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Moving a Medical Schoolby Kristi Krupala 
R. Mason and Margie Shiflett Dr. R. Mason Shiflett, Jr., remembers his first day at Baylor College of Medicine like it was yesterday, even though it was nearly 63 years ago. BCM was, at the time, located in Dallas where it had been founded in 1900 as the University of Dallas Medical Department. That there existed no such institution as the University of Dallas didn't seem to faze the medical school founders who in 1903 turned over ownership of the school to Baylor University in Waco. After graduating from Southern Methodist University, Shiflett was accepted to Baylor following an interview with then-dean Dr. Walter H. Moursund, a very "hands on" leader who became a personal friend and mentor to Shiflett and other medical students.  "I had wanted to be a physician since I was 12 and was so grateful to Dr. Moursund for seeing my potential and accepting me to Baylor," said Shiflett. "Being from Dallas, I truly believed that Baylor was the only medical school in the country, so it was the only one that I applied to." His loyalty to the College has never wavered. After establishing a scholarship in honor of his parents in 1959, Shiflett has made gifts to BCM nearly every year, most recently creating a charitable annuity that will be added to the Dr. R. Mason and Mrs. Margie V. Shiflett, Jr., '45 Endowed Scholarship Fund. As a young student, Shiflett helped the College make the move from Dallas to Houston. 
The Sears Roebuck building that was BCM's first home in Houston "I loaded lab equipment into the moving trucks," he recalled. "We began classes on July 12, 1943, in the Sears Roebuck distribution building off Waugh Street in an accelerated, two-year program so that we could be educated and skilled enough to enter service in World War II." During those years, the students and faculty were a close-knit group due to the small class size, and many physicians became not only educators and mentors, but also friends and a second family. One such professor, Dr. Stuart Allen Wallace, in the department of pathology, would take his students out for dinners at Pier 21. While moving an entire medical school to another city was quite memorable for Shiflett, there were two other events that stand out above it—marrying his wife, Margie, during his senior year, and the talented professors and physicians who educated Shiflett and his colleagues during their tenure at BCM. Dr. Don Chapman, cardiology clinical professor emeritus at the College, was an associate professor in the department of medicine at the time. "Dr. Chapman was very warm to us," remembered Shiflett. "I attribute a lot of my medical knowledge to him." 
Shiflett at BCM in the 1940s He also fondly remembers his professor of histology, referred by his students as "Pappy" Duncan. "He was a wonderful teacher and quoted a phrase that has always stuck with me, both in my medical career and my personal life: Never be the first to try something new and never be the last to lay aside the old," said Shiflett. "This was valuable information as I learned the skills I needed to be a surgeon and physician. It followed me as I served my country in the V-12 unit (1946-1948) and then when I started my professional career as part of the Rural Mission Program, which led me to Cleburne, Texas, as a general surgeon and family physician. It was also a saying that I applied to my life as a husband, father, and community advocate," he said. Shiflett is extremely appreciative of the exceptional education he received from the gifted physician-educators at BCM, the mentors and friends he found in Moursund and his professors, and the opportunities he gained during his career because of his affiliation with Baylor College of Medicine. It is for those reasons that he decided only 15 years after graduating to give back to the College—to make sure that the same opportunities he was afforded were available to all students accepted to BCM. 
Shiflett in his Navy uniform In their most recent gift, Shiflett and his wife, Margie, worked with the BCM Office of Development to establish a charitable gift annuity because of the benefits both they and the institution receive from this kind of gift. (A charitable gift annuity enables contributors to make a current gift to the College while at the same time receiving a fixed income stream—a portion of which is tax-free—for the remainder of their life or the life of another individual and an immediate income tax deduction.) During World War II, Shiflett helped to move a medical school. Today he and his wife are moving BCM forward through their consistent giving. Theirs is a story of life-long loyalty to an institution they have seen grow from rental space in an old warehouse to the nation's No. 10 medical school. |
Patient CareResearchTrekking Into New Territory: Translational Biology and Molecular Medicine Closing the Gap Between Lab and Clinic EducationTulane's Journey Back to New Orleans Community ServiceAlumni & DevelopmentCollege News
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Volume 2, Issue 2, Summer 2006 |
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