News of the Archives
ARCHIVES CLOSED FOR HOLIDAYS
The staff of Medical Center Archives extends to all its patrons sincerest wishes for hope, happiness, and peace during this Holiday Season and throughout the New Year.
The Archives will be closed from Wednesday, December 24, through Thursday, January 1. During that period, you may continue to submit reference inquiries online or by email. An archivist will respond to your inquiry by Friday, January 2.
The Archives will also be closed on Monday, January 19, in observance of Martin Luther King Day.
Normal hours of operation are Monday through Friday from 8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. by appointment only.
FINDING AIDS NOW AVAILABLE ON WEBSITE
The staff at Medical Center Archives is pleased to announce that selected finding aids are now available on this website for the personal
papers of certain doctors and nurses who have been associated with the medical center. Please visit the Personal Papers and Manuscripts page
to locate and view the finding aids. Also, an extensive finding aid for the early records of the Office of the Secretary/Treasurer of the
Society of the New York Hospital is now available.
Finding aids are designed to assist researchers in locating materials of interest in any given collection of papers or records.
Generally, each finding aid includes a biographical or historical note, a description of the scope and content of the collection,
and a box and folder list. Some finding aids include subject headings, notes on provenance, and/or information regarding any restrictions
to access or use of the collection.
Several of the online finding aids are for the collections of former chairmen of departments at Cornell University Medical College: Drs. David Barr (Medicine), Fritz Fuchs (Ob/Gyn), Frank Glenn (Surgery), George Heuer (Surgery), Joseph Hinsey (Dean/Anatomy), Samuel Levine (Pediatrics), Graham Lusk (Physiology), Walsh McDermott (Public Health), Henricus Stander (Ob/Gyn), and Charles Stockard (Anatomy). All of these men were pioneers in their respective fields.
There are additional finding aids for the collections of other renown faculty: Drs. Hugh DeHaven (who developed safety measures, such as seat belts for airplanes and automobiles, as part of the Cornell Crash Injury Research Project), George Papanicolaou, (the developer of the Pap Smear), Herbert Traut (a collaborator of Dr. Papanicolaou), Connie Guion (one of the first women to be appointed a clinical professor of medicine), Benjamin Kean (a specialist in tropical diseases), Harold Wolff (a pioneer in research of headaches and psychosomatic diseases), Victor Marshall (head of urology), and David Rogers (a leading expert in AIDS and other infectious diseases and a former president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation).
There are also finding aids to the papers of members of the Stimson Family, a family that was long associated with Cornell University Medical College and New York Hospital. Dr. Lewis Stimson was one of the founding faculty members of Cornell University Medical College; he was instrumental in organizing the original affiliation between Cornell University Medical College and New York Hospital in 1913. His niece, Julia, an alumna of New York Hospital Training School of Nurses, was the head of the Army Nurses Corps. Her brother, Philip, was a pediatrician at this medical center.
The finding aid to the records of the Office of the Secretary/Treasurer of the Society of the New York Hospital identifies administrative documents of the hospital dating from 1818 to 1933. The Secretary was responsible for taking and maintaining the minutes of meetings of the Board of Governors and other records; the Treasurer kept the financial records of the hospital. The bulk of the records document the activities of the Board of Governors and its various committees. These records can be used as a case study of the changes in hospital administration over the years from a committee of lay persons to a system of trained administrators and doctors managing the hospital affairs.
The staff at Medical Center Archives hopes that these finding aids will assist you in your potential research projects. We look forward to providing additional finding aids in the months to come.
Dr. John A. Kastor to Deliver Heberden Society Lecture (November 3rd)
John A. Kastor, M.D. will present the first Heberden Society Lecture of the 2008-2009 academic year on Monday, November 3rd, at 5:00 P.M. in Uris Faculty Room (A-126) at 1300 York Avenue. The title of the lecture will be "The Creation of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital." The lecture is open to the public; light refreshments will be served.
In his lecture, Dr. Kastor, who has written Mergers of Teaching Hospitals in Boston, New York, and Northern California (University of Michigan Press, 2001), will explore the foundation and development of the full-asset merger of The New York Hospital and Presbyterian Hospital that went into effect on January 1, 1998. The merger, though recent, is already an intriguing and fascinating episode in the history of medical institutions in the United States. In his research of the subject, Dr. Kastor conducted numerous interviews of the main participants in the merger. He understands well the difficulties, challenges, and hopes that were involved.
Dr. Kastor (A.B. with honors, University of Pennsylvania; M.D., New York University), is Professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He trained in internal medicine at Bellevue and New York University hospitals and in cardiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital, where he was appointed to the staff and to the faculty of the Harvard Medical School. From 1969 to 1983, he worked at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine where he became Professor of Medicine in 1976 and Chief of the Cardiovascular Division in 1977. From 1984 to 1997, Dr. Kastor was Theodore E. Woodward Professor of Medicine and Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and Chief of the Medical Service at the University of Maryland Hospital.
Dr. Kastor's principal academic and clinical interests are the mechanisms, diagnosis, and management of cardiac arrhythmias and the governance of academic medical centers. He is the author or co-author of more that 130 papers and books. His most recent publication was Selling Teaching Hospitals and Practice Plans: George Washington & Georgetown Universities (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008). His current research project is a study of the National Institutes of Health.
The Heberden Society, which will sponsor Dr. Kastor's lecture, was established here at the medical center in 1975 as a means for promoting interest in the history of medicine. The society sponsors three lectures during each academic year.
