McGovern Lecture 2014: John P McGovern and his Oxford Connection: A Biographer's Perspective

Green Templeton College

Dr Bryant Boutwell, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston gives the 2014 McGovern Lecture at Green Templeton College This lecture will highlight the impact of Sir William Osler and Osler's American student, Wilburt Davison, who trained with Osler at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and became the founding dean of Duke University School of Medicine where a young Jack McGovern came to train in the early 1940s. The influence of the Oxford-Osler-Davison connection changed McGovern's life with positive implications on medical education to this day. Eight years after his death, Dr McGovern continues to touch our medical community on a global scale as the author's stories of his life-and the back stories-will tell. This presentation provide the biographer's perspective of knowing McGovern and researching the stories of his life to produce his biography, John P McGovern, M.D.: A Lifetime of Stories, recently published in 2014. The book represents nearly four years of personal interviews with dozens of friends and colleagues along with a detailed review of his vast archives now located at the Texas Medical Center's Historical Research Center. Dr Boutwell has served the institutions of Houston's Texas Medical Center for nearly 40 years. He is the first holder of the John P McGovern Professorship in Oslerian Medicine at The University of Texas Medical School in Houston. In 2013 he was recognised as a Distinguished Teaching Professor by The University of Texas System. His biography of his friend and colleague, John P McGovern, was published in 2014 and will be the focus of this presentation.