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Osler's Ivyby Stephen Greenberg, M.D. "I desire no other epitaph (than) that I taught medical students in the wards, as I regard this as by far the most useful and important work I have been called upon to do." — Sir William Osler (Aequanimitas, with Other Addresses "The Fixed Period.")
This year, at Baylor College of Medicine, I began a new tradition. I gave each of the four chief residents of medicine something tangible—a little pot of ivy. It was no ordinary ivy. It was grown from ivy that graces the walls of "Open Arms," the Oxford University home of Dr. William Osler during his last years when he was Regius Professor of Medicine there. Americans studying at Oxford while he was there always found a place to stay in the ivy-covered walls of "Open Arms." This particular ivy came from the walls of a garden outside Houston's John P. McGovern Museum of Health and Medical Science. McGovern, himself a member of the Osler society, had brought the ivy to Houston from Oxford. Dr. Robert Rakel, co-chair of the Osler meeting, and I gave each of those who attended a sprig of the ivy in tiny pots. From that came the notion of giving it to the chief residents, to whom I hope it has even more significance. The ivy is more than a memento. It is a living symbol of what medicine is, and it stretches back to Osler himself, the Father of Modern Medicine, who revolutionized both the practice and pedagogy of medicine while he helped build Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The four who received the ivy this year excelled in their fields, and they were appropriate recipients of this gift. I intend to continue the practice, and I hope that others might follow suit. Just as the tendrils of ivy grow and spread, digging into surfaces of brick, mortar and wood, I envision young residents taking the tenets of Oslerian medicine around the world and embedding them into the ethos of hundreds of medical schools. Osler's legacy, as described by Dr. Myron Weisfeld, Chair of the Department of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, includes accepting personal responsibility for a patient's care, integrating science into the understanding of disease and disseminating medical knowledge through bedside teaching and medical literature. Those precepts, groundbreaking as they were a century ago, ring true today in the face of molecular medicine, high tech imaging and digital information flow. Our tools are more sophisticated, and our understanding of the relationship between the organism, its genome and disease is much more detailed. Yet Osler taught us the importance of relating this kind of information directly to the patient—an auguring of the translational medicine that is our future. It was Osler who took medical students out of the classroom and taught them at the bedside. Today, it is at the bedside that we fight our most important battles. To me, Osler's ivy symbolizes his belief that one took what was great in the history of medicine and then built on that to make something even greater. We certainly hope that is what our residents do, building on their roots to find even better ways to care for patients. The ivy also symbolizes the fact that one must continue to grow as a physician. The ivy also tells these residents that they should think of Baylor as their "Open Arms," the place to which they can always return. We will be part of their educational life forever. Dr. Greenberg is the Baylor College of Medicine Margaret M. Alkek Distinguished Chair of the Margaret M. Alkek Department of Medicine; Professor of Molecular Virology & Microbiology; Chief, Medicine Service, Ben Taub General Hospital, and Herman Brown Teaching Professor, Ben Taub General Hospital. |
Patient CareResearchThe Next Step in Cancer Research EducationHalf a Century Later... They're Still Giving Back Community ServiceFrom Despair to Hope: BCM Responds to Katrina Alumni & DevelopmentThe Vietnamese Cowboy and the Race Car Driver A Fortunate Life... A Fight Against Cancer College NewsA New Door for the East Campus New Museum to Showcase Maestro of Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine: Making a Difference in the Community
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Volume 1, Issue 3, Fall 2005 |
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Every year, we, as medical educators, send our residents forth to do research, educate their peers and, perhaps most important, care for patients. During their residency, we transmit to them not only the science and technology of medicine, but also its humanity and its ethics. They take with them the knowledge, and, we hope, the sense of purpose we all feel as physicians, educators and researchers. Those are the intangibles.