Memories of the Medical School: "1335 H Street, The Best Years of Our Lives"

From GWUEncyc

Faculty

The following was written in 1993:

Last September, Frank N. Miller, B.S. ’43, M.D. ’48 - professor emeritus of pathology and arguably the most popular teacher in the history of medical education at GW - was asked to speak at a series of dinners given by California and Utah alumni in his honor. As his subject he chose his years at 1335 H Street. These recollections - supplemented by comments of friends, colleagues, and students - appear below.

Frank Miller began teaching at GW in 1944 while he was still a medical student. Today, nearly fifty years later, he is still teaching. In 1967, he added the courses “Medicine in Literature” to his usual pathology load. He also won the first Golden Apple Award ever presented for excellence in teaching the basic sciences. By the time of his retirement in 1985, Dr. Miller had acquired a record total of seven Golden Apples - which does not surprise Diane Perrine Luckmann, M.D. ’59, a former student who remembers him as “generous, organized, caring, brilliant, and the best teacher I have ever had.”

Besides being a superb teacher, Dr. Miller with colleague Thomas Peery, M.D., Ph.D. produced Pathology: A Dynamic Introduction to Medicine and Surgery (1961, 3rd edition, 1978) from the famous “telephone book” of notes he passed out to his pathology students. From 1966 to 1973 he also served as dean for student and curricular affairs and helped pave the way for women to enter medical school during those years.

The Steinway and the Stairway

“One morning in my first year of medical school,” recalls Dr. Miller, “my career almost came to a quick halt. We had a histology exam, and I had stayed up to 4 a.m. looking at slides. ‘I’ll just lie down for about ten minutes and rest my eyes,’ I thought, and the next thing I knew, my mother was shaking me and asking me whether I was going to school that day.

“I went into a terrible trembling fit, grabbed my coat, slides, microscope, and the notes we had to turn in, ran up the street to Lincoln Park, and literally jumped in the front of a cab. He already had a passenger, but I pleaded with them, saying: ‘I’ve got to get to George Washington University Medical School immediately - it’s absolutely an emergency!’ The other man finally said, ‘Take the doctor to the school! And off we sped.

“When we got there, the church bell was ringing across the street. I ran up the stairs and another student was right behind me. As we reached the fourth floor, Dr. McFall came out of his office, and somehow, the three of us went through the door together. By the time I got situated, two slides of the exam had passed and I never saw them, but at least I managed to stay in school.”

Many GW alumni can match Dr. Miller’s tale. Anatomy professor Claude McFall -“Nero,” according to Dr. Miller, “who played the Steinway grand in his laboratory while medical students failed” - was inflexible when it came to stragglers. He locked the door promptly at 8:00 a.m., and anyone who arrived later than that received a zero.

Dean Bloedorn’s Twin Goals

Tall, distinguished Walter A. Bloedorn, M.D., dean of the medical school from 1938 to 1957, ran the school from day to day with the able support of his assistant, Catherine Breen (known as “the medical students’ fairy godmother” because of her skill in finding emergency loans for them in a pinch), and the building custodian, Roland Bowie.

During the Bloedorn years, GW faced twin challenges to establish a permanent faculty and to build a new hospital. The dean succeeded in persuading the U.S. Department of the Interior that funding the new hospital was in the national interest, and toward the end of World War II, construction at Washington Circle began.

In 1944, Dean Bloedorn recruited John Parks, M.D., to be GW’s first full-time professor of obstetrics. By 1947, he had also lured Thomas Brown, M.D., from The Rockefeller University, to be professor of medicine. That same year, thoracic surgery pioneer Brian Blades, M.D., came to GW as the school’s first professor of surgery and began building its superb residency placement program. In 1948, the new GW University Hospital opened its doors, and both of Dean Bloedorn’s major goals for medical education at GW were fulfilled.

Dr. Miller’s classmate, Luther W. Brady, B.A. ’46, M.D. 48, remembers what an exciting place the University was in those days - with Louis Atchison teaching history and Nobel Prize winner George Gamow teaching physics. But at 1335 H Street, the life of the medical student was regulated and formal. Instead of enjoying poetry readings on the lawn, Dr. Brady - along with every other medical student - reported faithfully to his preassigned seat in anatomy lab as one of six students to a cadaver.

“We were some 80 students, four of us women, with Elizabeth Glover the best of us all,” he recalls. “We were all very close, because though we worked really very hard, we were always helpful to one another. Anyone who experienced 1335 H Street understands. It was a totally antiquated building, but it brought us all together, and I received a marvelous education there.”

Dr. Miller (Dr. Brady’s chemistry lab instructor as well as his classmate) retains a vivid memory of Dean Bloedorn’s “long finger traveling like a spider’s leg” down the list of students’ names - and of his own fervent prayer that he not hear “Mr. Miller” called out after it stopped.

The Gentle Bear: Dean John Parks

In 1957, the formidable John Parks, M.D., a huge man who had played football at the University of Wisconsin succeeded Bloedorn as dean, and in the GW tradition, still continued to teach. Variously known as “Father John” and the “Patriarch of the Pelvis,” Parks’ enthusiasm for GW was infectious. He was particularly proud of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology he had helped make one of the country’s best.

“Dr. Parks was very fussy about things, and he was feared by some,” remembers Dr. Luckmann. “He had standards of dress, of professional conduct. He thought we should act like ladies and gentlemen. He hated abbreviations and loose language and demanded proper terminology. When I see people doing sloppy things or being less than perfectly polite,” she added, “I think, ‘Parks was right!’”

End of the Road for the H Street School

In 1973, with Ross Hall completed and 1335 H Street about to be abandoned, GW medical students convened a final Clinical Pathology Conference on the old building:

Patient:

1335 H Street, a 71-year-old, ashen-gray medical school building.

Present illness:

For many years, building noted generalized malaise and debility. These symptoms increased in severity until the building was at the point of prostration and exhaustion. Building came to the University Hospital Emergency Room because its head was stopped up but was transferred to D.C. General Hospital because it had no medical insurance.

Physical Examination:

The unkempt, under-heated building appeared much older than the stated age of 71 years. There was marked congestion in the stairways and laboratories. The heating system decompensated.

Endoscopic Examination:

Peeling paint and falling plaster.

Neurological Examination:

Lighting extremely dim and elevator seldom running.

Outcome:

1335 H Street passed away.

Despite inadequate facilities, “long nights, little sleep, tough professors, and intransigent patients,” Dr. Miller says he will always remember his medical school years as the best years of his life. “Those years molded our characters and made us men and women. Even more, they gave us a wonderful education with a clinical emphasis and made it possible for us to do what many people cannot in their lives - earn respect and good compensation for doing the work that we enjoy.”

See Also:
Bowie, Roland
Miller, Dr. Frank Nelson, Jr.: Oral History, April 3, 1996

Document Information

Images: 1
Photographic Credit: GW University Historical Photographs Collection
Author or Source: GW Medicine, Winter, 1993
Document Location: University Archives
Date Added to Encyclopedia: December 21, 2006
Prepared by: Lyle Slovick, Assistant University Archivist

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