WHAT HATH BROWN WROUGHT? A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF BROWN UNIVERSITY'S FIRST TEN MEDICAL SCHOOL GRADUATING CLASSES

Medicine and Health Rhode Island, Dec 2004 by Aronson, Stanley M

If there is one collective characteristic of the lives and careers of these 594 graduates, it is their diversity. The great majority pursued careers in virtually every defined clinical arena, while other chose to direct major health institutions as chief administrative officers: from a small rural hospital in Oregon to Cleveland's major university facility; from Rhode Island's largest and most prestigious hospital to a small children's' health foundation in Singapore; from the world's leading AIDS vaccine initiative program to leadership in a variety of HMOs in the northeast, southeast, and Midwest states; from multinational pharmaceutical corporations to the presidency of Rhode Island Medical Society. Others dedicated themselves to careers in basic and clinical research, usually university-based but sometimes in large drug companies; and more than a handful are active in the National Institutes of Health.

Yet another surprising finding is the relatively large number of Brown Medical School graduates who returned to the university classroom for further graduate degrees: Amongst the 315 who completed their questionnaires, 18 subsequently were awarded a master's degree in public health [MPH]; nine a master's degree in business administration [MBA] ; four a law degree [JD], and three, a PhD.

WHERE HAVE OUR GRADUATES COME FROM?

Given the small and intimate quality of our medical student body at Brown, their sites of birth are astonishingly diverse. The men and women in the first ten classes were born in 32 different states, the District of Columbia and 16 foreign nations on six continents. The states of New York [71], Rhode Island [64], Massachusetts [32], Pennsylvania [16], New Jersey [12], Illinois [11], and California [7] dominate the geographic sites of birth. Interestingly, the birth-distribution of Brown's women medical students is distinguishable from their male colleagues. Very few of the women students were born in Rhode Island; indeed, the majority of women [67%] were born in states and nations far removed from New England.

WHICH UNDERGRADUATE INSTITUTIONS DID THESE 594 MEN AND WOMEN ATTEND?

Since the great majority of our medical students were admitted from high school into a continuum program of undergraduate and graduate medical education, Brown necessarily dominates as the source of most baccalaureate degrees. Yet there are 55 different colleges attended amongst those not fortunate enough to have received their liberal education from Brown [predominantly, though, Yale, Harvard and City University of New York.] In addition, many attended those colleges which entered into early identification program convenants with Brown [Tougaloo College, Providence College, University of Rhode Island and Rhode Island College.]

SOME DEMOGRAPHIC OBSERVATIONS ON THE FIRST TEN MEDICAL SCHOOL GRADUATING CLASSES AND THEIR FAMILIES

Those familiar with the rigors of medical education will remember the story of the Providence census-taker visiting a home on the East Side. "How many children live in this house?" asked the census-taker. And the mother's plaintive response: "Two alive and one attending medical school."