UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #709
HARKNESS, DONALD R.

HARKNESS, Donald R. (1932- )
Love Professor of Medicine
At UW: 1980-1999

Interviewed: 2005	
Interviewer: Ann Peckham
Length: 1 hour, 57 minuets

Family background; Education in Tokyo; College years; Marriage; Washington University School of Medicine; Research; National Institute of Health; University of Miami Department of Medicine; University of Wisconsin Department of Medicine; Department chairmanship; Health maintenance organizations; Students; University Committee; Radiation Effects Research Foundation; Assistant Dean for Continuing Medical Education.

First Interview Session (March 10, 2005): Tape 1

00:00:38	Donald R. Harkness was born during the depression in Mitchell, South Dakota. He talks about his parents, who had been missionaries in Mozambique.  He lived in Mitchell for five years before moving to a small town east of Pierre.  During the Second World War, DH moved with his family to California, where his father served as superintendent of schools in a Japanese relocation camp.

00:02:27	After the war, his father worked in the civil administration in Japan.  DH and his mother went to Japan in June 1947.  He attended high school in Tokyo, where he excelled in athletics.  He planned to return to the US to play college football.

00:05:52	He attended college at the University of California at Berkeley, where he walked on to the football team.

00:09:10	During the summer he suffered a back injury at work and was unable to play football thereafter.

00:10:20	DH became interested in endocrinology research.

00:11:26	His football connections earned him a scholarship to the medical school at Washington University in St. Louis.

00:12:50	DH met his wife, Mary, while at Berkeley; they were both zoology majors and worked in the same research laboratory.  They married before both attended medical school at Washington University.

00:16:52	He attributes his interest in biochemistry research to the presence of three Nobel laureates on the faculty.  He conducted research in hematology, although he was incapacitated for six weeks by major back surgery.

00:20:28	DH was drawn to hematology because it was one of the earliest areas in medicine that was open to biochemistry research.  He describes the research of the head of the hematology team, Bill Harrington, for whom DH worked.  He talks at length about idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura.

00:26:24	He graduated at the top of his class in 1958; both he and his wife remained in St. Louis for their internships, during which time they had their first child.

00:28:15	DH was offered a position as a Research Associate in Bethesda, Maryland.  The draft board sent him to the public health service, where he worked for four years doing biochemical research at the National Institute of Health; his wife did her residency in pediatrics in Washington, D.C.

00:29:53	End of side.

00:30:07	Donald Harkness continues to talk about moving to Bethesda, Maryland.

00:31:56	He describes the research associate program at the National Institute of Health.

00:32:53	DH worked with Dr. Leon A. Heppel for two years at the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases.  He talks about Heppel's research.

00:36:26	He then worked with Dr. Earl Stadtman at the National Heart Institute.

00:37:20	Dr. Bill Harrington persuaded DH to join him on the faculty of the department of medicine at the University of Miami.  His wife opened a practice in Miami with another pediatrician.  DH set up a biochemistry laboratory.

00:40:29	He and his family moved to Miami in 1964.  As a consequence of revelations about the Tuskegee experiments, the NIH required that medical schools organize human studies committees; DH took up responsibility for assembling such a committee at Miami.

00:42:50	DH became chief of hematology at the veterans hospital.

00:43:50	He describes his research on the physiology of red blood cells.

00:49:00	He relates his candidacy for the chair of medicine at Miami, which gave him some publicity among other medical schools.  DH became interested in coming to the University of Wisconsin because of its strength in biochemistry research.  He relates his time in the Enzyme Institute in Madison in the 1960s.

00:53:45	He was also attracted to UW by the proximity of the medical school to research labs on campus.  He brought a colleague with him from Miami in order to establish a new research lab, but the demands of being chair of medicine led to the closure of that lab within two years.  Thereafter, DH devoted his time to being a full-time administrator.

00:55:40	One of the members of the search committee that hired DH found a job for his wife.

00:57:35	He talks about paying for his children’s education.

01:00:18	End of side.  End of tape.

01:00:30	Donald Harkness was the first external recruit to the chairmanship of the department of medicine at the University of Wisconsin. 

01:02:24	DH recommended that the department fund part-time positions that would split appointments between the VA hospital and the department of medicine.

01:06:18	He served as chair for fourteen years.  During his tenure, the department developed a full-time section of emergency medicine and geriatrics and changed the trauma and life support unit.

01:10:06	DH worked with Chancellor Irving Shain to recruit a cardiologist and his research team in cardiology.

01:11:26	He recruited a physician to work in nuclear medicine.

01:13:04	In 1983, the state of Wisconsin mandated that all employees be offered the option of joining an HMO in order to contain inflation in health care costs.  He chaired a department of medicine committee that developed the original UCare HMO.  These health care developments played a large part in developing clinical services at the University Hospital.

Second Interview Session (March 14, 2005): Tape 2

00:00:20	The development of health maintenance organizations (HMOs) were instrumental in preserving a patient base for teaching purposes at the University Hospital.  DH credits Gordon Derzon with the foresight for developing HMOs as well as a network of clinics outside the University Hospital.

00:02:40	DH describes the increasing complexity in the evaluation and classification of medical school faculty.  When he first became an assistant professor, departments were very small and all faculty were on a tenure track.  Medicare and Medicaid assisted increases in faculty numbers, but the requirements for promotion became more stringent in both the tenure track and the new Center for Health Science (CHS) track.  DH realized that faculty on the CHS track would not have time to develop a resume sufficient to be promoted to full professor.  As a result, he proposed that the department be authorized to hire full-time clinical faculty members.

00:05:50	DH met with junior faculty each spring to discuss their teaching and research; he ensured that faculty would have sufficient time and resources to pursue their research.

00:08:45	He describes his interaction with students.

00:10:48	DH served on the University Committee for three years from 1988 to 1991.

00:12:40	Thereafter he served as chairman of the PROFS, Inc. executive committee.

00:13:20	End of side.

00:13:30	Donald Harkness describes his negotiations with the cardiology section over its movement to become a separate department.  An outside advisory committee recommended new leadership for the section.

00:15:30	He describes the recruitment of the new medical school dean, Lawrence Marton, who delayed his appointment for a year.  

00:18:35	Marton formed an advisory committee of the department heads.

00:20:00	DH decided to step down as chair of the department of medicine and ended his term as chair in 1993.

00:21:00	He became director of the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima, Japan, in 1993.  DH describes the genesis of the Foundation after the Second World War.

00:23:00	Patients who survived the atomic bomb explosions had low doses of radiation.  DH goes on to talk about some of the research findings of the Foundation.

00:32:17	He talks about living in Japan from 1993 to 1995.

00:33:14	Upon his return to Wisconsin, DH served as assistant dean for Continuing Medical Education.  He found this work unfulfilling and decided to retire.

00:36:26	He continues to teach hematology to medical students.

00:37:01	He served on the board of the Institute on Aging and as president of the Friends of the Waisman Center.

00:37:55	DH serves as a mentor and career counselor for medical students.

00:41:10	End of interview.

END