#nihclinicalcntr

[historyatnih]

An illustrious group dedicated the Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center 15 years ago today by cutting a very large ribbon: (left to right) Sen. Paul Sarbanes, Susan Butler, Dr. John I. Gallin, Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, Sen. Mark O. Hatfield, DHHS Sec. Tommy Thompson, and Sen. Tom Harkin.  Hatfield (Oregon-R), who served for 30 years in the U.S. Senate. As chairman of the committee on appropriations for eight years, he helped to secure increased funding for NIH. Hatfield’s deep and abiding commitment to medical research is continued @NIHClinicalCntr https://clinicalcenter.nih.gov/ocmr/history/hatfieldcrc/index.html

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What does a teacup and saucer have to do with Pain Awareness Month? Pain is not just physical. It’s affected by your psychological state, coping skills, physical or emotional limitations, financial concerns, spirituality, family functioning, and fear of death. The NIH Clinical Center’s Pain and Palliative Care unit sought to create a comfortable setting for patients, families, and health care givers to talk. Having tea together enabled such conversations to take place. This teacup, now in our collection, was used in this program. 

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70 years ago, a press release explained the purpose of the NIH Clinical Center, which was being built at the time: “To study and treat selected patients with chronic disease such as mental illness, cancer, heart and circulatory ailments, diseases of metabolism, and some types of infectious and tropical sickness. There will also be facilities for dental patients.”  While the diseases that are studied @NIHClinicalCntr have changed, the emphasis on patient care and the latest technology is constant.  Read the whole 1949 article https://nihrecord.nih.gov/sites/recordNIH/files/pdf/1949/NIH-Record-1949-08-16.pdf

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Today’s the 40th anniversary of the Top Out celebration!  What?  That’s when a ceremonial bucket of concrete was hoisted to the top of the NIH Clinical Center to mark the end of the concrete work on the Ambulatory Care Research Facility (ACRF).  The ACRF is part of @NIHClinicalCntr Building 10.  

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“The House that Jack Built” was how NIH staff referred to the Clinical Center, in honor of Dr. Jack Masur, who helped plan, design, and construct the hospital and served as its director.  So 50 years ago today, on the anniversary of the Clinical Center’s dedication, they dedicated the large auditorium to Masur.  “This is the room where hundreds of visitors from all over the world are welcomed each year— Presidents, physicians and other scientists, nurses, educators, science writers, and other groups interested in health,” said then NIH Director Robert Q. Marston.  Masur had died four months before the dedication.  Watching the program on the Masur stage are Drs. Edwin Crosby, Robert Marston, Russell Nelson, and Mrs. Barbara Masur.  Read more about the ceremony   https://nihrecord.nih.gov/PDF_Archive/1969%20pdfs/19690723.pdf   

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The historic signing of the Public Health Service (PHS) Act, enacted 75 years ago today, uh, isn't captured in this photo.  Apparently no one took a picture of that!  What we do see, though, are the two key players: President Franklin Roosevelt and Surgeon General Thomas Parran in 1943 as FDR signed into law a bill to create the U.S. Cadet Nursing Corps.  Among the provisions of the PHS Act was authorizing the Surgeon General to conduct clinical research and create new institutes, which led to the NIH Clinical Center and… several new institutes.  The National Cancer Institute (NCI) formally became part of NIH, and the NIH was allowed to give grants like NCI.   Today nearly 80% of the NIH budget goes to grants.  For more on this ground-breaking legislation, read https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1403570/pdf/pubhealthrep00057-0003.pdf   @NIH @theNCI @NIHgrants @NIHClinicalCntr

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We are sad to learn of the death of Dr. Saul Rosen, who served as Deputy Director of the NIH Clinical Center beginning in 1984, and who stepped in as Acting Director from 1990-1994. Rosen was known for his love of opera and his love of the Clinical Center.  In this photo, taken from a holiday card in the NIH Stetten Museum collection, Rosen wears a white coat covered with patches from different NIH Clinical Center components.  He said of the Clinical Center, “You are never stymied to start an adventure.”

Rosen earned his undergraduate and M.D. from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. from Northwestern. He came to the NIH as a Clinical Associate in 1958 at NIAMS, and returned in 1961 as a senior investigator in the institute's Clinical Endocrinology Branch from 1961-1984.  During that time, he studied the inappropriate production of hormones by tumors, and the body's production of placental proteins in general.  He died at age 90 on February 28, 2019.  @NIHClinicalCntr Read his oral history https://bit.ly/2O4ENUi

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“In 1975, having a TV-like device that sat on the desktop and offered immediate access to hundreds of thousands of pages of patient records seemed like only a dream for the nurses, physicians, pharmacists, and dozens of other professionals charged with patient care at the Clinical Center. But MIS — the computerized medical information system that made its NIH debut that year — turned the dream into a reality.” The light pen shown here, when used with a computer, was the system’s basic tool. With a few flicks, doctors could retrieve patient records, request medication and lab work, update and print a medical care plan for the nurses, contact the dietician, and see test results.

Quote from https://bit.ly/2RtoZuw