Medicine Grand Rounds

Dan May was a remarkable person combining qualities of mind and spirit rarely found together to such a degree. To a quick and incisive mind, he added an ability to deal with all sorts of people, a strong sense of social responsibility, a fondness for mathematics and the natural sciences, a ready wit and an activist temperament. He was an asset to his community, a delight to his friends and committed to the welfare of Vanderbilt University.

Dan’s early training was in the Nashville public schools followed by three years in the Townsend Harris Preparatory School in Manhattan. As a Vanderbilt undergraduate, he demonstrated great interest and ability in writing and appeared headed for a literary career, but his interests were broad. His undergraduate experience was interrupted by military service and a year at the Vanderbilt Medical School before graduating with a B.A. degree in 1920. May Hosiery Mill in Nashville was his family’s business, which he joined and ultimately served as president before retiring in 1963.

His commitment to community betterment, especially educational endeavors, is truly legendary. He served as a Trustee of Vanderbilt University for 30 years. He was a member and President of the Nashville Board of Education and a Trustee of Fisk University. He served as a life member of multiple political and civic bodies including the first Metro Council, Chairman of the Metropolitan Action Committee of the Office of Economic Opportunity and the Jewish Community Council. Undoubtedly his most significant public service was rendered as a member of a small group that helped plan, promote and finally saw established the metropolitan form of government for which Nashville is widely known. Dan’s positive influence on the life of the Nashville community is still felt today.

The basis of Dan May’s achievements and services was a strength of character that made him independent and self-reliant with an honesty and integrity that were transparent and unshakable. He was not a conformist but a realist. He never confused good intentions with good results. The test was in the outcome not the slogans. Part of his realism was that he understood people and delighted in their foibles as well as their virtues, which was the source of his wit-remarkably humorous but meaningful.

Dan’s wit and its connection to life in Nashville is apparent in this quip penned by his grandson William May Stern and published in Stern’s book “There’s an Old Southern Saying…The Wit and Wisdom of Dan May.”
“Once there was a little boy in Nashville who came home from school and said, “I helped a policeman today.”
“How?” he was asked.
“His horse dropped dead on Demonbreun Street and he didn’t know how to spell it.”
“So you spelled it for him?”
“No, I helped him drag it to 8th Avenue!”

Upon his death in 1982, the May family and his friends provided an endowment that funds the annual Dan May Lectureship and the Dan May Professor of Medicine Chair.

The Moore Lectureship was established to honor the late Dr. Edward W. Moore. He received the Distinguished Educator Award from the American Gastroenterological Association in 1977 and was an internationally recognized authority in gastrointestinal and liver disease.  Dr. Moore attended Vanderbilt University and graduated with honors from the Vanderbilt School of Medicine in 1955. He completed internal medicine residency training at Harvard Medical School and was engaged in leukemia research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.  

Dr. Moore was a Professor of Medicine, Pathology, Physiology and Biophysics at the Medical College of Virginia where he served as Director of Gastrointestinal Research for 28 years. Dr. Moore published over 100 research papers in scientific journals and 225 abstracts at national and international scientific meetings.

Dr. Fred D. Ownby was a driving force in cardiology care and education for five decades and spent the bulk of his professional life educating others. He established the first cardiac care unit in Nashville, at Baptist Hospital, in 1965. Shortly thereafter, under VUMC auspices, he began the nation's first Cardiac Nurse Specialist Training program, which evolved into the Critical Care Nursing Program.

Dr. Ownby was instrumental in persuading the American College of Cardiology to present continuing education programs for physicians and nurses in Nashville. He was also a guiding force in establishing a national organization for Coronary Care Nurses, which ultimately evolved into the largest nursing specialty group for nurses today, the American Association of Critical Care Nurses. A Cardiology Lectureship established by the Medical School was created in his honor.

The Fuchs lectureship was established in 2021 in honor of Dr. Howard Fuchs. He spent his entire career, which spanned over three decades, at Vanderbilt and the Nashville VA, where he served as the Rheumatology Fellowship Program Director. He dedicated his life to serving others and considered this his calling as he attended to the needs of everyone around him. Dr. Fuchs passed away unexpectedly on Oct. 28, 2019.

The Irwin B. Eskind Endowed Lectureship was established by Dr. Eskind’s sons, Drs. Jeffrey and Steven Eskind, in 2005. Dr. Eskind was a VUMC physician and philanthropist who also had a strong volunteer presence in the community. Dr. Eskind served as a member of the VUMC Board for over 20 years, and his vision for health care and substantial financial support has greatly influenced the direction and prominence of the Medical Center.

The Koenig Lectureship was established in 1972 by the Glenn Koenig Memorial Fund. Dr. M. Glenn Koenig served as Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases. Dr. Koenig's research was recognized with a Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as well as by his election to numerous academic societies.

The John Leonard Lectureship was established 2003. Dr. Leonard was an attending physician in the Department of Medicine and a consulting physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases. He served as director of the Physical Diagnosis course and was active in counseling residents and students. He received numerous teaching awards at Vanderbilt, including the Thomas E. Brittingham Award for Teaching Excellence in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994 and 2011; the Distinguished Housestaff Teacher in 1992; the Hugh Jackson Morgan Teaching Award in 2001, 2005 and 2012; and the William Schaffner Teaching Award (Division of Infectious Diseases) in 2013. In 2012, he received the Vanderbilt School of Medicine Distinguished Alumnus Award.

The Charles & Edith McGill Lectureship is an Occupational and Environmental Medicine endowment fund that was established in the Medical School in September 2000.

The Meredith and John A. Oates Lectureship was established in January 2006. Dr. John Oates was an internationally known iconic leader, physician and scientist at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. After joining the medical school faculty in 1963, he established one of the nation’s first divisions of clinical pharmacology and directed the division for 25 years. Dr. Oates promoted a culture of collaboration across departments and valued mentorship. He was President of the Association of American Physicians, President of the American Federation for Clinical Research, and Vice President of the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

The R. Glenn Greene Lectureship was established May 2000 in honor of Dr. Glenn Greene. Dr. Greene excelled in careers that others just dreamt of pursuing. He was a union musician before graduating college; a physician who helped pioneer echocardiography and a commercial pilot. After retiring, he kept abreast of the latest innovations in medicine, flying down from Owensboro, Ky., to sit in on Medical Grand Rounds lectures at VUMC, a 35-minute flight he usually made on Thursdays. The purpose of the annual lectureship is to teach physicians about state-of-the-art heart research and patient care.

The David Rabin Lectureship was established Sept. 9, 1981. Dr. David Rabin was an internationally renowned endocrinologist who served as the Alexander Heard Distinguished Service Professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. A native of South Africa, he taught medicine at Johns Hopkins University and at Hadassah Hospital and Hebrew University in Jerusalem before coming to Vanderbilt to be a professor of medicine and of obstetrics and gynecology in 1975.

Roger M. Des Prez came to Nashville in 1963 as Chief of Medicine at the Nashville Veterans Hospital and Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University. He was the driving force on the Medical and Pulmonary Services at the VA Hospital. Dr. Des Prez became an Emeritus Professor in July 1995, at which time the Department of Medicine honored one outstanding pulmonary fellow with the Roger M. Dez Prez Award for Teaching. Dr. Des Prez cared for countless patients on VA Medical Service for 32 years.

The Rosenblum Lectureship was established in of honor the late Dr. Sol A. Rosenblum. He was a great teacher who practiced internal medicine for 45 years at the Vanderbilt University Hospital. Dr. Rosenblum served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and was discharged honorably as a radioman. He received his B.S. in 1949 from the University of Tennessee, where he also completed medical school in 1951. He returned to Nashville in 1956, where he practiced internal medicine in the Medical Arts Building until 2000. During this time, he also remained actively involved with clinical and teaching affiliations at Vanderbilt.

The Salmon Lectureship was established to honor the late Dr. William D. Salmon, Jr. Dr. Salmon graduated from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 1949. As a fellow in endocrinology in the Department of Medicine of Barnes Hospital, Washington University, he began investigation of a plasma factor separate from insulin necessary for the action of growth hormone on cartilage; he and his associates named this the sulfation factor. Following his appointment as Assistant Chief of the medical service at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Nashville in 1957 (an appointment he held until retirement), Dr. Salmon continued studies of this factor, subsequently recognized as one of the earliest growth factors to be studied in a laboratory setting and renamed somatomedin. He has held the rank of full professor since 1974 and was named Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, in 1995.

Dr. Samuel S. Riven was a superb physician with more than a half century of service to his patients and the Department of Medicine of Vanderbilt University. He was a graduate of McGill University and was trained in Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan. When he came to Vanderbilt in 1930 as one of the first members of the clinical faculty of the Department of Medicine, he devoted each of his mornings to the teaching programs of the department, greatly enriching the instruction of students in the outpatient clinic for many years. He was associated in the education, patient care and research programs of the Department of Medicine. A man of many dimensions, Dr. Riven was noted for his generosity, his instinct for scholarship and his devotion and loyalty to the Department of Medicine.

The Schulman Lectureship was established in honor of the late Dr. Gerald Schulman. Dr. Schulman came to Vanderbilt in 1988 and specialized in chronic and acute renal failure, hypertension and plasmapheresis within the Division of Nephrology. He served as the co-director of the Vanderbilt Clinical Trials Center for 20 years. He participated in and led several groundbreaking studies to improve the lives of those affected by kidney disease, including studies with erythropoietin-stimulating agent (ESA) therapy and angiotensin receptor blockers to prevent progression of chronic kidney disease.

The Harrison J. Shull Lectureship was established in honor of Dr. Harrison J. Shull, Sr. Dr. Shull conducted a fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1946, following a stint in the military. During World War II, he was a physician in the Medical Corps. As a colonel in the U.S. Army, Dr. Shull was awarded the Legion of Merit and served in the Office of the Surgeon General as assistant to the chief consultant in medicine from 1942 to 1945. After his fellowship, Dr. Shull came to Nashville to establish the division of gastroenterology at Vanderbilt University Medical School. In 1974, the university recognized his contributions by forming the Harrison J. Shull Sr. Lectureship in Gastroenterology.

The Teschan Lectureship was created in honor of Dr. Paul E. Teschan. Dr. Teschan attended the University of Minnesota Medical School on an accelerated schedule, receiving both his M.D. and M.S. in physiology in 1948. He joined the Army Medical Service in 1948 and completed his internship at the University of Illinois Research and Educational Hospital, Chicago, in 1949, and a one-year residency in internal medicine at the Presbyterian Hospital of Chicago in 1950. With the advent of the Korean War, and the need to improve the mortality rate of casualties with acute renal failure, Dr. Teschan began a fellowship at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston to receive training in treating renal failure with Kolff-Brigham rotating-drum dialyzer. In 1952, he served the Chief of the Renal Center of the U.S. Army Surgical Research Team at the 11th Evacuation Hospital of the 8th U.S. Army in Korea, and witnessed the mortality rate drop from 80 to 90% down to 53% with the use of the Kolff-Brigham dialyzer.

In 1969, Dr. Teschan retired from army service with the rank of Colonel and came to Vanderbilt University School of Medicine as an Associate Professor of Urology and Biomedical Engineering and Professor of Medicine. Between 1977 and 1989, he also served as the co-medical director of the Dialysis Clinics, Inc., Nashville. Dr. Teschan has more than 170 published original papers, editorials, monographs and chapters related to dialysis and general nephrology, with his main areas of interest being pathogenesis and prevention of acute renal failure. In 1993, he was elevated to the rank of Professor of Medicine, Emeritus.

Dr. Albert Weinstein was a beloved member of the clinical faculty at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine for more than 25 years. He was known for his astute abilities as a clinician and his effective teaching ability. Dr. Weinstein later went into private practice and served as an attending physician at several area hospitals. He also served as Director of the Vanderbilt Diabetes Clinic and was Associate Editor of the Journal of the Tennessee State Medical Association. A member of numerous professional associations, he published over 40 scientific articles on several subjects including diabetes, cardiology and hypertension. He died of cancer Oct. 1, 1963. A student award, as well as a lectureship, bearing his name were established at Vanderbilt by friends, colleagues and patients who wished to perpetuate his memory.

In 2004, the Grant R. Wilkinson Lectureship in Clinical Pharmacology was established. Donors established this fund in honor of the late Dr. Wilkinson, who was a remarkable teacher and leader in the science of drug disposition at Vanderbilt and worldwide. Dr. Wilkinson was one of the most highly cited researchers in the biomedical sciences and continued to make important contributions even as he dealt with serious disease. Dr. Wilkinson died in June 2006. The purpose of the lectureship is to expose current and future students and faculty to the best of contemporary pharmacological science at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.