THE PEDIATRICIAN AND THE PUBLIC

Abstract

IT IS my purpose this morning to describe some facets of the program at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, the development of which has been conditioned by the needs of our community, i.e., of Denver and of Colorado. A word is in order about some of the local stimuli to these developments. First, Dean Ward Darley and President Robert L. Stearns point out that as a state-supported institution we bear a special obligation to meet the varying needs of both rural and urban Colorado. Second, members of the faculty have participated actively in the reorganization of the Department of Health and Hospitals of Denver since 1947. Third, under the guidance of Dr. Alfred H. Washburn, the Child Research Council of Denver has for the past 20 years been making a multidisciplined study of the factors influencing human growth and adaptation. Fourth, from the Department of Philosophy on the Boulder campus comes Professor David Hawkins to tell us that the Hippocratic vision of medicine is of a "science extending far beyond the boundaries of the organism and including the investigation of whatever touches upon human health and welfare." Finally because our practice at the medical school is at present limited to the medically indigent, we have daily examples of our need to concern ourselves with social factors.