Then & Now

by Bryant Boutwell, Dr.P.H

How far the UT Medical School at Houston has come. In 1970, when Dean Cheves Smythe launched the new school, there were no buildings, no students, no faculty. From rental space in the Houston Academy of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library Building, Dr. Smythe and his small staff began the planning of a new building (John Freeman Building, 1973) and recruited the first 19 students along with the first faculty members. During those early years students took courses in makeshift lecture halls at the Center Pavilion Hospital (no longer in existence) and learned pathology in borrowed space at Baylor College of Medicine. An early electron microscope was the most advanced technology of the day, and students hiked over to M. D. Anderson Cancer Center where the Medical School had a trailer parked outside the hospital for training on the new equipment.

Today, with renovations following Tropical Storm Allison of 2001, the Medical School’s facilities are coming back bigger and better than before. New gross anatomy facilities, with the latest in computer imaging; a new magnetic imaging center with capabilities unmatched in the city; a new Surgical and Clinical Skills Center that will be among the best in the nation -- define the Medical School today. Plus, planning is in the works for the School’s first new building since 1973 (see story – page 4).

Today, Dr. Nachum Dafny, professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, takes advantage of computer software to facilitate classroom learning.

With more than 4,500 graduates, 650 faculty members, and the Texas Medical Center’s first Nobel laureate in residence, the Medical School is quite a contrast to those early days. Few remember that Dr. Smythe was once able to fit the entire staff and faculty of this Medical School into one car to attend the first year’s Christmas party across campus.