The desire to make a difference: Sir William Osler
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COMMENTARY
The desire to make a difference: Sir William Osler Richard B. Gunderman 1 Received: 5 April 2020 / Revised: 5 April 2020 / Accepted: 4 May 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Life
One of the most admired and influential figures in American medicine, William Osler is known to many pediatric radiologists as one of the four founding faculty members of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the author of the bestselling Principles and Practice of Medicine, or the creator of the first residency program in physician training, in which he stressed the importance of bedside teaching [1]. Far fewer know that Osler served as president of the American Pediatric Society, devoted 1/12th of his scholarly publications to pediatric cases and diseases, and helped secure the appointment of the first professor of children’s diseases at Hopkins [2]. As someone deeply committed to the care of children, Osler’s life offers both insight and inspiration to contemporary pediatric radiologists.
* Richard B. Gunderman [email protected] 1
Department of Radiology, Indiana University, 702 North Barnhill Drive, Room 1053, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
Osler was born in 1849 in rural Canada, the son of a lieutenant in the Royal Navy who declined an invitation to serve as science officer about the HMS Beagle, a position that eventually went to Charles Darwin [3]. When Osler entered what is now the University of Toronto, he intended to become a minister but soon switched to medicine, studying at McGill University in Montreal. Upon graduation, Osler studied in Europe under the great pathologist Rudolf Virchow, then joined the faculty at McGill in 1874. In 1884, he became chair of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where a year later he became a founding member of the Association of American Physicians. Five years later, he became the first physician-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital. In 1905, Osler was appointed the Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University, where he died at the age of 70 during the great influenza pandemic of 1918. One of his most prominent students, Harvey Cushing, often referred to as the father of American neurosurgery, wrote a mammoth biography of Osler for which he received the 1926 Pulitzer Prize. Osler serves as a source of inspiration for pediatric radiologists in too many different areas to permit any comprehensive review, making it necessary to focus on just a few of his most notable contributions. Three such fields that often receive less attention than they deserve are education, professionalism and service.
Education Osler was an unrivaled educator [4]. Prior to his arrival at Hopkins, he had taught mainly anatomy and pathology at McGill, then primarily pathology at Pennsylvania. Yet his past focus using the microscope in medical research and diagnosis did not prevent him from strongly advocating the more holistic approach of bedside teaching when he arrived at Hopkins.
Pediatr Radiol
Osler possessed in abundance perhaps the single most essential requisite for
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