Grunigen, Forest, 1905-1999

Forest Grunigen served as president of the California Osteopathic Association (COA) in 1943 and played a leading role in establishing the medical school at UC Irvine.

COA was established in 1900 as an affiliate of the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) and, along with the College of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons (COPS), was a figurehead of the osteopathic tradition in California. In the mid-1940s, the COA, led by Forest Grunigen and the COA's Fact Finding Committee, began talks to merge with the California Medical Association (CMA), led by Wayne Pollack and CMA's Committee on Other Professions. The terms of the merger included granting Doctors of Osteopathy (D.O.) M.D. degrees, elimination of the osteopathic licensing boards, and conversion of the College of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons into a medical school. In 1960, the AOA revoked COA's charter when it defied AOA's request to cease merger talks. This action left California without a licensing board. A splinter group of osteopaths who opposed exchanging their D.O.s for M.D.s, formed in 1960, naming themselves the Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons of California (OPSC). In 1961, an agreement between the CMA and COA was reached. The OPSC filed suit alleging that the merger was a conspiracy to destroy the osteopathic profession in California. Two more suits followed, later in 1961 and in 1962, but in all cases, the court found in favor of the defendants. In the midst of all these events, Dain Tasker, historian of the COA, was working on his history of the profession in California. Tasker had long been involved in osteopathic professional activities in California, having been the president of the first board of osteopathic examiners in 1901. This gave him a unique perspective into the topic. The manuscript was never published but there are extant copies, one of which is included in this collection; another is included in AS-027 (California College of Medicine records). COPS, now renamed the California College of Medicine (CCM), became part of the University of California system in 1963. Forest Grunigen, who was so instrumental in the COA/CMA merger, and Warren Bostick, the new dean of CCM, recognized that CCM would be better served if it were associated with on of the UC campuses. On April 5, 1967, CCM officially became a part of the University of California, Irvine.

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