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Introduction
Founded in 1864, the University of Kansas instituted a one-year premedical course in 1880 with a curriculum that included chemistry, physiology, comparative anatomy, botany, toxicology and materia medica. Many students completing this course were admitted to the second year of a three-year medical course at the University of Cincinnati, or Rush Medical College, Chicago.
In 1899, KU added an additional year of premedical school. The classes included anatomy, chemistry, materia medica, pharmacy, physiology, embryology, bacteriology, toxicology, medical jurisprudence and psychology. With no university-level four-year medical school available in either Kansas or Missouri, many proprietary schools offered degrees in medicine. Notable among those were the Kansas Medical College in Topeka, the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Kansas City, Kansas, and several in Kansas City, Missouri, including the Kansas City Medical College and the Medico Chiurgical College.
In the years preceding the eventual founding of the University of Kansas School of Medicine, a number of skilled and talented people who would later serve as founders and faculty members for the new school were making their marks in local medicine and science. In 1894, Kansas City, Kansas, physician and real estate entrepreneur Dr. Simeon Bishop Bell offered land and money for KU to develop a hospital and medical school in memory of his wife Eleanor Taylor Bell.
The founding physicians and scientists, soon to be joined by others from around the country and abroad, represented the solid and innovative scientific foundation for the new University of Kansas School of Medicine in 1905. Below are notable milestones by our Women in Medicine and Science between 1905 and 2005, the first 100 years.
1905-Current
4/21/1905: The University of Kansas Board of Regents passed a resolution combining three proprietary medical schools, the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Kansas City, Kansas, and the Kansas City Medical College and the Medico-Chiurgical College in Kansas City, Missouri, to form the new University of Kansas School of Medicine.
1905: First woman member of the faculty in the University of Kansas School of Medicine was Ida H. Hyde, PhD, Professor of Physiology
6/6/1906: The first KU School of Medicine class, composed of students who completed their first three years elsewhere, graduated.
1906: First women graduates from the first KU School of Medicine class were Melvia Fairetta Avery and Mildred Curtis.
Visit the Clendening History of Medicine Museum to learn about the "Ladies of Courage," an exhibit created by Nancy Hulston, the Clendening Archives Director.
7/1/1906: Eleanor Taylor Bell Memorial Hospital opened on “Goat Hill” in Rosedale, Kansas, nearly one mile north of today’s campus.
1906: Pearl T. Laptad, RN, was appointed the first principal and lecturer of the KU School of Nursing.
1908: Helen Cust, RN, was appointed principal and lecturer of the KU School of Nursing.
1910: Minerva Wilson, RN, was appointed Principal and Lecturer of the KU School of Nursing.
1911: Eleanor Campbell, RN, was appointed directoress of nurses.
1911: Obstetrics and Gynecology were combined into one department under the chairmanship of Don Carlos Guffey, MD.
1912: Emma Bechtel, RN, was appointed supervisor of nurses.
1913: S. Milo Hinch, RN, was appointed supervisor of nurses.
1922: Martha Hardin, RN, was appointed Supervisor of Nurses.
1924: The KU School of Medicine and Bell Memorial Hospital moved to the new site at 39th and Rainbow Boulevard in Kansas City, Kansas.
1927: Henrietta Foehlke, RN, was appointed supervisor of nurses.
1928: S. Milo Hinch, R.N., was the Supervisor of Nurses and Superintendent of Bell Memorial Hospital from February 1914 until her sudden death in March, 1920. The Kansas State legislature appropriated $300.000 to build Hinch Hall, a residence for student nurses. Hinch Hall was demolished to make way for a new school of nursing building that was dedicated in 2001.
1935: The Children’s Ward was built.
1935: C.C. Nesselrode, MD, professor of Clinical Surgery, organized the Women’s Field Army, a national organization for education and control of cancer.
1938: Eleanor Henderson Grandstaff (M”37) becomes the first Anesthesiology Section resident.
1941: Sara A. Patterson, RN, was appointed Acting Superintendent of Nurses.
1941: Ruth Gordon, MS, established the first approved Internship in Dietetics and Nutrition at KUMC.
1944: Avis Van Lew, RN, was appointed Director of Nursing.
1947: The name “University of Kansas Medical Center” was officially adopted.
1948: The Hearing and Speech Department, under the direction of L.B. Spake, MD, and tutelage of educational director June Miller, EdD, was established. The new department was initially sponsored by the Women’s City Club of Kansas City, Missouri, the Carolyn Doughty Fund for Children and the Kansas City Alumnae Chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma.
1949: E. Jean Hill, RN, was appointed Director of Nursing.
1952: Christine Weems became the first African American woman to graduate from the KU School of Nursing.
1952: E.W.J. Pearce, MD, a volunteer in the KUMC Archives, was the first KU Obstetrics and Gynecology resident to serve at Ellis Fischel Cancer Hospital in Columbia, Missouri.
1952: Robert P. Hudson, MD (M’52), with Billie Jean Moore, originated the Jayhawker, MD, award. This award was presented annually by the students to the faculty member most dedicated to the primary objectives of the teaching of medical students.
1952: Rosemary Schrepfer, MD (M’47), was the first woman to complete a residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology, the first female OB-GYN specialist and the first reproductive endocrinologist in Kansas City. In 1979, Dr. Schrepfer became the first urogynecologist in the Kansas City area.
1953: Victor B. Buhler, MD, (M’34), KU Associate Clinical Professor of Pathology, and Ann Pollak, MD, Assistant Professor of Pathology and Oncology, first described the bacterium Mycobacterium Kansasii. This is an acid-fast bacillus that can be recognized readily by its photochromogenicity. The most common manifestation of M Kansasii is chronic pulmonary disease similar to tuberculosis. The incidence of this has increased with the advent of AIDS.
1953:Born in 1825, Eleanor Taylor married Dr. Simeon Bishop Bell in Lexington, Ohio, in 1846. The Bells moved to Johnson County, Kansas, in 1857, and in 1866, after relocating in Rosedale, Kansas, Mrs. Bell died. In 1894, Dr. Bell donated land in Rosedale to the University of Kansas for the purpose of building a hospital, named the Eleanor Taylor Bell Memorial Hospital and the KU School of Medicine. The campus was then about one mile south of its present location.
The campus moved location to 39th and Rainbow Boulevard in 1924. Eleanor Taylor Building was built as a nurses’ residence in 1953. Since the hospital then was generally known as Bell Memorial hospital, the new residence building was dubbed Eleanor Taylor in memory of Dr. Bell’s first wife.
5/25/1958: The Children’s Rehabilitation Center was dedicated. The Center director was assistant dean C. Arden Miller, and Louise de Schweinitz, MD, served as intake officer, the new building contained 28,500 square feet of classrooms, treatment rooms, play areas and offices.
6/2/1958: Marjorie Cates, MD, became the first African American woman to graduate from the KU School of Medicine. Dr. Cates then pursued her doctoral degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. During her career, she taught hematology at Howard University in Washington, DC, was named director of health services for the U.S. Department of the Interior, and became chief medical officer of the Washington, DC, North Area Health Center.
1958: Nellie G. Walker, MD (MD’34) (MPH’58), became the first woman director of Public Health for Kansas City, Kansas, and Wyandotte County. She served in that capacity for 20 years.
1958: Ruth Steinberg Lambert, MS, was appointed as the first KUMC dietician whose research was devoted entirely to nutrition.
1960: Ruth Gordon, MS, chair of Dietetics and Nutrition, established a unique program which combined the Dietetic Internship with a Master’s degree. This was one of the first such programs in the United States and was the first to offer students the opportunity to specialize in Hospital Dietary Administration or Nutrition and Dietetics. The format of the program served as a guide for the development of many similar programs throughout the United States and Canada.
6/26/1962: In a one and one-half hour surgery at KUMC, the first pacemaker in the Midwest was successfully installed in a patient, Mrs. Jack Rensing of Fort Scott, Kansas. Mrs. Rensing commented, “I can’t get over it--to think that they can make a person’s heart beat. They make you live when you are supposed to be dead.”
1962: The first-year medical class moved to KUMC ending 57 years of a divided campus for the School of Medicine.
1963: Marguerite Coffman, MD, was appointed acting chair of Nursing.
8/2/1963: Cornelius Neufeld, RN, became the first male graduate of the KU School of Nursing in its 57 years. This necessitated the change in name from the Feminine Alumnae Association to the Nurses Alumni Association.
1964: Martha Pitell, RN, PhD, was appointed Chairman of Nursing.
1967: Norge Jerome, PhD, KUMC Professor of Preventive Medicine, was the first person in the world to become a Nutritional Anthropologist. With training in clinical nutrition and cultural anthropology, Dr. Jerome pioneered the field and founded the Committee on Nutritional Anthropology.
1/1/1968: Hospital room rates sharply rose to $44 per day. At the same time, the minimum salary rate at KUMC was $1.31 per hour.
1968: Under the direction of Martha Pitel, PhD, chair, the Master’s degree in Nursing began. This was the only such program in Kansas and was first designed to prepare clinical specialists in the area of psychiatric nursing.
1/1969: Patricia Schloesser, MD, director of the Division of Maternal and Child Health, Kansas State Department of Health and KUMC clinical associate professor of Human Ecology, received the National Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Service Award for her outstanding contributions to the cause of saving the lives of children afflicted with the disease.
11/1969: Jean A. Yokes, RN, MSN, assistant professor of Nursing Education at KUMC and coordinator for the Coronary Care Program of the Kansas Regional Medical Center, was the first nurse in the nation to be accepted into the American Heart Association’s Council on Cardiovascular Nursing.
1970: Maud Adams, RN, was appointed acting chair of Nursing.
1971: Hester Thurston, RN, was appointed acting chairman of the School of Nursing.
1971: Marjorie S. Sirridge, MD (M’44), was one of the founding faculty members of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine. She also developed the “docent” system for medical education at the UMKC School of Medicine and was one of the school’s three original docents. Largely due to Dr. Sirridge’s influence, the UMKC School of Medicine holds one of the highest percentages of women medical students in the United States. Dr. Sirridge served as dean of the UMKC School of Medicine from 1997-1999.
1971: Martha Pitel, PhD, former director of the Department of Nursing Education, is named director of the American Nurses’ Foundation of the American Nurses’ Association.
1972: For the first time, under the guidance of Ruth Gordon, BS, chair of Dietetics and Nutrition, KUMC joined Kansas State University to provide clinical experience for students in the Coordinated Undergraduate Program in Dietetics.
5/22/1973: The Gene and Barbara Burnett Burn Center was dedicated. Founded and directed by David W. Robinson, MD, a 1938 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, KU School of Medicine faculty from 1945-1985, and vice chancellor for Clinical Affairs and Chief of Staff, 1974-1979, and Emeritus faculty from 1985-2003), The Burn Center was built entirely by $550,000 in private funds largely solicited by Dr. Robinson.
9/4/1973: Headed by Loren Humphrey, MD, the Detection Center for Breast Diseases, one of six in the nation funded by an $8 million grant from the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute, was officially dedicated by Governor Robert Docking. The first woman to be examined in the new Center was the Governor’s wife, Meredith Docking.
1973: Carol Elliott becomes the first chair of the Nurse Anesthesia Program under Allied Health.
4/1/1974: KUMC became the College of Health Sciences, and the School of Nursing and the School of Allied Health became separate entities no longer a part of the School of Medicine. The first dean of the School of Nursing was Hester Thurston, RN, EdS.
1975: Doris A. Geitgey, RN, EdD, was appointed Dean of the School of Nursing.
1975: The first Wichita Campus medical students graduated.
1976: KUMC’s computerized tomographic mammography (CT/M) scanner, one of only two in the world, drew women from all over the country to KUMC for early diagnosis of breast cancer. According to C.H. Chang, MD, the CT/M scanner was detecting tumors at an accuracy rate of 97 percent.
1/1978: The first off-campus Nurse Practitioner Certificate Program in Kansas began with funding by the State Legislature to provide additional services for people in western Kansas. The program was taught at KUMC’s outreach facility in Hays.
1/4/1978: Margaret Shandor Miles, RN, PhD, was named the first editor of the newsletter of the International Work Group in Death, Dying, and Bereavement.
1979: The Kansas Regional Diabetes Education and Research Center at the KU School of Medicine-Wichita was chosen as one of three locations in the country where a prototype of an artificial pancreas was tested under the direction of Drs. Richard and Diane Guthrie.
1979: Sandra Peterson, PhD, was appointed acting dean of the School of Allied Health.
1980: Stata Norton, PhD, was appointed dean of the School of Allied Health. She served in that position until 1985.
1981: Grace E.F. Holmes, MD, begins the distribution of her Kansas Infant Development Screen (KIDS) chart. Eventually translated into Chinese, Korean, German, and Spanish, this simple developmental screening instrument is used throughout the world to this day.
6/21/1982: John E. Reardon, mayor of Kansas City, Kansas, proclaimed this day as Mary Anne Eisenbise Appreciation Day to recognize her contributions to the community. Eisenbise, RN (N’53), was KUMC director of Nursing Services and associate professor of Medical Surgical Nursing.
9/13/1982: Margaret Shandor Miles, RN, PhD, was named a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing for making significant contributions to the nursing profession. Dr. Miles specialty was in raising the awareness in nurses and other health care professionals about the special needs of dying patients, especially children and grieving families.
1983: The School of Nursing’s PhD program began. This was the first nursing PhD program in the Midwest.
11/29/1984: KUMC’s first 10-member Ethics Committee was approved and chaired by Robert P. Hudson, MD. Instances such as the 1981 Baby Jane Doe Case, and 1984’s Baby Fae Case led to the proliferation of medical ethics groups nationwide.
7/26/1984: The first heart transplant in the State of Kansas and the Kansas City area was performed at KUMC. Thomas J. Bixler, MD, chair of the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, led the transplant team. Other members of the team included Richard MacArthur, MD, assistant professor of Cardiothoracic surgery, Michael D. Boggan, MD, clinical assistant professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Steven Tosone, MD, assistant professor of anesthesiology, and Barbara Gill, RN, MN, cardiothoracic clinical nurse specialist and coordinator of the transplant program. The patient was James Otis Hale, a 43-year-old father of five from Wichita.
1988: Jane E. Henney, MD, was appointed acting dean of the KU School of Medicine.
1990: Carol Fabian, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Breast Cancer Prevention Center and the Breast Cancer Survivorship Center, both of which she founded. (The program was founded in 1990 and the Center later.) She has had continuous funding from the National Cancer Institute for performance of clinical research trials for over 20 years. Dr. Fabian leads the Cancer Prevention and Survivorship Research Program in the Center.
1991: The team of Gerald Kerby, MD, professor of Medicine, Linda Mayer, RN, and Susan Pingleton, MD, were the first in the United States to develop a nasal mask ventilator that allowed patients with diseases that weaken breathing muscles to breathe more efficiently and comfortably.
1992: Lydia Wingate, PhD, accepted the position of dean of the School of Allied Health, and served until 1997.
1993: Eleanor Sullivan, RN, PhD, FAAN, former Dean of the KU School of Nursing, was the first faculty member inducted into the University of Kansas Women's Hall of Fame from the School of Nursing.
7/1/1995: Rita Clifford, RN, PhD, was appointed acting dean of the KU School of Nursing. She served through June 30, 1996.
1996: Joseph Beshare, PhD, professor and chair of Anatomy, and Carla Green, PhD, discovered a gene thought to be a component in the working of the Circadian clock. This was the first candidate for a Circadian clock gene in vertebrates.
7/1/1996: Karen Miller, RN, PhD, FAAN, was appointed Dean of the School of Nursing.
1996: Virginia J. Savin, MD, KUMC professor of Medicine, Division of Nephrology and Hypertension, published, with others, “Circulating factor associated with increased glomerular permeability to albumin in recurrent focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (the Savin Factor)” in the New England Journal of Medicine, (Apr) 334:878 1996. This article provided a major advance in the understanding of FSGS.
1996: Carol McAdoo, associate administrator, University of Kansas Hospitals, was accorded the prestigious Ruth Ravich Founders Award, a national patient-advocacy honor.
1997: Deborah Powell. MD, was appointed executive dean of the KU School of Medicine.
1997: Karen Miller, RN, PhD, FAAN, dean of the School of Nursing, was appointed interim dean of the School of Allied Health.
1998: Karen Miller, RN, PhD, FAAN, accepted the position of dean of the School of Allied Health in conjunction with her position as dean of the School of Nursing. Although having the same dean, both schools remain as separate entities.
1998: The nation’s only Radiopharmaceutical Drug Information Center was founded at KUMC by Jay Spicer, MS, radio-chemist and RDIC director, William Hladik, MS, radio-pharmacist, and Joyce Generali, RPh, clinical pharmacist and director of the KU Drug Information Center. The RDIC provides accurate data to nuclear medicine facilities where tests show unusual results, especially among cancer patients who are undergoing certain chemotherapies.
5/17/1998: Virginia Cassmeyer, RN, PhD, was awarded posthumously a Special Chancellor’s Teaching Award. Cassmeyer, a physiologist, was known for her strong support for struggling students and had made numerous research contributions in the field of endocrinology and diabetes mellitus.
2001: Joan S. Hunt, PhD, (BIO) Professor, Anatomy and Cell Biology, in less than twenty-five years established herself as one of the world’s foremost scientists working in the area of reproductive immunology and was named University Distinguished Professor. She was the first woman to Chair the Human Embryology and Development-1 Student Section for the National Institute of Health
2001: Linda Warren, MD, (BIO) was the first graduate from the School of Medicine to receive one of the six inaugural recipients of the American Medical Association’s “Pride in the Profession Awards” . She was also the first woman to serve as the president of the Kansas Medical Society.
2001: The first faculty member from the School of Medicine to be inducted into the University of Kansas Women's Hall of Fame was Betsy Beisecker, PhD, (BIO) Associate Professor with tenure in Preventative Medicine and Associate Director of the KU Cancer Center. She took on the directorship of the Division of Behavioral and Social Science Research and in October 1997, a month before her death, she was promoted to professor. Dr. Beisecker was inducted posthumously. Only two women from the School of Medicine faculty have followed her induction and include Barbara Atkinson, MD (BIO) and Joan S. Hunt, PhD, (BIO) both were inducted in 2007. The Hall of Fame winners are exemplary KU alumnae, faculty and staff women who, through their significant contributions and achievements, overall impact and outstanding character, serve as role models for students as career women and community leaders.
2002: Barbara Atkinson, MD, was appointed executive dean of the KU School of Medicine.
2002: Amy O'Brien-Ladner, MD, became the founding President for the University of Kansas School of Medicine Women in Medicine (WIM) Organization, later to include the basic scientists and changing the name to Women in Medicine and Science (WIMS). Her effort began during her 1999-2002 tenure as the AMWA faculty advisor in the School of Medicine. The Joy McCann Professorship for Women in Medicine was the result of her efforts. Dr. O'Brien-Ladner has been followed as WIMS president by Kim Templeton, MD (2003-2006), Linda Nelson, MD, PhD (2007-2010) and Julie Wei, MD (2010-2013).
2002: KU Med was recognized as the world leader in the use of a gastric pacemaker for the treatment of gastroparesis. The team of gastroenterologist Richard McCallum, MD, surgeon Jameson Forster, MD, and Irene Sarosiek, MD, gastrointestinal clinic research coordinator, and associates, were presented awards by Medtronic, Inc. Dr. McCallum, director of the Center for Gastrointestinal Nerve and Muscle Disorders, was nationally recognized for pioneering gastric pacing and electrical stimulation of the stomach.
2003: Susan K. Pingleton, MD, FACP, Master Fellow, ACCP, becomes the first woman chair in the Department of Internal Medicine.
2003: The first Professorship for Women in Medicine and Science was established in the School of Medicine for women faculty members by Joy and Robert M. Daugherty, MD through the Joy McCann Foundation. Kim Templeton, MD was named as the first recipient of this professorship and served until 2006. She was followed by Yu-Jui Yvonne Wan, PhD (2007-2010) (BIO) and Susan K. Pingleton, MD, FACP, Master Fellow, ACCP(2010-2013) (BIO).
July 2004: KU School of Medicine was awarded an $18 million grant for life sciences research from the National Institutes of Health. Joan Hunt, PhD, KUMC senior associate dean for research and graduate education, serves as principal investigator.
January 1, 2005: Barbara Atkinson, MD, executive dean of the School of Medicine, was appointed as the first woman Executive Vice Chancellor of KUMC. Dr. Atkinson is the only woman in the United States to hold both positions simultaneously. Dr. Atkinson was inducted later into the University of Kansas Women's Hall of Fame in 2007.
2005: Linda Warren, MD, (BIO) was the first graduate from the School of Medicine inducted into the University of Kansas Women's Hall of Fame. For more than 30 years Dr. Warren has practiced family medicine in a rural community.
March 2011: Patricia Thomas, MD, MA, FCAP, FASCP, Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Director, University of Kansas Cytopathology Fellowship Program, Associate Dean for Cultural Enhancement & Diversity is a 2011 inductee in the KU Women’s Hall of Fame. Dr. Thomas received this prestigious recognition for her distinguished service for her institution, her community, and her efforts in advancing women’s leadership and career opportunities at both the local and national level. Dr. Thomas is the first African American inducted from the School of Medicine.
July 7, 2011: KU School of Medicine-Salina names its academic society after Barbara Lukert, MD. The societies are named after legendary KUMC physicians: Mahlon G. Delp; Ralph H. Major; Franklin D. Murphy; Thomas G. Orr; Harry R. Wahl; W. Clarke Wescoe; and, in Wichita, Thor Jager. With the need for a new society in Salina came an opportunity for a living namesake, and the first woman. Read more
SPECIAL THANKS
WIMS would like to express great appreciation to Nancy Hulston, Archives Director, Clendening History of Medicine Museum , University of Kansas Medical Center for preparing the complete list of 100 Remarkable Firsts in 2005. It is from her work and with her permission we were able to provide the above information.
10.1.2010
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The University of Kansas Medical Center