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JEAN ALONZO CURRAN, M.D.: 1 893- 1 977 DUNCAN W. CLARK, M.D. Professor and Chairman Department of Environmental Medicine and Community Health State University of New York Downstate Medical Center Brooklyn, New York
lEAN A. Curran, medical missionary, educator, administrator, and hisJtorian, first became associated with the New York Academy of Medicine in the mid- 1930s in a role that proved to be the stepping stone to a long and distinguished career in academic medicine. In 1934 he was appointed executive secretary to a specially formed Joint Committee for the Study of Hospital Internships and Residencies to conduct an intensive field investigation of the educational content of this area of medical training. The New York Academy of Medicine and the medical schools of New York cosponsored the committee; the study grew out of an interest of the Academy's Committee on Medical Education. In the early 1930s New York City offered one sixth of all approved internships and residencies in the United States and a significant number (105) of unapproved ones as well. A systematic in-depth survey of this then-neglected stage of medical education was needed. The study was financed with the aid of the Commonwealth Fund and the report (Internships and Residencies: Report by the New York Committee on the Study of Hospital Internships and Residencies. New York, Commonwealth Fund, 1938) was the definitive study of its day. It was influential in improving the quality of house-officer training both nationally and locally. Under Dr. Curran's chairmanship the committee did not die with the report but for almost two decades continued its mission of conducting on-site surveys of New York hospitals. Sometimes this was done at the request of the hospital and at times the survey was initiated by the committee. Within the Association of American Medical Colleges, Jean Curran served several years as chairman of its Committee on Internships and Residencies. There he helped to increase the concern of medical educators for the quality of the internship and residency experience. Success with this venture had two results for Dr. Curran. In this field study he estabVol. 54, No. 3, March 1978
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304
D. W. W. CLARK D.
CLARK~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
JEAN ALONZO CURRAN, M.D.
Bull. N.Y. Acad. Med.
JEAN ALONZO CURRAN
JEAN ALONZO
CURRAN
305
lished his reputation as a consultant in the survey of educational programs, a skill he would be called upon to apply many times in his life by various organizations both here and abroad. It also led to his appointment in 1937 as dean of the Long Island College of Medicine, an association that was to continue for 20 years. Under Dr. Curran's leadership the college grew in stature, with the recruitment of full-time chiefs of clinical departments, the development of the college division of the Kings County Hospital, and recognition of the need to rebuild and relocate the medical school adjacent to Kings County Hospital. As president of the college Dr. Curran led it into a merger with the State University of New York in 1950 to form the Downstate Medical Center. He became the first dean of the new institution and embarked upon plans to rebuild the school. Dr. Curran served with distinction as dean until 1954, and then became associate executive dean for medical education at the level of university administration while also serving as professor of the history of medicine. A third career beckoned when Dr. Curran supposedly retired from the State University of New York to live in Cambridge, Mass. For a number of years Dr. Curran then served as senior consultant to the Bingham Associates Funds of Massachusetts in Boston, the pioneering regional medical program of that time, which made the resources of the Tufts-New England Medical Center Hospital in Massachusetts accessible to rural Maine. He was called upon repeatedly by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Agency for International Development to conduct surveys on the need for medical schools in Korea, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and elsewhere. Dr. Curran was doubly equipped for this service since he had served as a medical missionary in the Orient for seven years immediately after completing a two-year rotating internship at the Brooklyn Hospital (1921-1923) which followed his graduation from Harvard Medical School. At the Carleton-in-China Mission Hospital in Fenchow, Chanai Province, China, he served concurrently as hospital director, internist, surgeon, and part-time dentist during a period of plague, famine, and war. Dr. Curran's life-long love of the history of medicine found expression in his publication of the 294-page Founders of the Harvard School of Public Health, with Biographical Notes, 1909-1946 (New York, Josiah Macy, Jr., Foundation, 1970) in his 77th year. He was at work on his autobiography when he died on January 16, 1977, about a year after the death of his wife, Frances. Dr. Curran is survived by three sons, Jean, Jr., Vol. 54, No. 3, March 1978
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of London; William, a practicing physician in Albuquerque, N.M.; and Robert, who is with the U.S. State Department in Asia. The obituary notice that appeared in The New England Journal of Medicine on March 17, 1977 closed with an observation that bears repeating: "Jean Alonzo Curran was a great and good man."
Bull. N.Y. Acad. Med.
JEAN ALONZO CURRAN, M.D.: 1 893- 1 977 DUNCAN W. CLARK, M.D. Professor and Chairman Department of Environmental Medicine and Community Health State University of New York Downstate Medical Center Brooklyn, New York
lEAN A. Curran, medical missionary, educator, administrator, and hisJtorian, first became associated with the New York Academy of Medicine in the mid- 1930s in a role that proved to be the stepping stone to a long and distinguished career in academic medicine. In 1934 he was appointed executive secretary to a specially formed Joint Committee for the Study of Hospital Internships and Residencies to conduct an intensive field investigation of the educational content of this area of medical training. The New York Academy of Medicine and the medical schools of New York cosponsored the committee; the study grew out of an interest of the Academy's Committee on Medical Education. In the early 1930s New York City offered one sixth of all approved internships and residencies in the United States and a significant number (105) of unapproved ones as well. A systematic in-depth survey of this then-neglected stage of medical education was needed. The study was financed with the aid of the Commonwealth Fund and the report (Internships and Residencies: Report by the New York Committee on the Study of Hospital Internships and Residencies. New York, Commonwealth Fund, 1938) was the definitive study of its day. It was influential in improving the quality of house-officer training both nationally and locally. Under Dr. Curran's chairmanship the committee did not die with the report but for almost two decades continued its mission of conducting on-site surveys of New York hospitals. Sometimes this was done at the request of the hospital and at times the survey was initiated by the committee. Within the Association of American Medical Colleges, Jean Curran served several years as chairman of its Committee on Internships and Residencies. There he helped to increase the concern of medical educators for the quality of the internship and residency experience. Success with this venture had two results for Dr. Curran. In this field study he estabVol. 54, No. 3, March 1978
304
304
D. W. W. CLARK D.
CLARK~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
JEAN ALONZO CURRAN, M.D.
Bull. N.Y. Acad. Med.
JEAN ALONZO CURRAN
JEAN ALONZO
CURRAN
305
lished his reputation as a consultant in the survey of educational programs, a skill he would be called upon to apply many times in his life by various organizations both here and abroad. It also led to his appointment in 1937 as dean of the Long Island College of Medicine, an association that was to continue for 20 years. Under Dr. Curran's leadership the college grew in stature, with the recruitment of full-time chiefs of clinical departments, the development of the college division of the Kings County Hospital, and recognition of the need to rebuild and relocate the medical school adjacent to Kings County Hospital. As president of the college Dr. Curran led it into a merger with the State University of New York in 1950 to form the Downstate Medical Center. He became the first dean of the new institution and embarked upon plans to rebuild the school. Dr. Curran served with distinction as dean until 1954, and then became associate executive dean for medical education at the level of university administration while also serving as professor of the history of medicine. A third career beckoned when Dr. Curran supposedly retired from the State University of New York to live in Cambridge, Mass. For a number of years Dr. Curran then served as senior consultant to the Bingham Associates Funds of Massachusetts in Boston, the pioneering regional medical program of that time, which made the resources of the Tufts-New England Medical Center Hospital in Massachusetts accessible to rural Maine. He was called upon repeatedly by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Agency for International Development to conduct surveys on the need for medical schools in Korea, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and elsewhere. Dr. Curran was doubly equipped for this service since he had served as a medical missionary in the Orient for seven years immediately after completing a two-year rotating internship at the Brooklyn Hospital (1921-1923) which followed his graduation from Harvard Medical School. At the Carleton-in-China Mission Hospital in Fenchow, Chanai Province, China, he served concurrently as hospital director, internist, surgeon, and part-time dentist during a period of plague, famine, and war. Dr. Curran's life-long love of the history of medicine found expression in his publication of the 294-page Founders of the Harvard School of Public Health, with Biographical Notes, 1909-1946 (New York, Josiah Macy, Jr., Foundation, 1970) in his 77th year. He was at work on his autobiography when he died on January 16, 1977, about a year after the death of his wife, Frances. Dr. Curran is survived by three sons, Jean, Jr., Vol. 54, No. 3, March 1978
306 306
D. W. CLARK
of London; William, a practicing physician in Albuquerque, N.M.; and Robert, who is with the U.S. State Department in Asia. The obituary notice that appeared in The New England Journal of Medicine on March 17, 1977 closed with an observation that bears repeating: "Jean Alonzo Curran was a great and good man."
Bull. N.Y. Acad. Med.
