Medical centennial celebration begins

		September 19, 2003

Medical educators, students, well-wishers throughout state will videoconference a party with 100 candles

By Erich Schoch

Are you ready to party? The Indiana University School of Medicine is. Why? Because it’s 100 years old and feeling great!

On Tuesday (Sept. 23), IUSM will kick off its year-long centennial celebration with a statewide party, starting at noon Indianapolis time. Some of the usual trappings of a birthday celebration will be on hand, such as really big cakes shaped like the state of Indiana, centennial pins and balloons. There will be some unusual ones, too, like a videoconferencing hook-up that will enable all eight regional centers for medical education and the Indianapolis campus to celebrate together.

IUSM opened in September 1903 on the Bloomington campus, enrolling 17 male students and one female student. About five years later, after much political battling, the IUSM program in Indianapolis was created, merging the programs at Purdue University and a proprietary school in Indianapolis with the Bloomington school.

Dr. Craig Brater, dean of IUSM, will begin the “virtual” festivities with his remarks, joined through videoconference by the directors of the eight regional centers.

The centers were created in the early 1970s as a means of spreading the benefits of medical education and research across the state. Students spend the first two years of their medical school education in the regional centers as well as the Indianapolis campus, and then spend the final two years in Indianapolis. In 1973, 17 percent of medical students were female; today, nearly 50 percent are female.

Regional centers are located in Bloomington, Evansville, Fort Wayne, West Lafayette, Muncie, Gary, South Bend and Terre Haute.
Cakes will be cut at each location, and all students, current and emeriti faculty, staff and other guests in attendance will receive an IUSM centennial commemorative pin. Officials at the regional centers are planning various individual festivities, with local faculty, students, alumni and other guests on hand. On the Indianapolis campus, medical students will be selling centennial merchandise to raise scholarship funds.

• In West Lafayette, a cream-and-crimson banner will fly over Lynn Hall on the Purdue campus in recognition of the centennial celebration. That’s because Lynn Hall, which houses the Purdue School of Veterinary Medicine, also is home to IUSM’s Lafayette Center for Medical Education. The center has served as the portal of entry for more than 500 medical students. Among the guests at the West Lafayette event will be Dr. Lindley Wagner, founding director of the center.

• In Bloomington, the regional center, directed by Talmage Bosin, will be hosting its cake-and-punch party and video hookup in Jordan Hall 109.

• People will gather in the third floor of the classroom medical building in Fort Wayne to join the noontime party, watch the statewide videoconference and have a slice of cake. Barth Ragatz is director of the Fort Wayne center.

• At the Terre Haute center, which is directed by Roy Geib, celebrations are planned at two locations. Some of the faculty and the first-year students will be at the Holmstedt Hall location, while other celebrants will be at the Landsbaum Center for Health Education. The public also is welcome at the Landsbaum Center for cake and punch.

• In Evansville, officials plan to celebrate twice, first with the festivities in the center’s conference room, Health Professions 3028, then at 4 p.m., when cake and ice cream will be served under a tent outside the center. The center is directed by Rex Stith.

• Muncie celebrants will gather across the street from the center, in the Outpatient Medical Pavilion at Ball Memorial Hospital. Center director is Douglas Triplett.

• William Baldwin is director of the Gary center and John O’Malley is acting director of the South Bend Center. Location information was not available at press time for these celebrations.

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