A resident's view of a department chairman can be quite focused or it can be diffuse, depending on the structure and characteristics of the training program. The chairman may be very visible because of his or her personal interaction with the house staff and/or because of the environment that he orchestrates. It was fortunate for me that Dr C. Henry Kempe had all these attributes and allowed me to see him as a remarkable teacher and administrator from the vantage point of a resident. As I reflect on my formative years, this "old" resident remembers the enormous influence that Dr Kempe had on me and my peers. To appreciate Dr Kempe's skills, one has to slip back to the early 1960s and recall the environment of the time.
THE ERA
This was the time of euphemistically called house officer independence, attending physician hubris, low house officer salary, flourishing research monies,