William Parson, the eminent physician, researcher and master teacher, died in November 2002 at the age of 89 after a distinguished career spanning more than 60 years taking him from New York to New Guinea, from Asia to Africa.
He was born in New York City in 1913 to a Polish mother and a Russian father. By his 16th birthday, he had already given a piano recital at Carnegie Hall but ultimately decided on a medical career rather than one in music.
Having received his M.D. degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University in 1937, he continued his training at the Presbyterian Hospital in the late thirties followed by a position as resident physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. While there, he worked with Dr. Fuller Albright, a leader in the field of endocrinology and metabolism.
Dr. Parson’s early work in medical research described the syndrome of pseudohypoparathyroidism—probably the first description of end organ resistance causing a disease; work he performed demonstrated end organ resistance in patients with the condition to infusion of parathyroid extract, with measurement of the urine phosphorus response (Ellsworth-Howard test). In a few cases, surgery led to the finding of enlarged (rather than absent) parathyroid glands.
William Parson was appointed research assistant and instructor in medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital and worked as section head of Endocrinology at the Ochsner Clinic and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Tulane Medical School in New Orleans. In 1948 he was appointed to the chairmanship of the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Virginia; he took up the position in 1949.
In the late 1940s there were only six faculty members working in the Department of Internal Medicine but, by the time he resigned 18 years later, the Department’s faculty had increased almost seven-fold. Along the way, Dr. Parson made a number of important innovations in the Department including pooling clinical income to allow the funds to be more equitably distributed and to provide funds to allow the faculty to attend national meetings and present their research. But his greatest impact on the Department and the school was his teaching. He collaborated for many years with Professor Robert Gooch in teaching a very popular seminar in the classics for students in the college. Professor Gooch described him as “one of the most beautifully educated persons I ever knew. A remarkably accomplished speaker, his lectures to all types of audiences were finished performances, and he rarely had recourse to lantern slides or the blackboard.”
For the first time in many decades, teaching of medical students underwent considerable change on Dr. Parson’s arrival in 1949—course hours were changed, new courses were introduced, and a new emphasis was placed on interdepartmental teaching and conferences. For example, in 1950, a 16-hour course “Introduction to Medicine” was given during the first year with members of the departments of Medicine, Neurology, Psychiatry and Environmental Medicine presenting patients and discussing their physical problems, psychological adjustments and social situations. The course in Physical Diagnosis was allotted 96 hours and Mechanisms of Disease 48 hours in the second year. In the third year, students spent an eight-week clerkship on the medical wards where patient rounds and conferences were held each day with an eight-week session in the fourth year in the General Medicine clinic. Part of this time was allotted to the Blue Ridge Sanatorium where students learned about tuberculosis and how to perform a good pulmonary, musculoskeletal and genital-urinary exam. Third- and fourth-year students attended weekly medical lectures, a clinical-pathological conference, and an interdepartmental clinic where members of different departments, such as Medicine and Surgery, joined to discuss patients’ problems, such as gallbladder disease, or cancer, treated by both specialties, so that the student would develop a single unified concept of the best management of these problems.
Under William Parson, medical grand rounds became the outstanding teaching event of the week. Held each Thursday, cases were selected to illustrate some important aspect of a certain disease. A senior medical resident presented the patient’s history and the results of the examination. The patient would then be brought in to the amphitheater for an interview with Dr. Parson; in a short time, he would illuminate many aspects of the patient’s illness, life and reactions to their situation. A carefully-prepared presentation was then made by one of the faculty members to be followed by a period for questioning and general discussion. These weekly sessions were very popular and the amphitheater was filled to capacity every Thursday at noon. Each week, Dr. Parson also moderated a clinical-pathologic conference, and attendance by students, house staff and faculty was always robust. During Dr. Parson’s tenure as Chair, an important change in the training of students and house staff occurred; teaching services in all parts of the hospital were created, and all patients, “ward or private,” were designated teaching cases.
William Parson was always interested in making some meaningful evaluation of the student’s performance while on medicine and felt a written exam was not by itself adequate. Because of this, he re-instituted the oral examination for all students together with the introduction of the “exit interview” for each student upon completion of the medicine clerkship. A dedicated chairman who set high standards which he himself embraced and led by example, he was known for his ‘compassionate commitment’ to medical education.
During his tenure as Chairman, Dr. Parson was granted a sabbatical and in 1964–65 was visiting professor at the University College of Makarere in Kampala, Uganda, where the Rockefeller Foundation sponsored his work. This proved to be a turning point in his life and, during his first year back in Charlottesville in 1966, the position of chairmanship of the Department of Medicine at the Makerere University School of Medicine in Kampala became vacant. When offered the six-year appointment, he jumped at the opportunity and resigned his position at the University of Virginia. It was certainly his year as he was appointed Governor of the Virginia Chapter of the American College of Physicians in 1965/1966 around the same time.
Six years later in 1972, Dr. Parson was invited to accept a four-year extension in Kampala but declined due to pressure under the dictator Idi Amin’s attempts to drive out people of Asian descent, a policy that nearly destroyed the University and the country of Uganda over the next eight years. Subsequently, Dr. Parson spent two years in Indonesia and one in Zaire on assignments for the Rockefeller Foundation including teaching medical students in Taiwan, Mainland China, and Papua New Guinea followed by positions at Stanford University, the University of California in Berkeley and the University of Washington. When time permitted, he often returned to Charlottesville to visit friends and to teach in the Department of Medicine at the University of Virginia.
In 1993 he semi-retired to the University of Washington in Seattle and made rounds each week, including the last of his life, at the Puget Sound Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
Looking back over Dr. Parson’s life, his friends and colleagues remember him fondly—as Byrd Leavell recalls, “Dr. Parson was a man of unquestioned integrity. He was said to be very sensitive, sometimes moody and retiring, but never petty or vindictive. He set high standards and expected superior performance from his associates and students. He looked for clear thinking and clear expression, and he would tolerate no shoddy or half-hearted performances. A compliment from him was high praise indeed; an unusually honest person, he simply could not bring himself, for the sake of politeness or for any other reason, to give anyone a compliment when he did not think it was merited. An accomplished pianist, he loved music and also gardening, but cared little for sports. He was a compassionate man, perhaps a missionary of sorts. He was willing to resign his post at the University of Virginia to accept one in Uganda, a change which entailed considerable financial sacrifice for him; unquestionably he was motivated in this decision more by his feeling that he could make a significant contribution there than by any desire for new scenes.”
Dudley Anderson (Class of 1964) recalls, “William Parson demonstrated a level of expertise and commitment that distinguishes a master teacher and mentor. He exemplified the process by which compassionate medical care extends from teacher, to student, and to the patient. From the classroom to the bedside, outstanding and influential teachers instill their vision and expertise upon students who carry that mission to patients everywhere.”
Dr. Daniel Mohler, a faculty colleague and longstanding friend of Dr. Parson, says “He made a fundamentally important impression on all of us, as far as being a role model for what a physician should strive to become.”
In the year before his death, the William Parson Professorship in Teaching Excellence was created at the University of Virginia by a group of former students and colleagues in recognition of Dr. Parson’s inspired teaching at many levels and in the broadest possible sense, and also to celebrate the importance of teaching the medical sciences throughout the world. The funds from this endowed Professorship are used to attract nationally-acclaimed medical educators to visit the Department of Medicine at the University of Virginia to devote time to the residency program, during which they teach, give demonstrations and conduct a variety of innovative exercises with students and house staff. Dr. Parson is survived by his four sons Jeffrey, John, Thomas and William along with 11 grandchildren and five great grandchildren. Sadly, his wife, Buffy, died in 2003.