Alumni Remembrances

Classes of 1950 - 1959

Marsden Wagner, M.D.'55, M.S.

July 3, 2008 - From Marsden Wagner, graduate of the first class at UCLA medical school in 1955, for many years Director of Women's and Children's Health, World Health Organization, Alumnus of the Year, UCLA School of Medicine.

The UCLA CHS first opened in July 1955 and, having just graduated from the UCLA medical school, I then became one of the first interns in the newly opened CHS. Nobody knew where anything was and we had to search around and try to find things. The community was not yet really aware of the new emergency room at CHS and at first almost no one ever came to the ER. But by the end of the first year, there was a steady stream of patients coming to the ER and also being referred to in- patient services. There was a desperate shortage of nurses and nurses were being recruited from all over the country. There was only one cafeteria which served patients, families and also nurses and doctors so we all ate together which was quite friendly and open. At the end of the first floor hallway was double doors which lead to the sleeping quarters for doctors on call but it was some time before it really came to be used as there was almost always empty patient rooms on the wards. It was still a rather small hospital and all we interns knew each other well and we also knew all of the residents from the various specialties. When I finished my internship, I continued on at CHS as a resident physician for several years, watching all the beds fill up and waiting lines begin. We worked like hell and had a great spirit of togetherness and setting standards as pioneers. I am now a consultant and have just had a book published by the University of California Press: " Born in the USA". Marsden

Sid Gilman B.A.'54, M.D. '57 FRCP

July 8, 2008 from Sid Gilman MD FRCP, whose current titles include: William J. Herdman Distinguished University Professor of Neurology Director, Michigan Alzheimer's Disease Research CenterDepartment of Neurology University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 48109-0489. In 2001, Dr. Gilman received the Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (F.R.C.P.), a British degree that indicates a very high level of distinction.

When I completed my medical school education, I became an Intern in
Medicine at the new UCLA Hospital. It was a modern, up-to-date hospital
for its time, and all the house officers, including me, were delighted
to be working in this brand new building. The only major problem was
that the current level of Intensive Care Units had not been developed,
hence acutely ill patients needed to be monitored within individual
rooms. Late one evening I admitted an elderly man with an acute
myocardial infarction who had coded (developed cardiac arrest) and had
been resuscitated by his son, who was an internist. The son, who had
admitting privileges, brought his dad to the hospital and I was assigned
to care for him. The patient was a most likeable individual, fully alert
at the time he was admitted, but had a cardiac arrhythmia and was in
congestive heart failure. I was worried that his unstable condition
would leave him vulnerable to another myocardial infarction or a fatal
arrhythmia, hence I decided to sleep in the same room with him;
fortunately, he was in a twin-bed room. Although I had around 15 or 20
other patients to care for, I spent about a week as this gentleman's
"room mate", looking in on him frequently during the day, and also
frequently doing the same at night. By the end of the week his
arrhythmia had improved greatly, as had his cardiac status, and he was
discharged. The gentleman gave me the gift of a suitcase, as I told him
that I was going to the National Institutes of Health for 2 years of
research training at the end of the internship, and I somehow let it
slip that I didn't own a suitcase. Sadly, I heard from his son that he
expired about a year later. Needless to say, when modern ICUs were
developed, I was greatly relieved to know that this kind of effort would
fall to the nursing night shift henceforth. I am pleased and proud to be
a graduate of UCLA, both the undergraduate school and the medical
school; the training was superb, and the then new hospital was
marvelous.

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