, to advance investigations for in vivo gene therapy. Moreover, he launched a research institute fundraising initiative that resulted in the three Medical Science Research Buildings that today are home to the work of proven and burgeoning leaders in scientific discovery.
Source: Michigan Medicine Office of Development
TRANSFORMATIVE PHILANTHROPY
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BUILDING A HOME FOR DISCOVERY
William N. Kelley, M.D., was chair of the Department of Internal Medicine from 1975-1989, transforming it into one of the top recognized research engines in the country. He had a reputation for creating an environment of possibility and progress. During his tenure, U-M was awarded the first NIH grant, proposed by Kelley and his colleagues, to advance investigations for in vivo gene therapy. Moreover, he launched a research institute fundraising initiative that resulted in the three Medical Science Research Buildings that today are home to the work of proven and burgeoning leaders in scientific discovery.
Source: Michigan Medicine Office of Development
I entered the Medical Department of the University the first year that women were admitted. The first class of women ... were naturally the objects of much attention critical or otherwise (especially critical) so that … it was quite an ordeal. I believe that only one of the medical faculty was even moderately in favor of the admission of women, so that it speaks well for their conscientiousness when I say we felt that we had [a] square deal from them.
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Emma Louise Call (M.D. 1873), one of the first women admitted to the Medical School. According to one source, “The professor of chemistry, Silas Douglas, did not intervene when the men students stamped their feet and shouted as the women entered the lecture room.” After medical school, Call’s research in Vienna with Sigmund Exner led to the discovery of eosinophilic follicles in ovarian tumors, later named Call-Exner bodies.
Source: Medicine at Michigan, Fall 2000
Credit for Bentley portrait: U-M Bentley Historical Library
Illustration from Emma Call’s thesis, “Arrangement of Neurine in the Cerebro-Spinal Axis”
Gupta met his wife, Rebecca, while he was at U-M. They are both committed to U-M and Michigan Medicine. Rebecca is a member of the Michigan Medical Advisory Group. “It is so incredible to see the powerful impact of philanthropy,” she says. “For example, many people end up in the hallways outside of the emergency room waiting for a bed. Because of the incredible donations Michigan receives, not only is groundbreaking research happening, but also new hospitals are being built creating more beds for people in need.”
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Medicine and media
Credit: Jeff Hutchens/Reportage for CNN. Planet in Peril, Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa. TBS, Inc.
Typically, Sanjay Gupta (M.D. 1993, Residency 2000) begins his week at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, where he’s been a neurosurgeon for almost 25 years. He usually operates on Mondays and sees patients on Thursdays, sometimes operating again on Fridays if needed. On the other days, he’s doing what he’s perhaps best known for — working as the chief medical correspondent for CNN.
Growing up the son of engineers, Gupta thought he might follow in their footsteps. But he was drawn to the medical field in his early teens after his maternal grandfather became ill. “I was spending long chunks of time in hospitals, going there almost every day after school and so that’s when I kind of fell in love with medicine.”
In 1986, Gupta enrolled in U-M’s Inteflex Program, an accelerated program that accepted medical students directly from high school and allowed them to earn undergraduate and medical degrees in six years.
“It was a fantastic program for me,” he says. “We got to go through college and med school fast. We didn’t have to take the MCATs. It was pretty heavy stuff for a 16- or 17-year-old kid. It’s a big decision to make at a really young age.”
That big decision paid off. Gupta considers his years at the Medical School to be the most formative experiences of his life. What set U-M apart, he says, was the university’s openness to new ideas and its interdisciplinary nature. His interest in journalism began at U-M, too. As a student, he wrote about health policy in op/eds for the Michigan Daily. “That was the amazing thing about Michigan. If you woke up with an idea, not only could you pursue it, you could talk to someone about it.”
After completing his residency at U-M, Gupta joined Emory University’s College of Medicine as an associate professor of neurosurgery. For Gupta, splitting his time between the hospital, medical school, and CNN is a natural fit. “As a doctor, I take care of patients one at a time,” he told LSA Magazine in a 2008 profile. “As a journalist who is a doctor, I have the opportunity to educate masses of people every day on CNN.” —Lauren Talley
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GASTRIC MUCOSAL BARRIER
Horace W. Davenport, Ph.D., was a physiologist best known for defining the gastric mucosal barrier. His research into how gastric acid works in digestion without damaging the stomach laid the foundation for more effective ulcer treatments. He chaired the physiology department from 1956 to 1978. Inspired by his early years of teaching, Davenport wrote the textbook ABC of Acid-Base Chemistry based on his lecture notes. After his retirement, he devoted his time to the history of medicine, publishing two books about the foundation and evolution of the U-M Medical School.
Source: The Lancet
Credit: U-M Bentley Historical Library
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PERNICIOUS ANEMIA TREATMENT
In the 1920s, the disease pernicious anemia was mysterious and deadly. After it killed Thomas Henry Simpson in 1923, his wife, Catherine MacDonald Simpson, created an institute devoted to its study and a cure. In 1927, Cyrus Sturgis, M.D., came to U-M as professor of internal medicine and director of the newly founded Simpson Memorial Institute. In 1929 Sturgis and his colleagues developed the therapeutic compound ventriculin as treatment. A noted hematologist and past president of the American College of Physicians, Sturgis also served as chair of the U-M Department of Internal Medicine for three decades.
Sources: U-M Faculty History Project; “Fighting pernicious anemia,” University Record
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OPHTHALMOLOGY LEADER
Paul Lichter, (M.D. 1964, Residency 1968), professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences, has been a vital force during his more than 40 years with the department. He was chair when the W.K. Kellogg Eye Center opened and served as its founding director. He has shared his leadership expertise in many other roles on campus and beyond, including as the 100th President of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. He currently chairs U-M Medical School’s Clinical and Educational Conflict of Interest Committee. Lichter received his undergraduate and medical degrees and conducted his ophthalmology residency at U-M, making him a triple Wolverine.
Source: U-M Kellogg Eye Center
The Department of Pediatrics was originally named the Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases. The children’s hospital was built on servicing children with polio and TB. That’s a very rich part of our history.
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Valerie P. Opipari, M.D. (Fellowship 1990), chaired the U-M Department of Pediatrics from 2003–2018. Opipari was also instrumental in securing the financial support needed to build the C.S. Mott Children’s and Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital, which opened in 2011. She advocated for including a negative pressure unit in the new hospital that could be used to isolate patients with highly communicable diseases. This became an important resource during the COVID-19 pandemic.
There’s an important tension between respecting patients’ informed consent and also supporting generalizable research. The ideal resolution is a structure that doesn’t put those two in tension to begin with.
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Kayte Spector-Bagdady, J.D., M.B.E., is associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Medical School. An expert on health law and bioethics, she is the first person to make tenure at the Medical School with J.D. as a terminal degree. In 2023, she was invited to the White House to discuss bioethics related to AI in health care.
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CELEBRATING DISABILITIES
In 2013, Oluwaferanmi Okanlami (M.D. 2011) suffered a spinal cord injury at a pool party, an experience that has fueled his efforts to create access for and change the way the world views people with disabilities. Okanlami is assistant professor of family medicine, of physical medicine and rehabilitation, of urology, and of orthopaedic surgery at the Medical School. He is also head of disability services and a champion for adaptive sports. In 2022, he was honored on “Good Morning America” and given $1 million from the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation, which is committed to changing the world for those living with spinal cord injuries. Throughout his career, Okanlami has exemplified one of his main tenets: that disability doesn’t mean inability. “We all have our unique contributions we can make,” he says. “Instead of being limited based on what we cannot do, we need to be given the access to show what we can.”
Sources: ABC News; Medicine at Michigan, Winter 2019
Credit: Leisa Thompson
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A LEGACY OF RADIOLOGY
During his 40 years at U-M from 1957-1997, William Martel, M.D., led the Department of Radiology to national prominence, recruiting many faculty members and mentoring future radiologists. He oversaw the construction of the department in the new University Hospital and the acquisition of the first MRI system in the state. Martel was a strong advocate for the role of radiology in medical student education and his elective course in radiology was one of the most popular at the Medical School. Martel was considered a pioneer in the radiology of joint diseases and was referred to as the “father of the radiology of rheumatic diseases.”
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ENDOCRINE SURGERY PIONEER
When Norman Thompson (M.D. 1957, Residency 1960) began his career, endocrine surgery did not exist as a specialty. At the time, a number of seminal discoveries about hormonal activity as well as functional imaging of tumors began to define the need for a surgical field devoted to the needs of endocrine patients. In 1979, Thompson established the first division of endocrine surgery in the nation at the Medical School. He went on to gain international renown for his expertise in thyroid cancer, hyperparathyroidism, adrenal tumors, and multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1.
FIRSTS
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Transplant firsts
In 1964, Jeremiah Turcotte (M.D. 1957, Residency 1963) and C. Gardner Child, M.D., performed the first kidney transplant in Michigan. Child and Turcotte also developed a scoring system to predict operative mortality associated with portocaval shunt procedures. The system was modified by R.N.H. Pugh and co-workers in 1973 and became the Child-Turcotte-Pugh (CTP) score, which has been used for decades as a prognostic tool for patients with cirrhosis.
Source: Medicine at Michigan, Fall 2020
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LEADER IN GYNECOLOGIC ONCOLOGY
George W. Morley (M.D. 1949, Residency 1954) was one of the founding members of the gynecologic oncology subspeciality. Morley was best known for his work as a surgeon for benign and malignant gynecologic disease. His career at U-M spanned more than 50 years. As a teacher and colleague, he taught kindness and humanity in addition to medicine. Colleagues fondly recall his book of “Morleyisms” — sayings he adopted or created. The fall 2003 issue of Medicine at Michigan quoted several “Morleyisms,” including “I have come not to torment, but to teach” and “I don’t care how much you swear at me during your training, as long as you swear by me afterwards.”
Source: Obituary for Dr. George W. Morley, University Record UMHS Public Relations
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FROM "HOUSEWIFE" TO PHYSICIAN
A 1971 profile on Jane Bloom (M.D. 1974) in the Parke-Davis Review describes her as a “diminutive housewife” on a quest to receive her medical degree by age 50. After raising 10 children, Bloom decided to pursue her dream of becoming a doctor. She graduated from the Medical School and had a 30-year career in internal and emergency medicine, retiring in 2005 at age 80.
Source: Medicine at Michigan, Fall-Winter 2015
I think you get real satisfaction from your work when you’re able … to think about how we can use health care innovation and discovery to affect communities and society at large. Being involved in research that has helped advance policies has been very meaningful to me.
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Okeoma Mmeje (M.D. and M.P.H. 2006), associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Medical School. Her research on the treatment and prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) includes studying expedited partner therapy (EPT). It allows patients who test positive for an STI to receive medication or a prescription for themselves and their partner, even if the partner was not seen by a doctor. Mmeje found that in states that allow EPT, the incidence of certain STIs was lower. The therapy was approved for use in Michigan in 2015.
Source: Medicine at Michigan, Fall 2017
As soon as it was out of my mouth, I knew that it would work, that you can map any gene. I still don’t understand why nobody thought of it before.
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David Botstein (Ph.D. 1967) was quoted in the Daily Princetonian in 2006, referring to his landmark 1980 paper suggesting the human genome could be mapped. He earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard before earning a Ph.D. in human genetics at the U-M Medical School. A giant in the field of genetics, Botstein also helped develop a statistical method and graphic interface that is widely used to interpret genomic data and has been refined for molecular classification of tumors.
Source: “Cluster analysis and display of genome-wide expression patterns,” PNAS, December 1998; “Mapping the path of genetics,” Daily Princetonian
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A SECOND OPINION ON GEORGE FLOYD'S DEATH
When Allecia Wilson (M.D. 2004, Residency 2007) saw the video of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin with his knee on George Floyd’s neck, she knew what she was witnessing. Wilson is an associate professor of pathology at the Medical School and director of autopsy and forensic services. “I had faith in our medical system [but] when the preliminary findings were released, I was sure it was a mistake,” she said in June 2020. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s office classified Floyd’s death as a homicide, but listed “cardiopulmonary arrest while being restrained by law enforcement officer(s)” as the cause of death, rather than traumatic asphyxia. In other words, there was room for doubt as to whether Chauvin was entirely responsible for Floyd’s death.
When Floyd’s family requested a second autopsy, Wilson was one of two pathologists who took on the work. Wilson worked alongside high-profile forensic pathologist Michael Baden, M.D., to complete a second autopsy. Wilson and Baden concluded that Floyd had died as the direct result of the pressure placed on his body by all three of the police officers at the scene.
Source: Medicine at Michigan, Summer 2020
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14th U.S. surgeon general
Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Antonia Novello, M.D. (Residency 1974), came to the Medical School for a residency in pediatrics. Novello later served as the first woman and first Hispanic U.S. Surgeon General from 1990 to 1993. While in that position, she focused on the health of women, children, and minorities; underage drinking; smoking; pediatric AIDS; and immunization.
Source: U-M Alumni Association
Credit: U.S. Public Health Service
In 1956, LIFE magazine ran a photo essay titled “Animals Make a Hospital Happy.” The article detailed the array of creatures that could be found on the U-M hospital campus: “University Hospital’s menagerie has at various times included rabbits, ducks, a pair of coati mundis, an alligator, an ostrich and a deodorized skunk. Ever since the program started over 30 years ago, sponsored by a Kiwanis donation, the young patients have been getting such a beneficial kick out of their pets that the hospital staff now refers to the animals as ‘the therapeutic faculty.’” The original caption for this photo says, “Dinner for ducklings was eagerly handed out by children crowding around a pool set up on the hospital sun deck. The ducklings were lent by an Ann Arbor farmer.”
Photo: Francis Miller The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock
TRANSFORMATIVE PHILANTHROPY
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“For generations to come”
In 175 years of momentum and growth, our supporters have made progress possible. Entrepreneurs and business owners, farmers and teachers, auto workers, and many others across the state of Michigan and beyond have advocated and supported every hospital, every comprehensive institute and center, and every innovation incubator. They have lobbied in Lansing and made transformational gifts for new hospital buildings, had the foresight to provide seed money for new research projects that went on to change health care, and believed in and supported thousands of faculty members and medical and graduate students. Last year alone, 20,141 people committed $341 million to help us achieve our mission. Today, our $3 billion endowment includes 373 medical school scholarships. We also have more than 480 professorships that support leadership activities across patient care, research, and education.
In the early 1990s, George Amendt, his wife Anne Heller Amendt, and their family visited to see what the Amendt-Heller Newborn Research Fund was achieving. They met “a very intellectual group of people who obviously love their work,” George recalled. He echoed the feelings of many donors when he said, “We are happy to know that our endowment will support such work for generations to come.”
Sources: Michigan Medicine Office of Development; U-M Health System
TRANSFORMATIVE PHILANTHROPY
175
“For generations to come”
In 175 years of momentum and growth, our supporters have made progress possible. Entrepreneurs and business owners, farmers and teachers, auto workers, and many others across the state of Michigan and beyond have advocated and supported every hospital, every comprehensive institute and center, and every innovation incubator. They have lobbied in Lansing and made transformational gifts for new hospital buildings, had the foresight to provide seed money for new research projects that went on to change health care, and believed in and supported thousands of faculty members and medical and graduate students. Last year alone, 20,141 people committed $341 million to help us achieve our mission. Today, our $3 billion endowment includes 373 medical school scholarships. We also have more than 480 professorships that support leadership activities across patient care, research, and education.
In the early 1990s, George Amendt, his wife Anne Heller Amendt, and their family visited to see what the Amendt-Heller Newborn Research Fund was achieving. They met “a very intellectual group of people who obviously love their work,” George recalled. He echoed the feelings of many donors when he said, “We are happy to know that our endowment will support such work for generations to come.”
Sources: Michigan Medicine Office of Development; U-M Health System