Interview with Richard M. Magraw

Abstract

Richard Magraw begins with his background and education. He describes his residencies and his work history and discusses his work as assistant dean at UMN. He discusses the effect of National Institutes of Health research funding on medical education in the late 1940s and 1950s, the focus on specialization and the de-emphasis of primary care during this time. He goes on to discuss the faculty practice issue at UMN in the 1960s, the regional and national concern in the 1960s over a shortage of physicians, the national trend in the 1960s of regional health planning, the development of family practice as a specialty, his book Ferment in Medicine, and the influence on medicine of the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid in the mid- and late-1960s. He discusses the Comprehensive Clinic Program (1960-67), the relationship between the Medical School and Minnesota state legislature, the reorganization and expansion of the health sciences in the 1960s, the relationship between the Medical School and the affiliated hospitals, and the relationship among the Schools of Nursing, Medicine, and Public Health within the College of Medical Sciences. He describes the attempt to establish a medical school in St. Paul, the establishment of the Department of Family Practice and Community Health, and the separation of the departments of Psychiatry and Neurology at UMN. He discusses what he did after he left the UMN, including his work in Washington, DC.