Donald W. Seldin, M.D.
Donald W. Seldin, M.D.
1920-2018
The biomedical research pedigree of UT Southwestern Medical Center is as storied and accomplished as that of other prominent institutions more than twice our age. Those who lead UT Southwestern today can point to one figure who, more than anyone, was the guiding force and architect of one of the preeminent academic medical institutions in the United States: Dr. Donald W. Seldin.
The beginning of Dr. Seldin’s tenure at UT Southwestern is a tale that has been told many times throughout the years, but bears repeating. In 1951, Dr. Seldin arrived in Dallas from Yale to find a set of military barracks and a brick building in disrepair: the entire campus of UT Southwestern. By the middle of 1951, Dr. Seldin was the sole remaining full-time faculty member at UT Southwestern, and thus Chair of the Department of Medicine by default. Through community engagement and collaboration with local physicians, Dr. Seldin built the Department of Medicine upon a foundation that still underpins the strength of UT Southwestern today: its trainees. By personally selecting the most promising talent, sending them across the country to study with the best scientific minds of their time with the promise to return, Dr. Seldin’s faculty tree bloomed with distinction and accomplishment. Daniel Foster. Michael Brown. Jean Wilson. Floyd Rector. Norm Kaplan. His personal encouragement of Joseph Goldstein to study genetics instead of neurosurgery, and his suggestion of partnership with Michael Brown, culminated in their Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Throughout his 37-year tenure as Chair, Dr. Seldin never wavered in his advocacy that anchored the Department to the mission of the clinical scholar – advancing a fundamental understanding of human health, disease and its treatment via research. During the evolution of academic medicine and its increasing clinical demands, Dr. Seldin’s leadership ensured that research flourished as a key emphasis in the tripartite academic mission. He emphasized the definition of a medicine faculty as clinicians who pursued innovation, discovery of new knowledge and its transmission to others. He emphasized the intertwined relationship between research and clinical medicine, noting that “the critical observation and analysis of disease contributes both to good medical care and new knowledge.”
The list of honors achieved by Dr. Seldin during and after his chairmanship is as varied as it is long. Seven societies can lay claim to him as past president: the American Society of Nephrology, The Association of Professors of Medicine, the Association of American Physicians, the International Society of Nephrology, the Central Society for Clinical Research, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Southern Society of Clinical Investigation. Too numerous to list, his awards include the John P. Peters award from the American Society of Nephrology, the Kober Medal from the Association of American Physicians, and the Distinguished Teacher Award from the American College of Physicians.
Dr. Seldin’s belief in the moral responsibilities shouldered by those in medicine continues to reverberate and be imprinted upon our trainees. His postwar encounters with Nazi medicine, seeing medicine used to create suffering, taught him to emphasize the importance of practicing humane medicine with integrity. To this day, Dr. Seldin’s passion for discovery, his standards of professionalism and humanity, and his enthusiasm for training the next generation of physicians remains the bedrock upon which the department and university continue to build and expand.