Texas Surgeon: an Autobiography Page: 55
xii, 180 p. ; 21 cm.View a full description of this book.
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caliber helped me greatly. The Boston type has many defects,
but lack of culture is not one of them.
I was also fortunate in having medical superiors who took an
interest in me. One of these was Dr. A. B. Bernard, staff assistant
to Dr. Cowles. Having earlier been a demonstrater at Harvard
Medical, he organized a little anatomy class for us students.
From Dr. Bernard's skeleton and manikins we learned quite a
bit about the body's various systems and three of us, after an
examination, were given "diplomas" by our instructor. This
testimonial was supplemented by a letter of recommendation
from a young junior assistant physician on the McLean staff,
Dr. Edwin Leman. He, too, had become interested in me. This
letter, which I still have, ended by saying that Dr. Leman had
found Atkinson, "... by the character and amount of his work,
as well as by his ability and perseverance, to be well qualified
to enter a medical school." Then, of course, there was my nurse's
diploma, from the Massachusetts General of which, as I have
explained, McLean was an auxiliary part.
Thus my vision of a medical career was affirmed a third time,
at the age of twenty-three. Momentarily I thought of trying to
get into Dartmouth, which then had a flourishing medical school,
for a cousin of mine had graduated from there. This hope soon
died. I plainly did not have enough funds.
I became increasingly aware that my road would be a long
and stony one when I went to work in a private mental hospital
in Brookline run by the famous Dr. Henry Rust Stedman, a
former president of the American Neurological Association.
Bournewood, still functioning today at the same site, was located
in a parklike setting amid interesting outcrops of granite near
the Brookline-West Roxbury line. At the time this section was
almost rural, a leafy retreat only a very few miles from down-
town Boston and easily accessible by streetcar.
The buildings at Bournewood were constructed of wood and
painted a dull mustard that had weathered to the color of clay.
On account of the location in a rocky dell thickly surrounded
55
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Atkinson, Donald Taylor. Texas Surgeon: an Autobiography, book, 1958; New York. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth143566/m1/67/?rotate=270: accessed May 6, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting University of Texas Health Science Center Libraries.