Concise Encyclopedia of Tufts History
Sauer, Anne
Branco, Jessica
Bennett, John
Crowley, Zachary
2000
Rushmore, Stephen, 1875-1960
Stephen Rushmore (1875-1960) was the sixth dean of the Tufts College Medical School, holding the position for five years, beginning in 1922. | |
Rushmore was born in 1875 in Rochester, New York, and spent most of his early life in Plainfield, New Jersey. He received his undergraduate degree from Amherst College in 1897 and his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1902. | |
He spent a year teaching during his medical studies and the years following his graduation working in several different hospitals, including John Hopkins' and several in New York. He returned to John Hopkins Medical School as an instructor in gynecology in 1906.The following year he became a house officer at the Boston Lying-In Hospital. | |
Rushmore joined the Tufts' Medical Faculty in 1909 as an instructor in gynecology, while holding position at two of Boston's hospitals. He became an associate professor in 1912 and then professor and dean in 1922, replacing the acting dean Frank G. Wheatley. | |
Rushmore hoped to make Tufts conform to the Johns Hopkins model of medical education, which would have most likely enabled him to accelerate the development of the school. Unfortunately, he felt that his concerns about the lack of a hospital adjacent to the school, the lack of hospital control, class sizes, and the use of medical school funds to support other schools within the college, were not being addressed by the president or the trustees of the college. As a result of these differences, Rushmore resigned in 1927. He died October 31, 1960,in Bridgton, Maine. | |
He was a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society, the American Medical Society and various other local and national medical organizations. Rushmore also held the position of dean on the Middlesex MedicalSchool prior to his retirement. | |
Source: VF; COE, 59-61; TW, Vol. 66 No. 8 | |
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