OU College of Medicine - OKC, OK - Oklahoma Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

This Oklahoma Historical Marker is located a short distance from another one (Basic Sciences Education Building). It is on the north side of the walkway that leads west from the central fountain.
A plaque in front of the marker states:

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams."
-Henry David Thoreau

A Gift of
The University of Oklahoma College of Medicine
Class of 2002

Historical marker text:

"...where there is love of man, there is also love of the art."
Hippocrates (c.460-400 B.C.)

OU COLLEGE OF MEDICINE

Medical education at the University of Oklahoma began in 1900 with the creation of a two-year medical course on the Norman campus under the direction of Dr. Lawrence N. Upjohn, who later headed the Upjohn pharmaceutical company.

In 1910, the university medical program merged with Epworth College of Medicine in Oklahoma City and expanded to a four-year program with students continuing to take the preclinical years in Norman.

Under the leadership of Leroy Long, M.D., who served as dean from 1915 to 1931, the school gained financial support and consolidated programs on a newly acquired campus in Oklahoma City. With the completion in 1928 of the College of Medicine Building at the northeast corner of 13th Street and Phillips Avenue, both basic sciences and clinical education were offered in Oklahoma City. Dr. Long's deanship ended under a political storm when he resisted the efforts of Governor William H. Murray to degrade medical education in the state.

The tumultous period that followed resulted in seven deans in 16 years and was fraught with accredidation difficulties, funding problems and often wavering political support for the college.

The years from 1947 to 1954, under Dean Mark R. Everett, Ph.D., were an era of reorganization, expansion and modernization. The heavy reliance on volunteer faculty members ended, and the full-time faculty greatly increased, as did enrollment and residency programs. Ph.D. programs in the basic medical sciences were established.

(side two)

Everett was succeeded as dean and medical center vice president by James L. Dennis, M.D., whose dream of a broader medical center became the impetus for tremendous growth both at the OU Health Sciences Center and the surrounding Oklahoma Health Center. While the 1968 HERO (Health and Education for a Richer Oklahoma) bond issue and federal matching funds helped finance capital growth, the rapidly growing center was chronically short of operating funds.

Robert M. Bird, M.D., who served as dean 1970 to 1974, obtained federal matching funds for most of the OU Health Sciences Center buildings completed in the mid-1970's. Dr. Bird helped hold the center together through very tough budgetary years, securing a promise from Governor-Elect David L. Boren and legislative leaders that resulted in investment funding for medical education beginning in 1975. The action made possible the completion of the campus master plan. An auxiliary College of Medicine campus was founded in Tulsa in 1972 by an act of the Oklahoma Legislature.

The remaining quarter of the 20th century brought growing support for the college's educational and research missions and recognition of the college as the most concentrated source of medical expertise in the state. The majority of the state's physicians have received their medical training at the OU College of Medicine.

County: Oklahoma Record Address:: 941 Stanton L. Young OKC, OK USA 73117 Web site if available: [Web Link] Rate the Site: Date Erected: 2002 Sponsor (Who put it there): Class of 2002

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Date Logged Log   05/25/2019 Max and 99 visited it