Not Just Any Medical School

Not Just Any Medical School details the establishment of the University of Michigan Medical School. It provides a picture of its students, curriculum, amphitheaters, laboratories, hospitals, and patients as seen through the eyes of its leading faculty members and documented by their published works, lecture notes, and other primary and secondary sources.

The book begins with the selection of the first five professors and continues through the appointment of statesman and scientist Victor Vaughan as dean and his successors to 1941. Organized by specialty, the material is chronological within chapters. Illustrations include student and faculty scenes, hospital interiors and exteriors, and medical apparatus. The narrative includes numerous direct quotes from research papers, lectures, and letters illustrating that Michigan was "not just any medical school." Many of the significant medical and scientific advances that originated at Michigan are described in detail.

Appearing in conjunction with the sesquicentennial of the Medical School, Not Just Any Medical School will appeal to those interested in the history of medicine and particularly to those with a connection to the University of Michigan.

Horace Davenport is William Beaumont Professor Emeritus of Physiology, University of Michigan.

Praise / Awards

• ". . . a concise and perceptive overview of medical education at one of the nation's premier educational institutions."
  --Janet A. Tighe, University of Pennsylvania, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, June 2001
  
• ". . . a compelling and interesting history of our school. . . . Davenport has provided a rich account of the stuff of which real progress is made, and that includes missteps and shortcomings. He chronicles the real world of medicine, academics, and community-university-hospital interactions."
  --Michael M. E. Johns, M.D., Emory University, JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association, February 16, 2000
  
• ". . . a welcome addition to the extant literature on the medical school."
  --Carolyn G. Shapiro-Shapin, Michigan Historical Review, Fall 2000