I will be away from the office on a leave beginning March 11 through April 17.
If you have questions regarding the transfer of materials to the archives or need assistance answering a question about the history of the Academic Health Center, please contact my colleagues at the University of Minnesota Archives.
Phone: 612-624-0562
Email: uar@umn.edu
Web: http://special.lib.umn.edu/uarch/
The recent addition of the text from the 2009 State of the AHC address to the digital archives brought the official tally of available digital pages to just over 25,000. While this is a significant milestone, it is just the beginning. There are an additional 20,000 plus digital pages waiting to be uploaded and indexed.
For a little insight into the 3-step process, below are videos demonstrating the high-speed scanning process, the digital imaging of each page and the conversion of the digital images into full-text PDF documents available for viewing and downloading.
The first meeting of the Board of Governors of the University of Minnesota Hospitals and Clinics was called to order at 1:35 pm by Chairman Atwood in Room 555 Diehl Hall. The Chairman then introduced Mr. Lauris Krenik, Chairman, Board of Regents Health Sciences Committee.
And so began the first recorded meeting of the Board of Governors, a governing board for the U of M Hospitals and Clinics established by the Board of Regents in order to act as the fiscal agent for UMHC and satisfy the requirements of the Joint Commission on Hospital Accreditation for University-owned teaching hospitals.
The acquisition of the Board of Governor records came from two separate locations. First, a filing cabinet in the basement of Children’s Rehabilitation Center held 26 3-ring binders that contained the minutes of most meetings. The second acquisition was from several filing cabinets in a storage room in 555 Diehl Hall, the former meeting place of the Board. This second cache of records had additional meeting minutes, board correspondence and reports. My thanks go to Maureen Lally of AHC Communications and Elaine Challacombe of the Wangensteen Historical Library for bringing these two locations to my attention.
These two separate acquisitions have been processed into a single collection and are available for use at the University of Minnesota Archives.
Additionally, the minutes of all Board meetings plus a few additional reports have been digitized and are now available online through the University Digital Conservancy. The material in the digital archives represents twenty years worth of recorded documentation and consists of over 17,500 pages of paper records converted to digital format.
Read through the first year’s minutes below or search for related material in the digital archives.
What do a gunshot wound, wet film, and a charitable donation to a children’s hospital all have in common?
They all have direct ties to innovative thinking and research in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Radiology.
In 1896 the University paper Aerial described a procedure at the St Paul City Hospital that allowed for the detection of two bullets in a leg with the use of an x-ray machine. Dr. Jones of the Medical School performed the procedure just eleven months after Wilhelm Konrad Roentgen discovered the detection of electromagnetic radiation.
In the early 1930s, then division head Dr. Leo Rigler set up a wet film viewing area in order to allow for almost immediate interpretation of results especially for emergency cases. Until the advancement of film processing, this provided the best means for real time results.
By the late 1960s, Dr. Kurt Amplatz had already become well-known for his innovative work in cardiovascular radiology and specifically in angiography. His research in this area eventually lead him to design his Amplatzer® septal occluder, which allowed for the repair of congenital heart defects in children. The announcement last week of the $50 million dollar gift in Dr. Amplatz’s name to help build the new children’s hospital completes this thread running through the Dept. of Radiology.
To learn more about these people and their contributions read the 1967 essay “A Brief History of the Department of Radiology” by Stephen Kieffer, Eugene Gedgaudas, and Harold Peterson available below.
A recent article in the Star Tribune highlights current research at the University of Minnesota and the Mayo Clinic to find a cure for diabetes. Researchers are hoping to implant insulin producing islets from genetically modified pigs into humans with diabetes. The projected outcome would be an on-going production of insulin that would reverse the effects of diabetes on the body.
Experimentation with insulin as a cure for diabetes has been a primary focus for curing the disease since the early 1920s. Dr. Frederick Banting, a medical researcher at the University of Toronto, received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1923 for his research in isolating and producing insulin.
Yet, Dr. Banting always credited his eureka moment in understanding how to extract insulin from reading the article “The Relation of the Islets of Langerhans to Diabetes with Special Reference to Cases of Pancreatic Lithiasis” published in the November 1920 issue of the journal Surgery, Gynecology and Obstetrics. The article’s author was Dr. Moses Barron, a professor in the Department of Pathology at the University of Minnesota.
Dr. Barron’s article not only influenced Banting’s work and the 90-year trajectory of insulin management of diabetes, but it also influenced diabetes related pancreas transplantation research including the work of Drs. Richard Lillehei and William Kelley in the 1960s and 1970s, also at the University of Minnesota.
Read a 1934 letter from Dr. Banting to Dr. Barron where he gives credit where credit is due.
What did the Center for Spirituality and Healing’s Meditation Room used to be? It is a trick question. The answer is: a meditation room.
The Meditation Room located in the courtyard of the Mayo Memorial served as a gathering place for families and individuals needing a quiet place to think and reflect for more than 20 years. After the construction of the new hospital in 1986, the space then sat quietly, not in reflection, but idle for over a decade. In 2000 the room was assigned to the Center for Spirituality and Healing and used as a laboratory for research on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).
In 1965 the Meditation Room opened as a place for “people of all faiths to commune, to give thanks and to renew their spirits.” The room was an addition to the Mayo Memorial Building provided by a single anonymous donor to the tune of approximately $175,000.
Although the room and building have many symbolic Judeo-Christian elements (Gothic arches, sculpture of the burning bush, etc.), it is often incorrectly referred to as the chapel. The original intention for the space was simply to provide a quiet place for reflection and renewal.
The stained glass for the room was designed and installed by William Saltzman in accordance with the wish of the donor.
The brochure below discusses the details regarding the building’s design and themes.
It was recently announced that the Minnesota Area Health Education Center, a program aligned with the Academic Health Center, will receive $3.4 million in federal funding to help develop the health care workforce and expand access to health care in traditionally underserved areas of Minnesota.
The MN AHEC was established in 2002 and partners with communities to identify their health profession needs. The MN AHEC is a collaborative effort between the University of Minnesota and the regional AHEC offices. However, the original concept for the AHEC began in 1970 as a national program to increase the pool of qualified individuals needed to fill the demands on the health sciences workforce. The U of M was an active participant in this federal program.
To learn more about the earlier work done by the AHEC in Minnesota read the following report from 1980 that details the changes in supply and distribution of health care workers in Minnesota from 1972-1980.
