A recently published book for the 100th anniversary of the Sanford School of Medicine tells the story of the many trials and tribulations throughout the medical school's program history.
"Committed to Care: A Century of Medical Education in South Dakota," was published January 2007.
The next event is April 19 in Vermillion at USD's Lee Medical Building. The overall celebration will end June 2008 at USD, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating the opening of the newly rebuilt school.
It took author Ann Grauvogl nearly eight months of research to write the book. She said she wanted to put a human face on the medical school by telling its story through interviews from former and current students, faculty and medical school deans.
"I think the thing that struck me continually that I was amazed that (the medical school) survived," Grauvogl said. "They would lose money, everything would turn into a muck, buildings would be falling apart and someone would arrive as a champion and survive. I think it's a survival story."
Grauvogl spent 13 years as a reporter with the "Argus Leader" and continues to freelance for them. She writes for South Dakota Magazine and contributed to the late USD professor emeritus W.O. Farber's autobiography, "Footprints on the Prairie: The Life and Times of W.O. Farber."
Danielle Loftus, a librarian at Lommen Health Sciences in the I.D. Weeks Library, chose photos for both "Committed To Care" and a traveling exhibit for the celebration. She said she was asked to participate with both projects due to her art background.
She said about 160 photos were used for both projects, 40 for the exhibit to represent every five to 10 years of the medical school's history. She said she was looking for photographs that were graphically striking, interesting and had stories few people knew about.
"I had a lot of fun doing (research). Identification was a really very in-depth and strenuous but interesting process," Loftus said. "That was probably the thing I had the most fun with, to talk to everybody and ask who was in this picture and what this was about."
Grauvogl said a significant portion of the book came from old news stories and "very accessible" notes and letters written by deans.
These notes range from faculty announcements to letters written by dean Christian Peter Lommen to his second wife. Grauvogl said she likes writing projects that make her dig through archives to find untold stories.
"I'm not a trained historian. I'm a journalist. I tell stories," she said. "I just wanted to make something that was inherently readable."
In 1907, Lommen started the medical school at USD with two students and no budget. He remained as the school's first dean for 20 years.
The school suffered from a lack of funding, when the state Legislature thought South Dakota did not need a medical school. The school nearly closed in 1936, but the efforts of then-president I.D. Weeks managed to have the school survive as a two-year program.
The medical school became fully accredited as a four-year program in 1974.
"It's one of those great prairie stories, these people had a commitment - 'We don't care if we don't have enough money, we will find a way.' It's a great story of what can be done by people who care," Grauvogl said.
"Committed To Care" is on display at the Lommen Health Sciences front desk and is available to purchase for $25.
Reach reporter Mike Keitges at Mike.Keitges@usd.edu.
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