Early Years: Harrison and Burnett (1944–1951)
The Department of Internal Medicine began its journey in 1944 under the leadership of Tinsley Harrison, a man whose presence could light up a lecture hall and whose intellect shaped generations of physicians. Like two later chairs, Dr. Harrison had established his career at Vanderbilt University. More than a cardiologist, he was a teacher at heart, deeply committed to the idea that medicine was as much about humanity as science. His tenure was short but monumental: During these years, he authored Principles of Internal Medicine, a textbook that became the gold standard for medical education worldwide.
Humble Beginnings
Still, the setting for this ambitious endeavor was anything but grand. The medical school was housed in a scattering of wooden shacks behind a crumbling brick building near a railway overpass. The floors were littered with debris, and the facilities were so primitive that newcomers often wondered if they had stumbled upon the wrong place. Despite these limited resources, Dr. Harrison endeavored to give the developing Department credibility and hope.
Soon, the University of Alabama invited Dr. Harrison to return to his home state, where he could lead a higher-visibility, better-funded department to national prominence.
A Brief but Consequential Chapter
When Dr. Harrison abruptly left in 1950, the Department faced its first crossroads. His successor, Charles Burnett, arrived from Boston with expertise in metabolism and kidney disease. He was a former student of the famous Harvard endocrinologist Fuller Albright, considered the founder of the study of metaboic bone diseases and the father of modern endocrinology. Dr. Burnett’s own name would live on in the syndrome he first described. The future seemed bright.
But his time in Dallas would be fleeting. Dr. Burnett served as chair for just one year before departing to lead the Department of Medicine at the University of North Carolina. Yet it was his recruitment of Donald Seldin, a 36-year-old nephrologist from Yale University, that would cement his legacy. Dr. Seldin would take over the Department after six months on the scene, and would go on to become the “intellectual father of UT Southwestern,” turning the fledgling Department into a world-class research, teaching, and clinical powerhouse