Wilder Penfield on William Osler

While researching the works of Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield I found a rather moving tribute by him to William Osler, aptly titled “Hero Worship”. By moving tribute, I mean fangirling over an extraordinary physician, writer, etc. which leads me to wonder if Dr. Penfield were alive, would he want my Sir William Osler: A ‘Stach Through History desktop wallpaper? Sadly this delightful article is not under public domain but can be found in the Archives of Internal Medicine for those who have institutional access.

Sir William Osler devoted his mind to medical education, to the study of clinical problems and to the lore of medical history. In all those fields he was a distinguished leader, and yet it is not altogether because of these qualities of the intellect that Osler Societies have sprung up in so many parts of the English-speaking world, chiefly composed of students or of young physicians. The unique quality of this man had to do with the “heart.”

I would have you see him, through the eyes of the previously quoted undergraduate, as “the least sentimental, the most helpful, most lovable,” teacher of medicine. He belongs to medical students of all time, as Lincoln belongs to common men everywhere, a man who grew to be what he was by dint of hard work, and in whose footsteps any under-graduate may dare to “hope and dream” that he may follow.

Penfield, W. (1949). “Hero Worship.” Archives of Internal Medicine 84(1): 104-109.