Full-time clinical department chairs: time of transition.

By the early 1950s, medical schools across the United States were in a state of major transition. Significant growth in full-time faculty and full-time clinical department chairs heralded dramatic changes in medical education and clinical research that would change American medicine. This article is a brief summary of the appointment of the first full-time chairs of clinical departments in the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, focusing on the critical period from 1952 to 1961.