A Tale of Two Legacies and the Impact of BYU’s New Medical School on Future Generations
Today (Wednesday) was my father’s 84th birthday. He died 30 years ago, so my six sisters and I have been texting about memories.
Growing up in the 70s and 80s, we thought Dad was impossibly odd whenever he poured the crumby dregs of three different cereals together into one bowl, doused the unthinkable combination with milk and ate it with a wink and the mischievous smile that displayed his dimple. After some dinners, he scooped leftover rice in a bowl, added milk, cinnamon and a little sugar and ate it like a treat.
Now we understand better that he was born at the tail end of the Great Depression, the last of four boys whose mother raised them while the young family struggled financially before better days. Lila Walch taught her sons not to throw away a butter wrapper without scraping it off to avoid waste.
Dad’s birthday — and President Russell M. Nelson’s approaching 100th birthday on Sept. 9 — have me thinking about the endowments the two have worked to leave behind for future generations.
The announcement by the First Presidency that BYU will launch a medical school prompted similar thoughts for Dr. Bob Carter, the chief of Harvard’s Neurosurgery Department.
President Nelson is the chairman of BYU’s board of trustees, so the medical school will be part of his legacy as the 17th prophet and president of the church. That will mean so much more because of the historic medical career he had before stepping away from the operating room to accept a calling as an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Dr. Carter carefully chose his words to describe what it will mean to future BYU medical students that President Nelson was the one at the head of the First Presidency and board of trustees when the medical school was announced.
“This is a very special — I won’t say a capstone; I’ll never say capstone with President Nelson because you never know what’s coming next — but a very special mark of his imprimatur, because of his legacy as a physician,” Dr. Carter said. “I find it incredibly exciting.”
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