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DONALD SELDIN The Maestro of Medicine The inspiring biography of Donald Seldin, the physician, scientist, and academic leader who transformed the ramshackle Southwestern Medical College into a powerhouse of scientific research and patient care

Raymond S. Greenberg

Donald Seldin The Maestro of Medicine

RAYMOND S . GREENBERG

RAYMOND S. GREENBERG Houston, Texas

Greenberg is a nationally recognized cancer researcher and leader in academic medicine who served most recently as executive vice chancellor for health affairs at the University of Texas System. He is the author of Medal Winners: How the Vietnam War Launched Nobel Careers.

The University of Texas Health Press

release date | september 6 x 9 inches, 272 pages, 26 b&w photos

ISBN 978-1-4773-2075-4 $26.95* | £20.99 | C$30.95 hardcover

ISBN 978-1-4773-2077-8 $26.95* e-book No one would have blamed Donald Seldin for running away. When he arrived at Southwestern Medical College in 1951, it was a collection of hastily repurposed military shacks creaking in the wind. On practically day one he became chair of the department of medicine—when the only other full-time professors departed.

By the time he stepped down thirty-six years later, Seldin had transformed a sleepy medical college into the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center—a powerhouse of research and patient care and an anchor of the city of Dallas. Raymond Greenberg, a physician-scholar, tells Seldin’s story of perseverance and intellectual triumph. Drawing on interviews with Seldin’s trainees and colleagues—and on Seldin’s own words—Greenberg chronicles the life of the Brooklyn boy who became one of Texas’s foremost citizens and taught decades of men and women to heal. A pioneering nephrologist, Seldin devoted his career to developing the specialty; educating students, residents, and fellows; caring for patients; and nurturing basic research.

Seldin was a wildcatter in the best sense. He declined the comfortable prestige of Harvard and Yale and instead embraced a worthy challenge with an unflagging sense of mission. Graceful and richly detailed, Donald Seldon: The Maestro of Medicine captures an inspiring life of achievement and service.

Clockwise from top left: Dr. Donald Seldin at work amid his highly organized files masquerading as chaos, undated (UT Southwestern); Captain Seldin testifying at the trial of the Nazi physician Rudolf Brachtel, who was accused of cruelties and mistreatment of prisoners of war at the Dachau concentration camp, likely December 1947 (Dr. Ellen Seldin); Dr. Seldin accompanied by the largerthan-life bronze version of himself at the Seldin Plaza at UT Southwestern Medical Center (UT Southwestern); Dr. Seldin giving one of his celebrated chalkboard lectures, undated (Dr. Ellen Seldin).

Tower Books is named in honor of the University of Texas at Austin’s most prominent landmark. Acting as a consultant and publisher, the University of Texas Press partners with colleges, schools, and other divisions of the university to produce institutional histories, commemorative anniversary editions, exhibition catalogues, and similar volumes under the Tower Books imprint.