Event: CAMA Medical Symposium 2012

This Friday, October 26, the Chicago Area Medical Archivists are hosting their tenth CAMA Medical Symposium. Please join us for this wonderful program.

Please RSVP to RNSMS@northwestern.edu or 312.503.1913 

Lurie Children's Hospital 
225 East Chicago Avenue
16th  Floor Conference Room
9 a.m. Coffee Hour
10 a.m. – 12 p.m. – Presentations
12 – 1:15 p.m. – Lunch on your own
1:30 – 4:30 p.m. - Presentations 

PROGRAM 

History of the University of Chicago Hospitals
Mindy Schwartz, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine
University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine

Dr. Lucy A. Gaynor, Advocate for Children—Nanking China, 1892-1912
Anatomy, Pathology and Infection Risks of Foot Binding
Mary Groll, MD, Instructor of Pediatrics
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine 
Amy Whalen, MD, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

History of the American College of Surgeons
David Nahrwold, MD, Professor Emeritus of Surgery 
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Dr. Davis’ Hollywood Connection
Diane Friedman, RN, MSN, Instructor
Marian University School of Nursing, Indianapolis Indiana

History of Children’s Hospital
Stanford Shulman, MD, Professor of Pediatrics
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

   

News: Heather Stecklein to bid farewell to Chicago in July

Important CAMA News: The Chicago Area Medical Archivists will be losing one of its long-standing members very soon.

Heather leads a tour of local medical archives during the Society of American Archivists conference, 2007

Heather Stecklein, MLS, MA, has served as archivist at Rush University Medical Center since 2005, but will be leaving Chicago in July. 

I would like to announce to CAMA that she has accepted a position as University Archivist at the University of Wisconsin-Stout in Menomonie, Wisconsin. Also, she will serve as a Director of the Wisconsin Historical Society's Area Research Center, managing the historic records of three local counties.

Heather's last day at the Rush Archives will be Friday, July 6, and she will be moving to Menomonie with her family soon after. 

Heather with the illustrious Studs Terkel, 2007

Heather has been actively involved in the Chicago Area Medical Archivists since she began her work at Rush. She served as CAMA Web Moderator from 2006 to 2007 and CAMA President from 2007 to 2009. Heather has been part of the Chicago Area Archivists Steering Committee for the past six years.

We all wish her well in her new position and new home. 

Sharing the history of Rush as part of tours of Rush's new Tower building, 2011

As for the Rush Archives, it will always soldier on. As assistant archivist at Rush, I am particularly grateful to Heather for all of the work she has done over the years. The many projects we have accomplished during our five years together would not have been possible without our sharing the Rush core values of Innovation, Collaboration, Accountability, Respect, and Excellence. It takes a special camaraderie to not only survive, but thrive in a basement every day with one other person for so many years. We may not have had windows, but we had vision.

Nathalie Wheaton and Heather Stecklein: A force to be reckoned with...

- Good luck, Heather! -

CAMA Spotlight: American College of Surgeons Archives

Our second CAMA Spotlight focuses on one of our member institutions, the Archives of the American College of Surgeons. 

Thanks to archivists Susan Rishworth, MA, MLS, CA, and Dolores Barber, MSLIS, CA, of the American College of Surgeons Archives for participating in this month's CAMA Spotlight.

ACS Seal at its Headquarters in Chicago. Courtesy ACS Archives.

What is the American College of Surgeons?

The American College of Surgeons (ACS) was established in Chicago in 1913 at the initiative of Franklin H. Martin, MD, FACS. It was an outgrowth of the highly successful Clinical Congress of Surgeons of North America. The Clinical Congress was first held in 1910 to provide continuing education by means of live demonstrations of surgical operations. From the time of its origin, the College has been involved in surgical education and research, patient welfare, hospital standardization, ethics of practice, and collaboration with other medical associations.

What is the size of your collection?

The ACS Archives holds approximately 300 linear feet of fully processed records.

Tell us about your users.

We are generally open four days a week and serve primarily our staff and members. But we also have nonmember researchers, typically historians and graduate students. We have also had young people come to do research on school projects.

What kind of reference services do you provide?

We reply to phone/email inquiries, assist researchers in the reading room, and give tours of the College headquarters.

Describe some of your online resources and digital collections.

Our online resources include the Highlight of the Month (history notes) and historical lists of Clinical Congresses, Presidents, Executive Directors, Recipients of the Distinguished Service Award, and Honorary Fellows. 

Digitized resources available online include the catalog of the Orr Collection, texts of past presidential addresses, photographs of the Board of Regents, the Clinical Congress News, one volume of the 48 volume F.H. Martin Memoirs (scrapbooks), and one volume of the 26 volume E.K. Grimm History Notebooks.

What are some of your most-used collections?

The records of the Committee on Medical Motion pictures have been used often over the years. Also used often are the records on hospital standardization; the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals (now the Joint Commission) originated in the College’s early hospital standardization initiative. And we frequently use the Grimm Notebooks for authoritative reference on all subjects related to College history.

[Learn more about 3-D movies at the Clinical Congress.]

Who are some of the most well-known figures connected to the American College of Surgeons and your collection?

Charles H. Mayo received his medical degree from Northwestern University (then Chicago Medical College). He was one of the founders of the ACS, its president from 1924 to 1925, and a member of the Board of Regents. George Crile, founder of the Cleveland Clinic, and Alton Ochsner, founder of the Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans, were also founders and presidents of the ACS along with Franklin Martin and many others, giants of surgery in their day.

--Thanks, Dolores and Susan!  If you have questions for Susan and Dolores or CAMA, feel free to leave a comment in the comments section. We'd love any feedback on this new feature of the CAMA blog.

More on the CAMA Spotlight Project:

With this new CAMA Spotlight feature, you can get to know the people and institutions who offer resources in Chicago concerning the history of medicine, medical education, and related topics. 

Each institution represented in CAMA has a story of its own to tell. We hope this new feature is of interest to fellow archivists, students, researchers, and anyone curious about what in the world archivists do.

See last month's CAMA Spotlight on Scott Pitol, University Archivist and Assistant Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago.