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Allegro e Appassionato


Spielberg and Mannix have been invited to attend a meeting of the DMS Student Government. Spielberg talks about an upcoming accreditation survey and the possible overhaul of a first- and second-year course called On Doctoring; feedback from students will be an essential part of that process, he reminds the group. He asks if the students have any other concerns. They would like to have a student representative on the Committee on Student Performance and Conduct (CSPC). Spielberg promises to discuss the matter with the other deans.

Wednesday, October 6, 9:00 a.m.
Spaulding Auditorium at Dartmouth College

Spielberg is slated to welcome several hundred attendees at the annual Dartmouth Symposium for Life Sciences. "This has been an incredible week in medicine," Spielberg says, sotto voce, to Department of Medicine Chair Murray Korc, M.D., as the speakers wait for the symposium to begin. Vioxx, a major anti-inflammatory, had just been pulled off the market because it was found to increase the risk of cardiovascular events (see page 3 for more on the Vioxx withdrawal). And Chiron, a British vaccine manufacturer, had shut down its production of flu vaccine because of contamination problems. "Half the vaccine in the world has disappeared," says Spielberg.

As the auditorium fills up, the audience's chatter drowns out the conversation near the stage. Spielberg laughs loudly at something that Cardiology Chief Michael Simons, M.D., has said. The topic of today's gathering is angiogenesis—the growth of new blood vessels, a process that has many promising therapeutic applications. It's Simons's research specialty, and he has assembled several world-class scientists to talk about the field.

Soon it's time for Spielberg to step on stage. "Good morning," he says. "Welcome. I'm Stephen Spielberg, dean of the Medical School. No one would argue [that] angiogenesis has become a central focus" in medicine. One of the nice aspects of being a dean, he adds, is getting to host events like this. "But one of the downsides is I have to go to meetings. So I'll be in and out." Spielberg

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The dean enjoys the ceremonial parts of his job—such as, clockwise from above, leading the academic procession at Class Day, hosting the first-year student picnic, and chatting with alumni (here, Lee Gilliatt '60) at reunions.

takes a seat in the front row and listens intently as Kari Kustaa Alitalo, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of Helsinki, talks about lymphangiogenesis. When Alitalo concludes his presentation at 10:00 a.m., Spielberg slips quietly up an outer aisle.

But early afternoon finds him back in Spaulding once more, and he stays through presentations by specialists from Scripps Research Institute and Genentech and by DMS's Korc.

Thursday, October 7, 1:50 p.m.
Emergency Department at DHMC

Spielberg has spent the morning at the Lake Morey Inn in Fairlee, Vt., attending a Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences (CECS) seminar on redesigning clinical microsystems. He's about to spend the afternoon in the DHMC Emergency Department. He and neurologist James Bernat, M.D., have been invited to lecture to a class being held here. Emergency physician Kevin Curtis, M.D., who has designed a course for Dartmouth undergraduates on clinical biomedical research, meets Bernat and Spielberg in the old DHMC emergency room and escorts them to spacious new emergency room quarters due to open the following week.

Tuesday, September 28, 10:00 a.m.
New York City

"Wow!" Spielberg can hardly contain his enthusiasm as he walks into the sparkling, unoccupied space. "Wow!"

He also bubbles with enthusiasm about the course itself—a collaboration between DMS and Dartmouth College. "I want to congratulate you," Spielberg tells the six undergraduates. "You are pioneers in this kind of course." After his presentation—about the ethics of pediatric clinical trials—one of the students stays after class to talk with him. Spielberg is clearly delighted. As everyone strolls out—through several sets of double doors, toward the parking lot—the student and Spielberg are still deep in conversation.

Monday, October 11, 9:00 a.m.
Derzon Courtyard at DMS

One of Spielberg's chief priorities is to build new research facilities on the Lebanon campus—a translational research building and a new home for CECS and the Department of Community and Family Medicine. He also hopes to renovate some of the lab space on the Hanover campus. He intends to get input about the plans from the members of the DMS Board of Overseers, who are in town for one of their semiannual meetings, but first he wants them to see the existing facilities. So he's arranged for them to tour both campuses—what he later calls "the good, the bad, and the ugly."

Spielberg talks to the Student Government about an upcoming accreditation survey and the possible overhaul of a first- and second-year course called On Doctoring; feedback from students will be an essential part of that process, he reminds the group.

Brian Edwards, DMS's director of space planning, first leads the group through labs, classrooms, auditoriums, and offices in the aging Vail and Remsen buildings on the Hanover campus; some of the spaces have seen better days but some, like the genetics labs, have been recently renovated. Then they enter Strasenburgh—a cramped structure that Spielberg likens to an upside-down submarine; built as a dormitory in the 1960s, it now houses the of- fices of Dartmouth's vaunted CECS program. "This is the seat of world-class thought," Spielberg says as the Overseers file through Strasenburgh's narrow, dark hallways. "These people have a national reputation and this is [where they] have to work."


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