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.

Libin Cardiovascular Institue of Alberta Celebrates 10 Years

https://libin.ucalgary.ca/libin10

The Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta celebrated its ten year anniversary this year.  In 2004, the generosity of donors Alvin and Mona Libin and the coordination of Dean Eldon Smith, along with his team at the University of Calgary's Faculty of Medicine and collaborators within Calgary Health Region combined to create the internationally recognized centre for heart research.

The successes of the Institute over the past decade are clearly quantifiable.  A recent article on the institute's website notes that the original $15 million donation from the Libins has grown to over $50 million worth of philanthropy.  Libin researchers  have published over 2500 peer-reviewed publications, but the institute is more that just research and education.  As the web article states, "It is often said that Calgary is the best place in the country to have had a heart attack. That’s because we have achieved the highest 30 day post MI survival rate in the country, a result of integrating the university’s cardiovascular research enterprise with the regions care delivery mechanisms."

The following video features current UofC Medical Dean John Meddings, Alvin Libin, Director Todd Anderson, patients, and others speaking about integrating health care and research at the Institute, and gives an idea of the founding concept.  Alvin Libin notes that his personal connections with Dr. Eldon Smith, his family doctor who had come to the University of Calgary from Dalhousie in 1980, had much to do with the Institute's establishment.  Libin notes of Smith, "We became very good personal friends...he was also my doctor...We became involved in the idea of how we could get bigger better in heart at the Foothills hospital."  Smith is still very much in play with the Institute's vision, chairing the Strategic Advisory Board, and sitting on the board of Alberta Health Services.  The video closes with the message that the Libin Cardiovascular Institute is all about "people, people, people."

For more on the Libin Institute:
Click www.Libininstitute.org
Read Hearts, Minds & Vision: Roots of the Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta
or Follow them on twitter @libininstitute

Tom Feasby: Honorary Doctor of Science from Western University, 2013

Dr. Tom Feasby, dean of Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary from 2007 to 2012, made the academic headlines in Eastern Canada recently when receiving an honorary degree from Western University. Feasby received a honorary Doctor of Science from the school where he served as a faculty member for fourteen years. He noted that “It was a proud moment to receive the degree from the university where one of my former trainees is now the dean of medicine.”




Feasby received his med degree from the University of Manitoba in 1969, and then did his residency in London. His Western connection came a few years later, when he taught in the Department of Neurological Sciences at Victoria Hospital.


Adela Talbot of Western News summed up Feasby's numerous career accomplishments:

Feasby is responsible for building one of Canada’s leading neuroscience departments, which now includes internationally prominent research programs in stroke, multiple sclerosis, brain tumours and peripheral nerve research.


He was vice-chairman of Academic Affairs at Capital Health (the Alberta Health Services), and associate dean of Clinical Affairs at the University of Alberta. Feasby also founded iCARE, a health services institute. Feasby served several years on the boards of directors of both the Canadian and American Neurological Associations, and currently serves on the board of the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research and the strategic advisory board of the Institute for Public Health.

He has authored or co-authored more than 160 refereed publications. Feasby was among the first to describe a form of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a devastating neuro-muscular disease in a number of co-authored papers.”

At the University of Calgary from 1991 to 2003, Feasby served as Head of the Department of Clinical Neurosciences while leading the Calgary Health Region's Department of Clinical Neurosciences. In Calgary, he founded both the Neuromuscular and ALS Clinics.

Last year, at the end of his period as University of Calgary dean, Dr. Feasby gave a talk at the June Convocation Speech, which drew on material from none other than legendary Canadian medical figure William Osler. The theme he spoke on was memory:



A series of pictures from Dr. Feasby's farewell party at the University of Calgary:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35327065@N08/sets/72157629682600848

Bill Cochrane and the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame

On April 13, 2010 the 12th Induction Ceremony and dinner of The Canadian Medical Hall of Fame took place at Calgary. It was the first time that this prestigious event was ever held in this city, and one of the six inductees honored at the ceremony was Dr. William A. Cochrane, OC, AOE.  He was the founding Dean of the Medical Faculty, when the medical school opened in 1970.

  
The Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in London, ON has further produced an Alberta Medical Heritage video, which features the history of the two medical schools in this province as well as the larger history of medicine in Alberta. 
 
Deans from the Faculty of Medicine spanning four decades gathered for an intimate lecture on Friday, October-29, 2010 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first medical school class admitted into the Faculty. The room was filled as more than one hundred alumni, current faculty and students came together to listen to the speakers tell anecdotes, recall challenges and comment on the future growth of the school.

A Brief History of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary

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The University of Calgary’s Faculty of Medicine is one of the younger medical schools in Canada, which had been created roughly forty-six years ago – in 1967. Primarily conceived as a higher learning institution to train family physicians, at a time when there was a perceived shortage, it has moved beyond this by evolving into a school that educates physicians for a great spectrum of activities: from primary care to specialty care; to careers in education, management, and research.

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The school has seen many infrastructural changes occur since its inception. Originally housed on the University’s main campus, students in the class of 1975 were the first to start their program in the newly constructed Health Sciences Building, built adjacent to the Foothills Hospital. The advent of the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR) in the early 1980s brought with it the opportunity to expand the Faculty of Medicine with research expertise.

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Taking advantage of this opportunity, the Faculty recruited more than 100 well-trained biomedical and health care researchers. In order to house these researchers, the Heritage Medical Research Building was built in November of 1987 with funding made available by the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research. On April 22nd, 2005, the University of Calgary then saw the inauguration of the new O’Brien Centre for the Bachelor of Health Sciences (BHSc) Program, with innovative educational and research facilities in an undergraduate degree.It is part of the Faculty of Medicine, but has also close ties to many other Faculties on Main Campus, to local institutions and the Alberta Health Services. In 2004, the Faculty of Medicine further witnessed the establishment of its “sister faculty” in the Foothills complex, the University of Calgary Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (UCVM). The first professors and researchers of the UCVM were recruited in the following year and the inaugural graduate students program started in 2006. Last year – 2008 –, the first undergraduate DVM class has begun its education in Calgary, with the commencement of the academic year in September.
Throughout the years, the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Calgary has thus grown and developed into an internationally recognized education and research facility. It takes pride in its multidisciplinary approach to medical research, education and patient care. This structure has allowed for the tight sharing of knowledge between doctors and researchers, and it fostered the transfer of knowledge from the laboratory to the bedside of patients.  More information can be gained through The Alberta Medical History Collection project.

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