The medical faculty.

The ancient Indian story of the blind men and the elephant, descending to us through the Greeks and to the Japanese through Buddhism and China, reminds us that a single individual can gain only a partial perception of a complex phenomenon in which he is interested, and that his conclusions depend on his own experiences and interactions with that phenomenon, rather than on the totality of the phenomenon itself. So it is with an individual's view of a medical faculty. In honoring my esteemed friend and colleague, Dean Vernon Lippard, I present some of my own personal impressions, reflections and evaluations on the subject of the type of organization over which Dean Lippard has presided with distinction and grace for many years. Schools of medicine have been honored parts of universities from the very earliest beginnings of universities. The role of the medical faculty can, therefore, best be examined in its university setting.