To the editor,

Dolph Simons addressed the problems at the Kansas University Medical Center in his Saturday column on July 6. He described the problems as lack of leadership and investment.

However, there may be an underlying issue with regard to the movement of top doctors and researchers from KUMC. Most of them do not have strong Kansas ties. I believe we can date the change in priorities and permanence to the loss of former Chancellor Franklin Murphy who left as dean of the medical school to become chancellor in the mid-’50s. A native Kansan who vowed to make KU the “Harvard on the Kaw,” he had a loyal faculty of fellow Kansans like Drs. Mahlon Delp and Max Allen, who taught and trained a talented group of residents who went on to teach both in Kansas City and Wichita.

The playing field changed when the struggle for financing was complicated by federal grants and affirmative action. There were concerns that the medical school faculty was plagued by inbreeding and that the university must recruit scholars and researchers from other schools to stay on the cutting edge of research and instruction.

Right or wrong, people who are not committed to Kansas will find reasons to move in this mobile society. They also may bring values that are counter to the Midwest mind-set and that may contribute to the perception of a dysfunctional family with a blurred mission. The university should be the University for Kansas as well as the University of Kansas.

Dr. Bud Gollier,

Ottawa