Spokane’s legacy of medical innovation

I would like to congratulate Arielle Dreher and The Spokesman-Review for an excellent piece, “Leading from the Heart” (April 28).

The piece well describes the history, the Vision (yes, with a capital V), and the road leading to medications and techniques that today further limit the impact of heart attacks.

In addition, it is a nice bookend to have the advertisement honoring the first Washington State University medical school graduating class appear next to the closing piece on the anniversary of 50 years of cardiac emergency surgery. WSU is an unusual medical school, founded on the shoulders of local practitioners, not only providing clinical experience, but the same clinicians serving as preclinical faculty, providing the foundation for medical education.

It is not well known that the concept of the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine evolved from the concerns of visionary local physicians who saw the need for a second medical school located and serving Eastern Washington. Their work with Lisa Brown, Marcus Riccelli and Scott Baumgartner in the state Legislature overcame a number of hurdles. It needs to be said that the business community of Spokane, led by Rich Hadley of Greater Spokane Incorporated, played a vital role in seeing that appropriate funding occurred, to have a vibrant campus now known as the WSU Health Sciences Spokane campus.

These pieces in The Spokesman-Review juxtaposed next to each other serve as a legacy of Spokane community’s commitment to medical innovation.

Hal Goldberg, MD

Providence Spokane Cardiology