We all know the old saying that, when you’re up to your hind end in alligators, it’s hard to remember why you came here in the first place. In Galveston and at UTMB today, it’s not the alligators but the ravages of Hurricane Ike.
Many have expressed what has made the University of Texas Medical Branch a great community, state and national asset — the threefold mission of teaching, research and quality patient care. We all know that requires a lot of attention to medical science, as exemplified by the opening of the Galveston National Laboratory. But it also needs more.
We were reminded what the “more” is when Ron Carson, my distinguished predecessor as director of the Institute for Medical Humanities, retired this past summer. Carson held a professorship named for Harris and Eliza Kempner, and read to us parts of a talk Mr. Kempner gave on March 14, 1972, when the professorship was created:
“I hope, too, that most of you will agree with me as to the importance of the study of humanities in a scientific institution, particularly this one. ... Many (premedical students) are so busy learning what they think they need to know to pursue their profession that they never take the opportunities offered by their undergraduate schools to learn and equip themselves for living or for the appreciation of the histories, literatures and arts which surround them. All of us have known fully qualified doctors who really did not qualify to be admitted into the fellowship of educated (people). ...
“I hope that the presence of (a humanities) course and its distinguished professor will aid our coming doctors not only to lead fuller lives themselves but to be better equipped by contact with the humanities to see the human problems of their patients and their families, and deal with the overall social problems with which health care is clearly becoming more and more entwined. ....
“One can perhaps take it for granted that a scientific education will instill in the doctor skepticism and critical habits of thought but where, except in the humanities, will he find the standards for his criticism, the measuring rod for his skepticism, and the framework on which to base his principles of conduct, both as a human being and as a scientist?”
I understand that Kempner was not an academic but rather a hardheaded businessman and community leader. But, in this straightforward statement, he did a better job than many of my academic peers have done, in many more pages, in explaining why a humanities institute is a vital part of a medical center.
The Institute for the Medical Humanities is proud to be a part of the excellence that is UTMB. We intend to join the rest of this institution in coming back stronger and better to continue to serve the Galveston community.
Howard Brody is director of the Institute for the Medical Humanities and John P. McGovern Centennial Chair in Family Medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch.
