The founding of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine fundamentally changed medicine in America. In the blink of an eye, medicine was transformed from a trade practiced by poorly educated craftsmen, to a science practiced by highly educated physicians. While this transformation may seem perfectly obvious in retrospect, the challenges were significant. In the second session of this lecture-based course, join Ralph Hruban, MD, Director of Pathology and Distinguished Alumnus as he tells the story of the founding of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine through the lives of William Welch and William Halsted Osler.

In week two, we will tell the stories of two of the School of Medicine’s first leaders. Drs. William Welch and William Halsted Osler.
- William Henry Welch was born in a small town in Connecticut. At the age of 80 he was honored on the cover of Time magazine. “Popsy,” as he was fondly called, trained the first generation of physician-scientists in this country. He became the face of Hopkins, and helped propagate the vision of medicine that was created at Hopkins. In so doing Hopkins became “a model of its kind.”
- Sir William Osler is arguably the greatest physician North America has ever produced. His life philosophy formed what it means to be a physician. Much of what he taught is as applicable today as it was 100 years ago.

References:
1. William Henry Welch and the Heroic Age of American Medicine. By Simon and James Flexner. Viking Press, 1941.
2. William Osler: A Life in Medicine. By Michael Bliss. Oxford University Press, 1999.
3. https://youtu.be/8Qit3w-7xrc YouTube video about William Henry Welch
4. https://youtu.be/-gbfyZrDHGQ YouTube video about William Osler
5. http://pathology.jhu.edu/department/about/history/osler-minutes.cfm. A series of brief audio recordings, “Osler minutes,” each on an aspect of Osler’s teachings (the first minute of each recording is the same, so after you have listened to one, just skip ahead on the subsequent “minutes”).