Oral Histories

Interview of Sherman M. Mellinkoff

Dean of the UCLA School of Medicine.
Subtitle:
Teaching, Research, Patient Care
Series:
Interviews not in a series, part one
Topic:
Science, Medicine, and Technology
UCLA and University of California History
UCLA Faculty
Biographical Note:
Dean of the UCLA School of Medicine.
Interviewer:
Galm, Bernard and Novak, Steven J.
Interviewee:
Mellinkoff, Sherman M.
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 Beverly Hills; decision to enter medicine; influence of Lowell Frost; undergraduate education at Stanford University; attends Stanford University School of Medicine; marriage to June O'Connell; internship and residency at Stanford-Lane Hospital, San Francisco; Arthur L. Bloomfield, Thomas Addis, and Lindol R. French; studying pharmacology and pathology; the discovery of Digitalis purpurea; enlists in United States Army Medical Corps; medical students and military service during World War II; stationed in Pusan, Korea; medical care shortcomings in the army; research publications during army service; residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital; A. McGehee Harvey and William P. Longmire Jr.; choosing clinical gastroenterology as a subspecialty; studying gastroenterology at University of Pennsylvania; chief resident and instructor at Hopkins; heading the outpatient clinic at Hopkins; recruited by John S. Lawrence to join the UCLA School of Medicine; Stafford L. Warren; national boards; the UCLA Department of Medicine's physical facilities in 1953; starting a laboratory; the Los Angeles County Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance; affiliations with Los Angeles County hospitals and Veterans Administration hospitals; upgrading the affiliates; opening of UCLA Hospital and Clinics; the University of California, San Francisco; Baldwin G. Lamson; Franklin D. Murphy; Jules Stein; developing the Jules Stein Eye Institute; the Jerry Lewis Neuromuscular Research Center; the University of California, Riverside/ UCLA Biomedical Sciences Program; Donald J. Cram and other UCLA Nobel Prize winners; the Louis B. Factor Health Sciences Building; relationship with Vice-Chancellor William P. Gerberding; appointment as dean of the UCLA School of Medicine; establishing review procedures for departmental chairs; recruiting new department heads; evolution of UCLA medical school committees, departments, and curriculum; building program; contributors Ambrose and Gladys Bowyer, Louis B. and Doris Factor, Kenneth A. Jonsson, Jerry Lewis, Gordon L. and Virginia MacDonald, and Hazel Eckhart Wilson; Charles E. Young; the Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital; A. Frederick Rasmussen Jr.; John Field II; changing criteria for faculty appointments and student admissions; the 1965 Watts rebellion; John A. McCone; creation of Martin Luther King Jr. General Hospital and Charles R. Drew Postgraduate Medical School; Dr. Abraham White, the Atomic Energy Project, and security clearances; the University of California loyalty oath; serves on the California Governor's Commission on the Los Angeles Riots (McCone Commission); commission findings and report; recruiting minorities and women as students and faculty; charges of racism at UCLA Hospital; complaints about the low number of African American medical students at UCLA; the Interns and Residents Association; conditions at county hospitals; budgets and funding; the Venice Family Clinic; faculty income plan; the 1970s budget crisis; UCLA medical researchers Horace W. Magoun, Elizabeth F. Neufeld, Emil L. Smith, Paul I. Terasaki, and William N. Valentine; Clarence Reed and the Reed Neurological Research Center; the Doris Factor and Louis B. Factor Health Sciences Building; medical technology; medical ethics; experimental treatments; animal research and animal rights activism; genetic engineering; the UCLA School of Nursing; Lulu Wolf Hassenplug; Rheba de Tornyay; the founding of the UCLA School of Public Health; recruiting Norman Cousins to the School of Medicine; Lester Breslow; student unrest of the 1960s; the selection of Robert C. Collins as chair of the Department of Neurology; sabbatical tour of teaching hospitals and clerkships; current writing projects; Mellinkoff's successor, Kenneth I. Shine.