Dean Bill Cochrane's Career Influences on the UofC Medical School

It is clear that Dean William Cochrane had a profound effect on the University of Calgary’s Medical School.  As first dean of the faculty, Cochrane drew on his previous career experiences, especially those at Dalhousie University, to guide him in constructing a medical school from the ground up.  Bob Lampard’s Alberta's Medical History (2008) [pdf], along with his recent interview with Dean Cochrane, offer a perspective on Cochrane’s early life, and the skill-set he brought with him when he moved from Halifax to Calgary.

Bill Cochrane was born on March 18th, 1926, and grew up in east Toronto.  While activity in the sea cadets during the Second World War tempted him to join the navy, a recommendation from his grandmother, a health inspector for the city, coaxed him towards a career in medicine.  Lampard writes that it was the Cochrane family’s general practitioner, "who looked after all the colds, scrapes, vaccinations, and the raft of youthful maladies", that in 1944 inspired Cochrane to enter UofT's Medical program. (Lampard, p. 417) 

Crowds line up for the opening of the Toronto

Hospital for Sick Children, January 1951.

Torontoist.

In 1949, Dr. Cochrane graduated and began an internship at the Toronto General Hospital where he first gave thought to pediatrics.  He ended up crossing the street to intern at the Hospital for Sick Children, beginning a pediatric residency there in 1951.  In a recent interview, Cochrane recalled the, “remarkable difference, moving from an old chestnut into a brand new facility.” (Interview with Lampard, January 2014)  Here he became interested in studying metabolic diseases, especially carbohydrate and diabetic issues.  This research would see him move to the Cincinnati Children's Hospital and the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital (London, UK), where he developed what is now known as the Leucine Tolerance or Cochrane Test for non-diabetic hypoglycemic infants.  In 1955, Cochrane returned to Toronto and in the next year received his Royal College certification in pediatrics.  He would open up his own pediatric practice, yet was also appointed to the medical staff of the Sick Children's Hospital, where he continued his research.

Cochrane was increasingly interested in pursuing his research, and in 1958 the Children's Hospital in Halifax offered him a full-time position in the Department of Paediatrics, and an Associate Professorship in Paediatrics at the Dalhousie Medical School.  He accepted the opportunity, and also became the Children's Hospital's Director of Research.  Here his research expanded to cover amino acid metabolism and metabolic errors that affected brain and memory.  He was soon interested in cystic fibrosis of the pancreas, setting up the first clinic in the Maritimes.

Dorothy and Isaac Killam

Stamp. Stamp Echo Blog.

Two of Cochrane's endeavors in Nova Scotia acted as prologue to his activities as the first Dean of Medicine at the University of Calgary.  The first was his key role in the construction of a new Children's Hospital.  After negotiations with the Maritime premiers, and securing a large donation from Dorothy Killam, Cochrane was instrumental in organizing what would become the Isaac Walton Killam Children's Hospital, which after three years of construction, opened its doors in 1970.  Cochrane recalled traveling down to the United States in the mid-1960s with members of the Dalhousie University Board of Directors to talk to Killam about supporting the Hospital.  What was scheduled as a lunch meeting lasted until supper with Killam grilling Cochrane on all aspects of the proposal.

Later Mrs Killam visited Dalhousie, and the Board built a plastic model of the plans of the hospital.  Killam wasn’t impressed however, and told Cochrane, “Look at this terrible plastic model, look, no big windows, nothing for kids.” (Cochrane Interview, 2014)  Cochrane promised that adjustments could be made, but that evening he received a call that Killam wanted to tour the site.  As Cochrane recalled the tour:

At 10:30 at night I am in a car with her, sitting in the back with a lawyer from New York and her chauffeur.  She was in the front seat pointing to things that she liked and didn’t like.  One of the places in front of the hospital was the Provincial Lab.  She said, “was that going to block the view?”  I said, “Well partly.”  “We’ll buy that and we’ll tear it down,” she said.  She had the money.  Anyway, we had a great time.  (Cochrane Interview, 2014)

Finding the money to make the Medical School in Calgary work wasn’t quite as simple, but Cochrane could draw on his experience at Dalhousie to navigate university, government, and private interests years down the road.

The second endeavour, which in hindsight, seems to link perfectly with the later University of Calgary project, was Cochrane's activity as a member of Dalhousie's medical curriculum review committee.  Here the big changes in the field were underway in Chicago and Case Western Reserve medical school in Cleveland.  Dr. George Miller of Chicago proposed to teach medicine one body system at a time, which was to become the key to Calgary's new curriculum.  Cochrane recalls consulting Miller’s book (presumably Teaching and Learning in Medical School, 1961,1968) for drawing up the original philosophy of the University of Calgary Medical School. (Interview, 2014)  Cochrane remembers borrowing the principles of the new system from Cleveland (Case Western Reserve), and his work on the curriculum committee at Dal gave him a good grounding in program development.

Initiation of Dr. Cochrane as Stoney-Nakoda

 Medicine Chief.University of Calgary Archives 

 84.005_15.03.

As Lampard wrote in Alberta's Medical History, when Cochrane received an invitation in 1966, to visit Calgary, with the potential to take on the deanship of the school, "there was no school, no students, no program, and no faculty." (Lampard, p. 422)  Cochrane was up to the challenge, however, and in 1967 took up the position.  The monumental tasks of construction, coordination with the fledgling Foothills Hospital, and recruitment were upon him.   Post-graduate medical education was introduced and expanded during the period, a health centre established at the Stoney-Nakoda First Nation, and continuous evaluations of the developing program undertaken.  When the first undergraduate class met its national examinations in 1973, they performed superbly, placing in the top half of the country.  (Lampard, p. 424)

When the first class graduated in 1973, Dr. Cochrane felt that his task was complete.  He had helped build the new school from the ground up, and was ready for more challenges.  In 1973 he became the Deputy Minister of Health Services for the Province, and the following year began a four year term as president of the University of Calgary.  He later became president and CEO of Connaught Laboratories.

President Cochrane at the opening of the UofC Faculty of

the Humanities. UofC Archives 84.005_26.19. 1978

Bill Cochrane's biography is of fundamental importance to the development of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary.  His previous experiences with fund-raising, construction, and curriculum development, expanded the potential and character of the new school.  Members of the Faculty of Medicine History Project have interviewed Dr. Cochrane of late, and are excited to share his reminiscences of the exciting formative years of the Faculty in an upcoming book.

If you have memories of Dr. Cochrane, or the early years of the school, please feel free to share them as comments here, or send them to one of our project members.