Clark, Henry T. (Henry Toole), 1917-2008

Henry Toole Clark, Jr. (1917-), son of Henry Toole and Cornelia Josey Clark of Scotland Neck, N.C., received a B.A., UNC, 1937, and M.D., University of Rochester, 1944. Clark was director, Vanderbilt University Hospital, 1948-1950; administrator, Division of Health Affairs, UNC-CH, 1950-1966; director, Connecticut Regional Medical Program and medical school visiting professor, University of Connecticut and Yale University, 1966-1973; visiting professor community medicine, University of Connecticut, 1973-1975; director, Project HOPE, Jamaica and professor of community medicine, University of the West Indies, 1976-1978; and consultant on planning and operating university health centers, 1978-1981.

From the description of Henry T. Clark papers, 1920s-1996. WorldCat record id: 35923033

Chronology excerpted (with slight modifications) from information supplied by Henry Toole Clark, Jr.

Education:

1933-1937 A.B., University of North Carolina

1937-1939 Certificate in Medicine, University of North Carolina School of Medicine

1939-1940; M.D., University of Rochester School of Medicine, 1943-1944

1940-1941 Student Intern, Trudeau Sanitorium, Saranac Lake, N.Y.

1942-1943 Fellow in Physiology, Trudeau Sanitorium

1944-1945 Fellow in Pathology, University of Rochester

1945-1946 Intern in Medicine, Duke University Hospital

Employment:

1946-1948 Administative Assistant, Assistant Director, Strong Memorial Hospital, Rochester, N.Y.

1948-1950 Director, Vanderbilt University Hospital, Nashville, Tenn.

1950-1965 Administrator of the Division of Health Affairs (later title Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs), University of North Carolina (responsible for schools of Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, Public Health, and Pharmacy, and for the North Carolina Memorial Hospital)

1965-1966 On leave, University of North Carolina

1 September 1965-31 March 1966 Special Consultant to the Director of the National Institutes of Health

1 April 1966-30 September 1966 Resident Advisor on Long Range Planning, University of Leiden Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands

1966-1973 Director, Connecticut Regional Medical Program; Visiting Professor of Medical Care, Yale University; Visiting Professor of Community Medicine, University of Connecticut.

1973-1975 Visiting Professor of Community Medicine (full time), University of Connecticut.

1975-1976 Lecturer, Department of Community Medicine, University of Connecticut; private consultant; at work on The CRMP Story and other volumes

1976-1978 Director, Project HOPE in Jamaica; Visiting Professor of Community Medicine, University of the West Indies

1978-1981 Private consultant; writing

Since 1981 Semi-retired in Chapel Hill, N.C. Occasional consultant on planning and operating various University Health Centers

From the introduction to an oral history interview conducted for the Southern Oral History Program, UNC-CH, written by Fran Weaver in March 1999:

Dr. Henry Toole Clark, Jr. was born on 13 October 1917, and grew up in the small farming community of Scotland Neck in Halifax County, N.C. His childhood paralleled the years of the Great Depression and he witnessed the hardships of the many economically depressed people in his community, especially the black sharecroppers on the surrounding farms. The milieu of Scotland Neck with its emphasis on church, schooling, and family fostered in the young Clark a commitment to devoting his life in service to other people. He briefly considered the ministry (six close relatives were missionaries overseas) but later decided that medicine would be a better career choice for him.

Clark entered the University of North Carolina in September 1933 at the age of 15. He was active in campus affairs, served as president of his fraternity and of the Interfraternity Council, was a member of the UNC golf team, and earned membership in Phi Beta Kappa. He became a casual friend and great admirer of Dr. Frank Porter Graham and applauded his activist roles in addressing the main societal concerns of that era.

Clark obtained his M.D. degree from the University of Rochester in 1944, graduating as president of Alpha Omega Alpha, the medical school equivalent of Phi Beta Kappa. His medical education was interrupted by three years spent at the Trudeau Sanitorium in the Adirondack Mountains of New York where he was treated for tuberculosis contracted from an indigent patient under his care in Rochester.

As a senior medical student at Rochester and later as a medical intern at Duke University Hospital in Durham, N.C., Clark became painfully aware that most of the indigent patients--and some of the private patients--he was seeing would not have appropriate medical supervision on their return home from the hospital. He would soon realize that millions of Americans, and especially those living in the inner cities and rural areas, did not have access to adequate medical care. Furthermore, though the medical establishment in the U.S. proudly proclaimed that medical practice in the U.S. was 'the best in the world,' there were actually many gaps, overlaps and inefficiencies in the system and there was a wide variation in quality of medical care available in various settings.

During the course of a year spent as a post graduate fellow in Pathology at Rochester, the departmental chairman called Clark in for a little chat one day. That chairman, Dr. George Whipple, was also dean of the medical school and a Nobel Laureate and he had become Clark's mentor and good friend. Whipple suggested that Clark consider a career in 'Administrative Medicine' rather than becoming a practitioner, which would give him the opportunity to influence the program thrust of any medical organization he served. Whipple cited his own personal satisfaction from his work in overseeing the operation of his school as a medical dean. He referred Clark to Dr. Basil MacLean, the Director of the University Hospital at Rochester, to explore this idea.

While Whipple was a recognized leader among the medical profession of that era, MacLean was equally well-known nationally as a university hospital director and advocate for patients. His message to Clark was, in effect: 'We university medical centers are too smug in our focus on research and teaching. We need to give greater consideration to the needs of the people around us. We should expand our thinking and point the way toward good medical care for everyone.' He offered Clark a position as his assistant at the Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester.

Whipple and MacLean thus helped Clark to launch a career that provided Dr. Clark--and his wife, Blanche--with a series of challenges and adventures in a number of settings over a 40-year period. Clark gradually became convinced that university medical centers should become central elements and catalytic forces in the development of regional medical programs providing good quality health care to all the people of their surrounding areas. He felt that this university outreach service could develop in such a way as to enhance, rather than dilute, the traditional university medical center's focus on teaching and research. In addition, with further guidance from MacLean, Dr. Clark became convinced that community hospitals could be transformed into community health centers with the capacity to study overall community needs and, in turn, become catalysts to meet those needs.

Before long, while serving as Administrator of the Division of Health Affairs at the University of North Carolina during 1950-1965, Clark sought to implement these concepts in North Carolina. In addition to his own convictions, he felt that implementation of his philosophy would fulfill the legislative mandate that had created the UNC Medical Center in the late 1940s.

While the Division of Health Affairs grew and prospered during Dr. Clark's tenure, he had little support from the Dean of the UNC Medical School or the senior administrative officers of the University in his efforts to develop the model regional medical program he envisioned. Dr. Clark left the University of North Carolina in July 1965.

Nevertheless, Clark's ideas and commitment were endorsed by a number of national leaders in medicine. He was invited to serve as a special consultant to Dr. James Shannon, Director of the National Institutes of Health, in 1965 to help to refine and implement PL 89-239. This act, which was passed by Congress in 1965, called for the creation of Regional Medical Programs across the country, with a university health center at the core of each, to help develop a more effective national health program. Later, the Connecticut Regional Medical Program which Dr. Clark directed (1966-1973) received wide recognition as the best of those programs.

Dr. Clark's 40-year professional career included full-time senior appointments at several universities (Rochester, Vanderbilt, North Carolina, Yale and Connecticut). In addition, he had a number of appointments as long-term advisor or consultant to many national and international organizations: the University of Puerto Rico, the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, the National Institutes of Health, Project Hope in Jamaica, Tuskegee, and other medical and academic institutions.

Dr. Clark retired in 1978 and he and Mrs. Clark returned to Chapel Hill in 1981 where they both have given unselfishly of their time and resources. Dr. Clark has been active in his church, has brought a fresh concept to Habitat for Humanity, and has worked toward the betterment of student life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

From the guide to the Henry T. Clark Papers, 1920s-1996, (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection.)