Entry Category: Practitioners

Eugene Jonas Towbin moved to Arkansas in 1955 to work at the Veterans Administration (VA) Hospital. He was a pioneer in the field of geriatric medicine, and his influence brought the first Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center (GRECC) in the country to Arkansas. He was instrumental in obtaining funding for the John L. McClellan Memorial Veterans Hospital in Little Rock (Pulaski County) and was one of the founders of the geriatrics program at what is now the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). He also supported cultural events and organizations in the Little Rock area. Eugene Towbin was born in New York City on September 18, 1918, to Russian Jewish immigrants Morris and Elena Towbin. He attended public …

Harry P. Ward, M.D., in his twenty-one-year tenure as chancellor, was credited with changing the University of Arkansas School of Medicine from a small teaching institution and charity hospital to a major health center known as the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). He led UAMS through major expansions of facilities and programs as it became a leader in education, patient care, and research. Harry Pfeffer Ward was born on June 6, 1933, in Pueblo, Colorado, the second of three sons of Dr. Lester Ward and Alysmai Ward. His father was a family practitioner, and Ward frequently accompanied him on house calls and always said he wanted to be a doctor. He attended public schools and then graduated magna …

In the late nineteenth century, physician William Blackwell Welch was a leader in the movement to modernize medicine in Arkansas. A cofounder and first president of the Arkansas Medical Society (AMS), he later led the effort to establish a city hospital in Fayetteville (Washington County). W. B. Welch was born on December 9, 1828, in Scottsville, Kentucky, to Christopher A. Welch, who was a farmer, and his wife, Elizabeth Lyles Welch. In 1829, his family, which eventually included two brothers and three sisters, moved to Somerville, Alabama. He attended schools in Huntsville, Alabama, and studied medicine under his older brother. After graduating from Tennessee’s University of Nashville medical department (later merged with the Vanderbilt University Medical School) in 1849, he …