By Rachel Haynie 

His commitment to healthcare for all South Carolinians pulled Dr. Donald E. Saunders Jr. into a controversial fray that through the ’60s and ’70s was political fodder for law –makers, physicians, and the media.

 The result of that controversy was the founding of the USC School of Medicine. The first class of students entered in 1976 as SC was celebrating the nation’s bicentennial. Saunders supported the school’s founding and taught there for much of his expansive career.

 Now the retired physician and medical educator has published a book, setting to paper his insider’s view of the campaign for the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. His title, To Improve the Health of the People... is taken from the medical school’s mission statement. That statement concludes with … “through medical education, research, and the delivery of health care.”

 Saunders acknowledges his presentation is as much memoir as history. “The narrative is filtered through my memory rather than being based only upon historical research.” His involvement is a taut thread running through the founding years to the medical school’s initial accreditation, closing with its solid status in 2004 when Saunders’ book entered the publishing phase.

Dr. Donald Saunders signs a book for Jane Williams of the USC School of Medicine Development.  The magna cum laude graduate of USC drew upon the English side of his double major, the other being chemistry, in converting his career–spanning collection of newspaper clippings, speeches, essays, position papers, and other research. Employing a chronological treatment, Saunders created a concisely readable book that traces the campaign for a second medical university from its rumblings. Late in the book, he views the 21st century outcomes.

 Powerful Greenville and Charleston factions opposed creation of a second medical university for SC, in part because it was to be based in the capital city. Saunders was among the visionaries to whom the numbers spoke, explaining how SC ranked so low on so many health lists. Preparing more doctors was viewed as a way of improving the state’s vital statistics, and improved rankings bear out the accuracy of those early projections.

 In his introduction, Saunders credits the help of many in bringing the book into print. A 2001 interview with Dr. William Adams Smith, who in 1972 was USC vice president for health affairs then became the first dean, was arranged by Dr. Thomas Borg, first admissions director. That same year Saunders interviewed the late John Carl West who, as governor, signed the 1974 $391,000 appropriation bill that began the USC School of Medicine.

 Saunders also notes that Dr. Winona Vernberg helped by gathering papers attendant to the founding of the Arnold School of Public Health. Vernberg was the first female dean of that school.

 Dr. Stanley Fowler provided Saunders information about current USC School of Medicine projects. Saunders was generous in his thanks to many others who assisted in the editorial and administrative aspects of the publishing process.

 Two other histories of medical education in SC came before Saunders’ 2005 publishing. In 1970, Dr. Kenneth M. Lynch authored Medical Schooling in SC; Chief Medical Librarian Tom Lange along with Julie Johnson McGowan wrote, but did not publish, School of Medicine – University of South Carolina.

 Saunders’ index is a thumbnail sketch of the players, on both offense and defense, in the bid to establish SC’s second medical university. Personalizing the campaign as he did in his book rounds out the history of one of the state’s most important strides toward a healthier populace.

 Saunders introduced his book recently to the Monday Lunch Club at Nonnah’s.

 Hard and soft– bound copies are available at Happy Bookseller, other area bookstores, and at Carol Saunders Gallery in The Historic Vista. Carol Saunders, the author’s wife, is recognized along with the couple’s children in the fronticepiece.

In his new book, To Improve the Health of the People, Dr. Donald Saunders says he believes SC can and should compete with anyone. He offers up four living Nobel Prize winners as both motivation and opportunity: Greenville native Dr. Charles H. Townes, 1964 Physics prize; Charleston born Dr. Robert F. Furchgott, 1998 Medicine Prize; Sumter born Dr. Joseph L. Goldstein, 1985 Medicine Prize, and Columbia–reared Dr. Kary B. Mullis, 1993 Chemistry Prize. The University of South Carolina School of Medicine is dedicated to the goals of preparing students in the art and science of medicine and providing them with a background for further post-graduate training in a variety of fields of medicine. The four-year curriculum consists of basic science courses and clerkships in applied clinical medicine.

www.med.sc.edu