Interview with Henry Blackburn

Abstract

Henry Blackburn begins by describing his background, including his education, his experiences in the Navy, and his decision to pursue a career in medicine. He discusses coming to the University of Minnesota and his experiences as a Fellow in the Department of Medicine in the 1950s. He discusses the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene (LPH), including collaboration between Cardiology and the LPH; the School of Public Health (SPH) and the distance between the SPH and the LPH; the retirement of Ancel Keys and the status of the LPH; space issues for the LPH; the teaching responsibilities of the LPH faculty; the growth of the LPH in the 1970s; the merger of the LPH and the Division of Epidemiology; and his research projects in the 1960s, including the Seven Countries Study. He describes attitudes toward public health and epidemiology in the mid-twentieth century; relationships between divisions in the SPH; the status of public health in the College of Medical Sciences; and relations between the University of Minnesota Medical School and the local medical community. He discusses federal funding, particularly the funding epidemiology studies; tensions between medicine and public health; concern in the 1960s over a shortage in health manpower; the Medical School curriculum revisions in the 1960s and early 1970s; the nurse practitioner program and public health nursing; the reorganization of the health sciences in 1970; the Division of Epidemiology; the recruitment of minority students; women faculty; changes in public health during his career; and the growing emphasis on personalized medicine. He talks about Albert Sullivan, CJ Watson, Ancel Keys, Maurice Visscher, Gaylord Anderson, Robert Howard, Lyle French, Lee Stauffer, Robert Kane, and Edith Leyasmeyer.