3
Building One of the World^s Great Schools of Medicine
DEAN DAVISON
"His office was on one of the busiest corridors-in the Medical
School, with the door open always to students, house officers,
personnel and faculty alike."
(continued from page two)
might see part in New York, part in Chicago, and part in San
Francisco, and the order didn't seenn to make any difference
to him. Dr. Davison probably had more unfinished parts of
more movies floating around in his head than any man in the
United States and he didn't jumble them up either. His
criterion for a good movie corresponded to the degree of
"fanny fatigue" that developed.
Unoccupied moments also were spent in authorship
activities. Despite almost countless activities at the national
and state levels. Dean Davison found time to write well over
200 scientific papers plus a book. The Compleat Pediatrician,
which sold approximately 100,000 copies in its eight editions.
The book editions were revised, he said, "in otherwise idle
minutes on trains, steamers, and planes, in bars on ships and at
airports, and at lectures, concerts, and medical meetings."
He once became so engrossed in revising some material while
sitting through a paper being given by an old aony, that he
failed to note that the subject had been changed at the last
minute. At the conclusion he stood up and conyatulated his
colleague on a brilliant discussion of a topic which was never
delivered.
The Compleat Pediatrician was begun in 1919, when Dr.
Davison was on the Johns Hopkins pediatric staff, as a
notebook record of easily forgotten facts and methods. The
one-pound volume was kept at that weight for ease in carrying
and tucking in a satchel. His greatest thrill and satisfaction
occurred when he heard that The Compleat Pediatrician was
the only medical book available after the surrender at Bataan
during the second World War, and that it was used at Cabarra
Tuan to calculate the dietary needs of the 13,000 American
POW's.
Wilburt Davison was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in
1892, the son of a Methodist minister. Princeton gave him the
A.B. degree in 1913, and thence he went to Oxford University,
England, as a Rhodes Scholar. At Oxford, he began the
business of tradition-breaking by calling on Sir William Osier,
dean of the medical school, to request permission to complete
the first two years of medical training in one year. "I was
delightfully surprised," Dean Davison recalls, "when a small
man came to the door and said cheerily before I could open
my mouth, 'I am Sir William and have heard of your request
which I think is very foolish but of course you can do
anything you please and now let's have tea.' Taking the
amazed me by the arm, he propelled me into the drawing
room, introducing me to Lady Osier with 'Grace, here is a new
American colt who is wrecking a medical school tradition.
Give him some tea.' " This episode marked the beginning of
Dr. Davison's affectionate devotion to Sir William, who
profoundly influenced his thinking about many aspects of
medical education. Dr. Davison earned the B.A. and B.Sc.
degrees at Oxford, and got his M.D. from Johns Hopkins. In
1917 he married Atala Thayer Scudder of Glen Head, Long
Island, to whom he had become engaged when she was at Bryn
Mawr and he was at Princeton. Mrs. Davison, like her husband,
is an M.D. and a pediatrician. The Davison's have three
children, two of whom are physicians.
Dean Davison's 34 years at Duke have been marked by
constant dissatisfaction with the status quo, with his mind
always open to new ideas on how to spur the school toward
the highest levels of excellence. The movement to train
nonmedical men for positions as hospital administrators was
inaugurated here. This is one of the few medical schools which
includes nursing procedures in the medical curriculum, so that
the students can instruct patients and relatives of patients. In
accord with a practice of European medical education. Dean
Davison encouraged students to spend one or more terms at
medical schools other than Duke. He was instrumental in the
establishment of loan funds for rural students in medicine—a
step toward helping fill the need for physicians in rural areas
of the South.
(continued on page eleven)
PEDIATRICIAN DAVISON
. .while specialization in medicine was necessary, the success
of total medical practice must depend on a substantial
profwrtion of well-rounded generalists."