Oral Histories

Interview of Willard E. Goodwin

Surgeon and head of the UCLA Division of Urology.
Subtitle:
Urologic Innovator
Topic:
UCLA and University of California History
Science, Medicine, and Technology
UCLA Faculty
Biographical Note:
Surgeon and head of the UCLA Division of Urology.
Interviewer:
Casey, William
Interviewee:
Goodwin, Willard E.
Supporting Documents:
Records relating to the interview are located in the office of the UCLA Library's Center for Oral History Research.
Language:
English
Copyright:
Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library.
Abstract:
Childhood and education in La Cañada and Pasadena; role model of uncle, Dr. Elmer Belt; attends University of California, Berkeley; teachers at Berkeley; summer jobs in biochemical laboratories; influential college friends: Walter A. Haas Jr., William A. Hewitt, Stanley Johnson, Robert S. McNamara, Henry M. Thelen; bicycle trip through Europe; summer job as a common seaman; McNamara's early life; enters Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Hopkins faculty: Alfred Blalock, J. A. Campbell Colston, Walter E. Dandy, Warfield M. Firor, William F. Rienhoff Jr., William W. Scott, Hugh H. Young; voyage to Europe on eve of World War II; research project with Samuel S. Blackman; Max Brödel; internship in Newfoundland; decision to specialize in urology; spending a quarter at Harvard Medical School; Peter Bent Brigham and Women's Hospital in the late thirties and early forties; Frank Hinman Jr. and Frank Hinman Sr.; internship at Johns Hopkins Brady Urological Institute; meets and marries Mary Pearson Josephs; enlists in United States Army Medical Corps; assignments in European and Pacific theaters during World War II; transferred to Brooke Army General Hospital, San Antonio, Texas; atomic bombing of Japan; Vincent Vermooten; unpublished original observation of hematuria and sickle-cell disease; residency at Johns Hopkins; fellowship to conduct surgical experiments; idea of using mannitol as an irrigating solution for transurethral resections; postwar surgical innovations in urology; Clarence V. Hodges; desegregation of Johns Hopkins Hospital; recruited by William P. Longmire Jr. to head the new UCLA School of Medicine Division of Urology; background on the founding of the UCLA medical school; national boards; membership in the American Urological Association and other professional affiliations; bipolar affective illness; creativity and science; plans for the urology residency program; residents; Joseph J. Kaufman; crush injuries and renal failure; renal infarctions; origin of percutaneous pyelography; first operation with an ileal ureter; half-year sabbatical at Peter Bent Brigham and Women's Hospital; Francis D. Moore; learning kidney transplant techniques; half-year sabbatical at Edinburgh University; Michael F. A. Woodruff; efforts to suppress rejection of transplanted organs; first West Coast kidney transplants; use of steroids to weaken resistance; sabbatical at Airlangga University in Surabaja, Indonesia; Christian G. Chaussy; socialized medicine; UCLA medical faculty; Deans Stafford L. Warren and Sherman M. Mellinkoff; Armand Hammer and the President's Cancer Panel; evolution of urology division; Chester C. Winter; Jean B. deKernion; ureterosigmoidostomy; methods of urinary diversion; pediatric urology; retropubic prostatectomy; half-year sabbatical at Freie Universität, Berlin; renal hypertension; National Wilms' Tumor Study Group; progress in urology, past and future.