News
DECEMBER 2016 · VOLUME 26 & ISSUE 12
A MONTHLY PUBLICATION OF THE GREATER LOUISVILLE MEDICAL SOCIETY
WHAT’S INSIDE
Page 1 - Historical Tour
of Old Medical
School
Page 2 - Board of
Governors’
Highlights
Page 3 - GLMS
Foundation
Selected for
Ignite Louisville
OLD MEDICAL SCHOOL GETS
PROPER SEND-OFF WITH
HISTORICAL TOUR
Dr. Gordon Tobin hosted a tour of the
Old Medical School on the morning of
Tuesday, December 13 to say farewell
to the historic building and home of
the Greater Louisville Medical Society.
Dr. Tobin reviewed the history of the
building, beginning with its construction in the late 19th century, through
its time as the School of Medicine, and
reaching all the way to modern times
in which the building was restored to
its former glory by GLMS and the Foundation.
“This is a bittersweet occasion. There’s
a great deal of sadness about leaving
this wonderful building but always looking towards the future,” said Dr. Tobin. “Like an old
battleship that has survived many wars, this
building deserves a decommissioning ceremony,
and this will be it.”
Almost three dozen guests were led floor by floor
through the building rich with history. From the
Dr. Harold Kleinert Lounge in the basement which
honors the late, world-renowned hand surgeon
to the former dissection room and anatomy lab
on the 4th floor, Dr. Tobin covered large sections
of history not just for GLMS but for the University
of Louisville and Kentucky medicine in general.
Along the way were urban legends, such as how
a student and a teacher may have both hung
themselves from the back stairwell, but also humorous accounts including Dr. F Todd Gardner
sharing with his family some of the more gruesome requirements of the cadaver lab and them
promptly never asking for stories again.
GLMS members stand in 4th floor of OMS,
which used to be the anatomy lab.
Lelan Woodmansee, Former GLMS Executive
Director, closed the event by sharing stories from
his 35 years in the space. He told the group of how
Louisville physicians had saved the building from
demolition and allowed GLMS to move to 101 W.
Chestnut Street in 1981.
“One of the great things about being here, in the
time we moved here, was that there was really
a concentration of all of the health care facilities
in Louisville downtown,” Woodmansee said. “The
medical society in this building really created a
symbolic link between the downtown business
and city communities and the health care community. And that was a link we thought was a
very appropriate role for the medical society.”
“A lot of very creative minds made this possible,”
he continued. “For me to be a witness… I was like
a character in a historical novel that brushes up
against all the giants and sees the great things
happening.”