Alumni Remembrances

Welcome to remembrances of the UCLA Center for the Health Sciences (CHS). With the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center now open, alumni are encouraged to reflect on the old hospital and share their memories with the MAA family. Click here to submit your own remembrance.

Latest Remembrances from Classes of 1970 - 1979

Valdemar Ascencio, '71, M.D.'75, FACS

July 3, 2008 - My first memories of the CHS were when I was still an undergraduate at UCLA. I used to spend hours studying in the "bowels" of the "Bio Med Library." It was so quiet and isolated there; there was very little temptation to socialize and I could get a lot done. I can remember studying 6 to 7 hours each night. I also worked as a hospital orderly while I was an undergraduate and I became quite familiar with structure of the CHS. I used to challenge myself to find alternative and quicker routes to get from one area to another.

As a medical student, the CHS was so massive, but well organized. I remember the distinctive smell of the different labs, especially the anatomy lab. I remember how "intimate" and small the lecture rooms and classes wee compared to the massive rooms and large numbers of students we had as undergraduates at UCLA. I can remember feeling very honored that I could play even a small role in such a large, sophisticated and well respected medical center. I feel that even more today than I did then.

Valdemar Ascencio, '71, M.D.'75, FACS
Chairman, Subsection of Plastic Surgery
Former Chief of Staff
Saddleback Memorial Medical Center
Past President, UCLA Medical Alumni Association

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Latest Remembrances from Classes of 1960 - 1969

Lucia Carpenter-Dean, M.D.'62

In our sophomore year that student groups were assigned to study Histology/Pathology in a remodeled bathroom -- very tight with a table holding several of our own microscopes where we would review the slides together. To keep ourselves alert, we often would sing silly songs to keep awake - songs like "These are a few of our favorite things." Of course, we had to keep the door closed to the "restroom."

Classmate, Loretta Milburn, also remembers an interesting side-line to our education. A visitor touring the Medical School fainted upon entering the anatomy lab during lunch break just as one of the students working on a cadaver picked up a chicken leg from his lunch and started eating it! (I am sure he was reprimanded for eating in the lab.)

Many of us were typical poor medical students. One of our classmates lived in the library stacks for a time and ate out of the interns' refrigerator -- and the only medical text he ever owned was Merck's Manual.

Another interesting and favorite professor was Dr. Charles M. Carpenter, chairman of the Infectious Disease Dept. As he completed one of his Infectious Disease lectures to our class, he asked if anyone was going to use this knowledge to do "medical missions." It was the only time I recall a professor even mentioning going to a foreign country to help others. (This was a little insight into his personal life as a Christian and elder in the Christian Church on LeConte, directly across the street from CHS.) By the way, I was able to introduce my brother, a graduate of USC School of Medicine, to Dr. Carpenter in my senior year. My brother's name is Charles Milton Carpenter, M.D., exactly the same full name of this good professsor!

Richard J. Glassock, M.D.'60, MACP '60

June 25, 2008 - My first introduction to the CHS was upon my transfer from Duke University School of Medicine to UCLA School of Medicine in 1957, where I entered into the Class of 1960. In contrast to the classical Gothic architecture of Duke UCLA had a gleaming, modern, brick, glass and aluminum, appearance and I was told that it was the largest building on the West Coast and that it had more hallways than the Pentagon. As a Medical Student I spent most of my time in the Lecture Halls, the Student Labs and the Library, but beginning in 1958 took my first step into the strange world of the Hospital, as a "sub-intern", as we were called in those days. Compared to today's Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center the CHS of 1958 was quite primitive, but was a marvel of design and efficiency. Of course, there were no Intensive Care Units or Coronary Care Units and each floor had a small laboratory where "sub-interns" could practice their skills at making blood smears or examining urine (the results of which would actually appear in the patients Medical Chart. Blood-letting was a daily chore, but the highlight of the day was when the results of the laboratory tests would be delivered to the nurses station (via a air-driven tube system similar to that used in Department stores). We would all gather around the nurses station to learn the finding of the tests of the day and plan what new tests would be ordered for the next day (in order to keep ahead of the ideas of the attending physician). Each room contained two beds, except when a patient was critically ill and then it was temporarily converted to a one-bed critical care unit, with a special duty nurse assigned to that patient alone. Positive pressure (Bennett) respirators were every where and it seemed as though they were in constant use. The "crash cart" consisted of a surgical instrument tray and a "rib-spreader" as all resuscitation efforts for sudden death were performed with open-chest cardiac massage (I conducted two of these grisly and doomed exercises while a first year Resident). There were no defibrillators, blood gas machines and only one hemodialysis machine (a 1955 style tank-like device- called a "twin-coil dialyzer). All cardiac pace-making was done externally and the patient twitched with each electrical burst. Liver function was tested by injection of bromo-sulfon-phthalein-BSP (an allergic reaction to which was the apparent trigger for one of the cardiac arrest episodes mentioned above). All patients with Kidney Failure died, at least until about 1960-1961- when dialysis and transplantation became practical.

What I remember most about the CHS was the extra-ordinary camaraderie that existed among the staff. Nurses, nurses aides, ward clerks, residents, interns, sub-interns quickly formed lasting bonds and created a true team approach to care. We became close friends and colleagues. During those times when patients did poorly or even died, these bonds provided an outlet for the terrible loneliness and fear that comes with being a Doctor for the first time. When success came, a brilliant diagnosis or a good outcome of a life-threatening illness, we all regaled each other. As I reflect on it, the design of the CHS, with the central nurses station, the wide hallways, the private enclaves for private discussions, the availability of open areas for relaxation, the common dining hall and a pleasant house-staff quarters probably had something to do with the development of this friendship and conviviality. These are valuable commodities which I hope will also spontaneously emerge in the new Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. While buildings, equipment and technology are important aspects of modern medical care today, just as they were in 1958-1963, the staff (nurses, aides, laboratory analysts, clerks, maintenance workers, doctors, students and the like) is what makes a Medical Center great and glorious. As the old CHS gives way to the new Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, the tradition of excellence and caring fostered will be carried over not by concrete, steel or cable but by the individuals who occupy the structures. I wish the new Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center a future as illustrious as its predecessor.

Richard J. Glassock, MD, MACP
(UCLA Medical School- Class of 1960)
(Resident in Internal Medicine- 1960-1963)

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Latest Remembrances from 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

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