ALUMNI NEWS

Heart of a Tiger

By Rich Gleba

Health care in Missouri might be far different had it not been for a young surgeon. More than 50 years ago, he guided the state through a cantankerous debate over where to build its new medical school and teaching hospital.

Dr. Hugh E. Stephenson Jr., BS Med ’43, was the most passionate advocate for building at the University of Missouri-Columbia. MU already had a distinguished medical school, but in those days the school only offered a two-year bachelor’s degree program. Missouri needed a full, four-year medical degree program to restock its physicians after World War II.

While powerful opponents lobbied for building in a bigger city, Stephenson promoted the academic credentials of rural Columbia. It didn’t matter that he was away training at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital. The chief surgery resident still wrote dozens of letters to supporters, constantly called lawmakers from a hospital pay phone and traveled back to Missouri to address lawmakers.

“I, myself, would travel three times as far as New York if I thought I might be able to contribute even the slightest bit to a solution,” Stephenson testified at the state capitol in 1952. MU was ideal for collaborative training, patient care and research, he said. “They must be carried on simultaneously, for they are wholly dependent on each other, not only for inspiration but for their very means of success.”

Missouri was convinced. With more than $13 million in state money, MU launched its new medical degree program in 1955. The University’s teaching hospital and medical school complex opened the following year.

“My role in building the University’s medical school and hospital is what I am most proud of,” Stephenson says. “Patients and students throughout Missouri, especially in rural areas, have benefited greatly by locating these programs at MU.”

MU’s medical school and hospital have evolved into a far-reaching health system that serves every county in Missouri. They also have trained tens of thousands of physicians, scientists, nurses, allied health professionals and other alumni.

Many alumni who learned from Stephenson are now retired. When they return to MU’s School of Medicine, they can find the 83-year-old walking the halls in his white coat, giving an occasional lecture or chatting with friends in his office.

“I do not believe there is any alumnus who could match Dr. Stephenson in the respect, admiration and affection that we, who graduated from this school, have for him,” said Ted Groshong, MD ’67, chair of child health and associate dean for alumni affairs. “When meeting with alumni, the most common question I get is: ‘How is Dr. Stephenson?’ ”

Stephenson is still busy helping MU’s medical school. He and his wife, Sally, currently co-chair its capital campaign committee, which has raised approximately $70 million for medical education and research.

The Stephensons showed their confidence in the campaign and the school’s leadership by giving $2 million to create an endowed deanship held by William Crist, MD ’69. He and Stephenson have had neighboring offices for five years. “I constantly rely on Hugh for his sage advice and support,” Crist says. “They continue to be invaluable to me, our medical school and entire University.”

Few others have served MU in so many capacities. Stephenson became the first full-time surgery faculty member to join the medical degree program in 1953. He performed the University’s first open-heart surgery five years later, and he was one of the first to implant an automatic defibrillator developed by former MU faculty member John Schuder.

Stephenson also served as the John Growdon Distinguished Professor of Surgery, chair of surgery, interim dean and University Hospital’s first elected chief of staff. He “retired” in 1992, but in 1996 he joined MU’s Board of Curators and served as its president. In 2003, MU named its surgery department after him.

Stephenson completed medical school at St. Louis’ Washington University, interned at the University of Chicago and spent two years in the Army Medical Corps. The military made him a certified radiologist and sent him to Italy for a year. Stephenson then returned to Washington University, which allowed him to complete some surgery training at Ellis Fischel Cancer Center in Columbia.

Discoveries distinguished Stephenson early in his career. As a resident in New York, he developed one of the first mobile cardiac resuscitation units as well as the first organized course on cardiac arrest and resuscitation.

As MU’s first James IV Association Surgical Traveler from the United States, Stephenson visited more than 100 medical schools and hospitals before advising Missouri on where and how to train physicians. He promised that MU would provide the state with plenty of doctors, and today, more Missouri physicians receive their training from MU than from any other university. He promised that MU would focus on serving the state’s rural communities, and today, MU has one of the top rural health programs in the country.

At the medical school, research funding has more than doubled in the past four years. Recent recruitment has attracted a record number of physician-scientists, and new buildings and laboratories are being erected to house them.

Construction plans include a cornerstone building, MU’s Health Sciences Research and Education Center. The massive complex for translational research is destined to transform the medical school again.

“Only a handful of universities share MU’s potential for collaboration among the allied sciences,” Stephenson says. “When I talk to people about what’s happening at MU’s School of Medicine today, I tell them to hold onto their hats because the best is yet to come.”

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Last Update: March 12, 2007