VA Hospital Use to Speed Medical School's Program

              The Shreveport Times
Farm News
Sunday, June 4, 1967
Oil and Gas Classified
VA Hospital Use
To Speed Medical
School's Program
By MARGARET MARTIN
Of The Times Staff
The $10.5 million Veterans Ad-ministration
Hospital here and
all of its facilities have been
made available to the Louisiana
State U n i v e r s i t y Medical
School at Shreveport. The per-manent
affiliation will enable the
medical school to reach full-scale
operational status on a much
faster basis than would have
been possible.
The agreement marks the VA
Hospital as a "Dean's Committee
Hospital," Dr. Edgar Hull, dean
of the school, and E. P.
Whitaker, director of the hospi-tal,
said in a joint announce-ment.
The affiliation, similar to other
such arrangements across the
nation, means:
1. The medical school will have
use of all hospital facilities.
2. All VA staff personnel
engaged in teaching or research
will become members of the
medical school faculty.
3. The first medical school
classes in 1969 will be held in the
hospital.
4. Offices will be maintained at
the hospital as well as at
Confederate Memorial Medical
Center.
5. Research laboratories will
be set up by the school at the
hospital.
Although all of the 450-bed air
conditioned hospital, which sits
on a bluff overlooking the Red
River, will be available to the
school, present plans call for
specific use of six ward kitchens
for classroom space; the north
wing of the fifth floor; a part of
the seventh floor; the east end of
the basement; and two buildings
located on the grounds of the
hospital which are former resi-dences
for hospital employes.
NORTH WING
Presently the school is using
the north wing of the 5th floor of
the hospital for offices for school
personnel, and is also maintain-ing
offices on the first floor of
Confederate Memorial Medical
Center.
The 12-story, $20 million medi-cal
school, will be completed in
1973. It will be located on the
grounds of Confederate between
the hospital and the nursing
school building.
Dr. Hull and Whitaker ex-plained
that many times where
there is a medical school and a
VA hospital the facilities form a
"teaching-training and education-al
- research affiliations to im-prove
medical care and to aid in
the cause of education."
"It is a mutually advantageous
affiliation. It is an aid to
education and research on a
permanent basis. It will give us
the access to the facilities of the
hospital. In the initial phase, it
works principally to the advan-tage
of the medical school for it
gives us quarters to begin the
school," Dr. Hull added.
The planning staff of the school
has already moved into the
renovated north wing of the fifth
floor. There are offices for Dr.
Hull, Dr. George Meneely, as-sociate
dean and coordinator for
development of plans and pro-grams;
Miss Dorothy E. Risin-ger,
assistant coordinator and
associate professor of medical
sociology and ecology; and sec-retarial
offices. In addition, the
business manager, Robert R.
Graves will join the staff July 1.
Dr. Gwynn C. Akin, assistant
to the dean and instructor in
anatomy, has maintained her
office at Confederate, and Dr.
Hull also has another office
there.
BEGIN CAREERS
In September, 1969, 50 students
will begin their medical school
careers in six remodeled "ward
kitchens," which will no longer
be used by the hospital. The
classes will be physiology, mi-croanatomy
and pharmacology.
Dr. Hull emphasized that the
LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY Medical School at
Shreveport will use two Veterans Administration
buildings are (top photo) a former nurses' living
Hospital buildings for research purposes. The
quarters, and (bottom photo) a building which once
housed unmarried male hospital employes. (Times
Photos by Lloyd Stilley)
size of the opening class of the
school was determined by the
amount of room available in the
kitchens, "since the classes will
be student laboratories and we
have to have enough space for
each student."
The east end of the basement
will be converted into the school's
first library. It will include the
embryo collection of the school,
carrels for study and some office
space for library officials.
Dr. Hull explained that the
library "will open as soon as we
get a librarian."
He said the library facilites
will be available to the local
medical profession when the
library is opened.
The school has also been
granted use of two buildings — a
two-story facility which is a
former nurses' quarters, and a
building formerly used as a
residence for unmarried male em-ployes
of the hospital — both will
be used for research facilities for
the school,
Whitaker pointed out that more
space will be available as is
needed by the school.
ROTATION
Dr. Hull said that although
mosl undergraduate teaching
will be done in buildings on the
grounds of Confederate when the
medical school facility is com-,
pleted, "there will be some
rotation of students through the
VA in order to take advantage of
its clinical material and facilities
and the skill and knowledge of
the. scientists and clinicians on
the VA staff.
All members of the VA staff
engaged in teaching or research
are to become members of the
medical school faculty."
Both officials emphasized that
the basic design of the hospital
facilities is not being changed
and the space can be reverted
to its original use.
They said that the student
laboratories and most of the
other facilities will become labo-ratories
for research to be done
by scientists and clinicians who
will be members of the profes-sional
staff of the hospital and of
the medical school faculty.