Harvard Medical School. Office of the Dean

The Office of the Dean is responsible for the day-to-day operations and long-range planning for Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. This includes all faculty appointments, medical education, research enterprises, community relations, student issues, and relations with affiliated hospitals and other offices of Harvard University. The Dean is assisted in this executive role by a number of decanal officers, including the Dean for Academic and Clinical Programs and the Executive Dean for Administration.

As one of the highest ranking officers of the University, the Dean sits on a number of boards and standing committees affecting the central executives of the Medical School and Harvard University. The Dean reports directly to the President of the University.

Robert Higgins Ebert (1914-1996) was Dean of Harvard Medical School from 1965 to 1977. During his tenure, Dean Ebert led the Medical School in dealing with issues of changing patterns of medical education, affirmative action and in the delivery of medical care.

Robert H. Ebert was born in Minnesota on September 10, 1914. He earned a B.S. from the University of Chicago in 1936, a Ph.D. from Oxford University in 1939 as a Rhodes scholar, and an M.D. from the University of Chicago Medical School in 1942. He interned at Boston City Hospital from 1942-1944, and served in the U.S. Navy from 1944-1946, later serving in Nagasaki after the detonation of the atomic bomb.

Ebert's first academic appointment was in 1946 at the University of Chicago Medical School. In 1956, he moved to Western Reserve University, where he was also the head of the Department of Medicine at the University Hospitals. Ebert came to Harvard in 1964 to hold the Jackson Chair in Clinical Medicine, which is based at Massachusetts General Hospital. Ebert's clinical research interests focused on respiratory diseases, particularly tuberculosis. He was appointed Dean of Harvard Medical School in 1965, succeeding George Packer Berry, and served as Dean until 1977. After he left the Medical School, Ebert became President of the Milbank Fund. Dean Ebert died on January 29, 1996.

Ebert became Dean of the Medical School at a time of great changes in medical education and medical care, mirroring the social changes in the country overall. Major issues facing the US at this time included shortage of doctors, disparity of care between geographic regions and urban/suburban/rural areas, and significant variations in the type and quality of medical education across the country. In addition, the Medical School faced financial challenges, including decreased National Institute of Health (NIH) funding beginning in 1968, and periods of relatively high economic inflation. Several major political changes in the country had a significant effect on the Medical School as well, including increased diversity in the student population and the establishment of Affirmative Action programs in schools and the workplace.

Major events at Harvard Medical School under Dean Ebert included the establishment of the M.D./Ph.D. program, and the Harvard-M.I.T. program in Health Science Technology. Ebert worked to redefine the role of the teaching hospitals, and promoted cooperation among, and consolidation of the affiliated hospitals that combined to form Brigham and Women's Hospital in 1975. As part of his effort to improve the involvement of the Medical School in the process of training doctors, he developed a new faculty appointment category, "Clinical Full-Time." As a result of this initiative, Harvard implemented a major revision in the pre-clinical curriculum, focusing less on memorization and more on early introduction to medical training and working with patients. Ebert worked to enhance the school's non-government financial resources for medical research, including enlisting corporate support. Under his guidance, the Department of Neurobiology was created, and the physical plant of the Medical School was enlarged with the addition of the Laboratory for Human Reproduction and Reproductive Biology (LHRRB) and Seeley Mudd buildings. Additionally, under his leadership, the Medical School significantly increased the recruitment and enrollment of women and of minorities.

Dean Ebert was profoundly concerned with the issue of providing high-quality medical care broadly, and believed that medical schools must be involved in medical care planning. This led him to take the leading role in the establishment of the Harvard Community Health Plan (HCHP) in 1968, the nation's first academic health maintenance organization (HMO). HCHP played a major role of model for the development of health maintenance organizations and the future delivery of health care in the U.S.

From the guide to the Harvard Medical School. Office of the Dean. Records, 1911-1982 (bulk 1965-1977)., (Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine. Center for the History of Medicine.)