Medical Student Affairs

University of Louisville School of Medicine introduced the Advisory Dean program in the 2007-2008 academic year.  Advisory Deans play a vital role in the transition into medical school and the development into a physician.

The duties of the Advisory Deans include both individual meeting as well as group meetings with their students.  Throughout the year, Advisory Deans advise current students on the transition into and through medical school, student wellness, study techniques, Step-1 and Step-2 preparation, interview skills, specialty choices, and other topics as they arise.  All medical students are assigned an Advisory Dean upon matriculation.  Students will remain with their Advisory Dean throughout their medical school years unless the Advisory Dean leaves their position.  Students are strongly encouraged to regularly contact their Advisory Dean with advising-related questions or concerns.  

Once each academic year, Advisory Deans meet with the Office of Medical Student Affairs and Undergraduate Medical Education to discuss any updates or changes that may have occurred over the semester prior.  According to the AAMC Graduation Questionnaire (GQ), Year Two Questionnaire (Y2Q), and Advisory Dean Survey, the Advisory Dean program has been very successful and beneficial to the students.

Current Advisory Deans

* Currently phasing out of the Advisory Dean position

The University of Louisville School of Medicine introduced the Advisory College Program in the fall of 2011. This program is designed to develop and foster relationships between classmates, as well as promote vertical relationships between students from other classes. Throughout the year, students participate in activities and events with their College to strengthen these relationships and to ensure overall wellness throughout the four years of medical school. The three largest events over the course of the academic year are the College Cup, Dinner with the Deans, and the ULSOM Outreach Day.

Upon matriculation, each incoming student is assigned to one of the six Advisory Colleges, an Advisory Dean, and a mentor from the class ahead of them.  All these supports are put in place to assist in the transition into and through medical school. 

• Moore College
• Bodine College
• Fitzbutler College
• Gross College
• Ganzel College
• Pickett College

Each college is named after either a past Dean of University of Louisville School of Medicine or a significant historical member of the medical community.

John Walker Moore, M.D. (1884-1952) gave spectacular service to the University of Louisville through stellar achievement in many arenas.  He was a beloved teacher, outstanding clinician, breakthrough cardiology investigator, and respected Dean (1929-1949), whose stewardship saved the school during times of financial crises.  His insights in education, cardiac physiology, and clinical care contribute to this day.

John Walker Moore was born in rural South Carolina to James and Hattie Moore in 1884.  After local primary education, he graduated from North Carolina’s Davidson College in 1906.  After preliminary medical work at the University of North Carolina, he finished his M.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1912.  He joined UofL as Instructor in pathology and bacteriology in 1915.  In the first World War, he served from 1917 to 1919 at the U.S. Army Hospital Center in Nantes, France, where he directed the laboratory services, and where he met his wife, Anna Kent Moore.  On return to UofL, he rose rapidly as the first full-time Internal Medicine faculty member, Professor of Medical Research (1920), and Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine (1923).  Although thoroughly knowledgeable in advanced laboratory sciences, his teaching emphasized importance of bedside history and examination skills in patient care.  An astute diagnostician, he was renowned for making challenging diagnoses from tiny clues.  Walking down a Louisville General Hospital ward with his students, he heard a patient cough, and exclaimed that the sound characteristics indicated the patient to have an aortic aneurysm caused by syphilis, which subsequently proved correct.   Deeply committed to advancing the art of education, he organized the UofL clinical experience into teaching teams, a substantially more effective program that he called the Student Preceptor System.  He advocated this nationally, which led to widespread acceptance and Presidency of the American Association of Medical Colleges (1946).

Dr. Moore’s landmark research contribution was development of the dye/indicator dilution measurement of cardiac output in humans.  Based on theories of Adolf Fick, M.D. of Würzburg and animal studies by George Stewart, Ph.D. at Western Reserve University, Moore developed the first accurate human cardiac output measurement.  These studies became a milestone in cardiology history, which began with William Harvey’s 1628 discovery of circulation and led to today’s sophisticated cardiac care.  His laboratory team included UofL’s outstanding physiologist, William Hamilton, Ph.D., surgeon R. Glenn Spurling, M.D., and internist J. Murray Kinsman, M.D.  All would achieve distinguished careers, with Dr. Spurling becoming a pioneering UofL neurosurgeon, and Dr. Kinsman becoming an effective UofL medical Dean following Dr. Moore.

Dr. Moore was appointed the first full-time medical Dean at UofL in 1929, and he provided essential leadership in an era of sparse resources.  He was tireless in endeavors to attract State funding for the school (then supported only locally), and he achieved this as a first in 1948.  His 20-year Deanship brought great expansion of UofL’s full-time medical faculty, effective curricular revisions, and the first UofL medical research institute.  Throughout all of this, teaching was always his highest priority, and he was beloved by students.

After Dr. Moore’s 1952 death, Dr. Kinsman praised Dr. Moore’s intolerance of dishonesty, selfishness and pettiness; his constant good nature; and his reputation of being “beloved, as well as respected.”  The School of Medicine is proud of the legacy of Dr. John Walker Moore, and has named this college in his honor.

- Gordon R. Tobin, M.D.

James Morrison Bodine, M.D. (1831-1915) was the longest-serving Dean of the University of Louisville, a highly acclaimed teacher, and a most picturesque character in Kentucky medical history.  In a school known for great anatomists, he was among the most renowned, and his pioneering studies on eye anatomy helped found the specialty of ophthalmology.  During his 40-year UofL Deanship, his remarkable leadership skills brought great curricular improvements and guided the School of Medicine though turbulent times to create the modern UofL.

James Bodine was born in Fairfield, in Nelson County, Kentucky, on October 2, 1831.  His father, Dr. Alfred Bodine, and mother, Fannie Maria Ray Bodine, came from distinguished pioneer families and were known for great intelligence and character.  After primary education in Fairfield, he graduated from Hanover College in Indiana.  He began medical studies as an apprentice to Professor Henry M. Bullitt, M.D., a founder of the Kentucky School of Medicine in Louisville, and he graduated from that school in March 1854.  He married Mary Elizabeth Crowe in December 1855, and they moved to the Kansas territory.  There, his practice thrived, and he established the first hospital in the territory.  Also, he was elected the first President of the Kansas Territory Medical Society.  In 1863, he returned to Louisville when appointed Chair of Anatomy in the Kentucky School of Medicine, where he demonstrated outstanding teaching skills.  In 1866, the Kentucky School of Medicine and University of Louisville Medical Department temporarily merged.  Although this lasted only a year, Bodine remained at UofL as Chair of Anatomy, a position he served until 1912.  His outstanding teaching style was most respected by students for its clarity and force, which greatly aided their retention of the subject matter.  His pioneering research in anatomy of the eye helped found the field of ophthalmology, which he practiced along with a prestigious general medical practice.  He was elected as the eighth Dean of the University of Louisville faculty in 1867, and his diplomacy and administrative skills kept him in that office throughout the turbulent times of the next 40 years.  Over that period, he oversaw substantial educational changes, including expansion of formal medical education from 2 to 4 years, and incorporation of scientific fundamentals into the medical curriculum.

In 1876, his vision to improve instruction and advance standards of medical education through a national association of medical schools led to his calling the Nation’s deans together and the founding of the American Medical College Association.  When the organization later dissolved, he founded the Association of Southern Medical Colleges for the same purpose, and he served as its first President, with re-election to several terms.  When opportunity for a national organization of medical colleges again emerged, he lent strong support in establishing the Association of American Medical Colleges and served as President in 1896, following William Osler, M.D.

In 1907 through 1909, his leadership and diplomacy skills again served in guiding merger of Louisville’s five medical schools into one, the modern University of Louisville.  Recognition of this significant contribution came in form of election as President of the merged faculty, a position he held until retirement in 1913.  The University and city he served so well expressed great accolades upon his retirement, and again on his death in 1915.  The School of Medicine is proud of the legacy of Dr. James Morrison Bodine, and has named this college in his honor.

- Gordon R. Tobin, M.D.

William Henry Fitzbutler, M.D. (1842-1901), known as Henry, and his wife Sarah McCurdy Fitzbutler, M.D. (1847-1922) stand foremost among Louisville physician-educators, and community leaders.  Henry Fitzbutler was born December 22, 1842 in Virginia, where his enslaved father was a coachman, and his mother was an indentured servant from England.  In the early 1840s, his parents fled by the Underground Railroad to Amherstburg in Essex County, Canada.  Henry showed outstanding scholarship in preliminary education, and he became interested in medicine.  He read extensively in books borrowed from Daniel Pearson, M.D., an ex-slave physician with an extensive medical library, and he took a medical preceptorship with Dr. Pearson.  He then entered Adrian College in 1864 to take preparatory courses.  In 1866, he married Sarah Helen McCurdy, daughter of a prominent Essex County livestock farmer, and granddaughter of a successful Pennsylvania African-American farmer.  In 1869, Henry became the first African-American graduate of the Detroit Medical College.  He continued at the University of Michigan School of Medicine and became its first African-American graduate in 1872.  A fine graduation thesis on cardiology displayed his intellectual discipline and skills.  After graduation, the Fitzbutlers and their three young children moved to Louisville, where no African-American physicians were available to serve 18,000 Louisville African-Americans.

Henry became Louisville’s first African-American physician, and his medical practice thrived.  The Fitzbutlers also became active in promoting equal educational opportunities for African-Americans while opposing segregated schools.  As the four other medical schools in Louisville were closed to African-Americans, Fitzbutler secured a charter from the Kentucky Legislature in 1888 to organize a medical school that would accept African-Americans, the Louisville National Medical College.  He led the school as Dean and majority owner for the rest of his life, and it provided physicians essential for the African-American community.  It became the best United States African-American medical college, and the only one owned and operated entirely by African-Americans.  To advance the Fitzbutlers’ intense involvement in social and political issues, Henry founded, edited and published the Ohio Falls Express, a newspaper focused on the African-American community.  He served as the paper’s Editor-in-Chief until his death, and he made it a relentless advocate of equality, human rights, and education for all.

After their six children were raised, Sarah Helen McCurdy Fitzbutler entered the Louisville National Medical College and became the first African-American female to receive a medical degree in Kentucky.  She achieved an outstanding reputation, especially in

Obstetrics and Pediatrics.  She became superintendent of the College’s auxiliary hospital on Madison Street, and also supervised the nursing program at the College.  Her intellect, energy, and courage matched that of her husband, and they became influential and effective community forces for progress, education, and human rights, and medical care for all.  After Henry’s death in 1901, she continued leadership in the Louisville National Medical College and its Hospital until their 1912 closure.  Abraham Flexner’s historic 1909 inspection tour of medical schools and their facilities found her Hospital to be one of the cleanest and best run in the country.  She also pursued an exhausting medical practice that provided enormous amounts of charity care in West Louisville.  In 1922, Sarah Fitzbutler died in Chicago, where she had moved to be with family in her later years.  Dr. William Henry and Dr. Sarah McCurdy Fitzbutler left legacies as shining examples of courageous achievement in medicine, education, and human equality.

- Gordon R. Tobin, M.D.

In the 1840s, the newly founded University of Louisville attracted an outstanding faculty that was second to none anywhere in the world.  Among that faculty, Samuel David Gross, MD (1805-1884) would achieve the greatest national and international acclaim, and he would come to rank among the greatest surgeons of the 19th century.

Samuel Gross was born near Easton, Pennsylvania, to a farm family whose first language was Pennsylvania Dutch, a German dialect. His early interest in medicine was frustrated by lack of basic education, so his early mentor, Dr. Joseph Swift, sent him for classical studies before bringing him back as his apprentice. Swift then directed Gross to complete formal medical training.  Gross chose Philadelphia’s Jefferson Medical College because of luminary professors John Eberle, MD, in medicine, and George McClellan, MD, in surgery. Gross graduated in 1828 and returned to Easton for practice.  There, Gross showed his scientific spirit, rare in those times, by constructing a laboratory behind his home to regularly engage in anatomic dissections and in medical experimentation. Aspirations to teach anatomy were fulfilled in 1833, when his mentor, John Eberle, MD, became Professor at Cincinnati’s Medical College of Ohio, and appointed Gross as anatomy demonstrator.  Jealousy from the Anatomy Chair redirected him to the nearby Cincinnati College Medical Department, which had just been founded by Daniel Drake, MD.  There, Gross and Drake would establish mutual admiration and a lifelong friendship.  In 1839, Gross published Elements of Pathological Anatomy, which gained wide acclaim, including praise from the great German pathologist Rudolf Virchow, MD.  The Cincinnati College’s Medical Department collapsed in 1839, and Drake was recruited to the newly founded Louisville Medical Institute that year.  Gross followed in 1840.

Alongside his surgery professorship, Gross established a robust practice at St. Vincent Infirmary, then on Jefferson Street, which later became St. Joseph’s Infirmary.  He was a technical master and a fanatic on cleanliness. Before Pasteur had discovered the germ theory of disease, Gross believed surgical infections to be caused by yet unknown pathogens transmitted on surgeons’ hands and instruments.  His U of L tenure lasted 16 years, except for one year in New York. During those years, Gross and colleagues raised U of L to an exceptional international reputation.  He was as outstanding teacher and gave dramatic, highly interesting lectures and rounds.  Gross established the first U of L experimental laboratory in the new medical school basement to study intestinal wounds. The fleas brought by his canine “subjects” spread building-wide and drew much commentary from faculty and students. However, these experiments produced a classic surgery textbook in 1843, An Experimental and Critical Inquiry Into the Nature and Treatments of Wounds of the Intestines. His subsequent classic, widely read books were on diseases and injuries of the bladder, prostate and urethra in 1851, and on foreign bodies in the air passages in 1854. Much of the work on his great, two-volume System of Surgery (1859) was done in Louisville.

He was a founder and third President of the Kentucky State Medical Association. An avid historian, his research on pioneer Kentucky surgeon Ephraim McDowell, M.D., made a memorable contribution by making known McDowell’s historic first abdominal operation. Gross and his wife became civic leaders and were popular in leading social circles. In the deplorable, anti-immigrant, voter suppression, Bloody Monday riots of 1855, Unitarian Gross joined his friend, Mayor John Barbie, in saving the Cathedral of the Assumption from a bigoted mob intent on burning it.

In 1856, Gross left to become Chair of Surgery at his alma mater, Jefferson Medical College. At Jefferson, Gross’ career and reputation continued to prosper. He helped found the American Surgical Association and twice became American Medical Association President, first in 1868, and again at the 1875 Louisville meeting. At the AMA, he helped to transform the AMA Transactions into the modern Journal of the American Medical Association. In 1875, artist Thomas Eakins painted The Gross Clinic, a masterpiece of realism that shows Gross commanding an amphitheater surgery and teaching in his dramatic style.  In 1884, Gross died in Philadelphia at age 78. He stands among the finest master surgeons and medical educators of all time, and he contributed enormously to the fine reputation of the young University of Louisville.

- Gordon R. Tobin, M.D.

Dr. Toni Ganzel, MD, MBA, is a distinguished leader in academic medicine who served as the twenty-fourth Dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Louisville, marking a historic moment as the first woman to hold this role. Her journey at UofL began in 1983 when she joined as an Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology. Over the next four decades, Dr. Ganzel rose through the academic ranks, becoming a Full Professor in 1996, Division Director of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery in 1993, and Associate Dean for Student Affairs in 2001. In 2012, she was appointed Interim Dean and became the permanent Dean in 2013. In 2020, she was also appointed Vice President for Academic Medical Affairs.

Dr. Ganzel earned her undergraduate degree in Microbiology from the University of Nebraska, followed by a Doctor of Medicine and residency in Otolaryngology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. She furthered her education with an MBA in Medical Group Management from the University of Saint Thomas in Minneapolis. Her extensive qualifications are complemented by her fellowships in the American College of Surgeons and Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM).

Throughout her tenure, Dr. Ganzel led the School of Medicine through a transformative period, significantly advancing its educational programs and clinical practices. She played a pivotal role in reforming the undergraduate medical education curriculum, implementing innovative programs such as the nation’s first eQuality Program to teach LGBTQ health competencies, and establishing a four-year Health Equity Curriculum. Her efforts also included creating four new Medical Student Distinction Tracks in Medical Education, Global Health, Business and Leadership, and Health Equity & Medical Justice, alongside the existing Distinction Track in Research.  Under Dr. Ganzel’s decanal leadership, the school transformed its undergraduate medical education program; strengthened student support systems; expanded faculty and staff development, became a national leader in environmental health, promoted a culture of inclusive excellence and actively engaged with community partners towards improved health and health equity. 

Dr. Ganzel’s leadership extended beyond education to clinical and community impact. She spearheaded the creation of a unified physician practice and the launch of UofL Health, while also establishing a clinical partnership with Norton Healthcare for pediatric care. Her guidance was crucial during the COVID-19 pandemic, where the School of Medicine served as a vital resource for testing, treatment, and research.

Dr. Ganzel's leadership has been marked by a commitment to inclusivity, compassionate care, and excellence in education and research. She has been a source of inspiration and mentorship for countless medical professionals and leaves a lasting legacy of positive impact and progress in academic medicine.

Alice Newcomb Pickett, M.D. (1878-1971) was the first woman faculty member at the University of Louisville, and the most beloved physician of the era by patients, students, and peers.  She was a pioneer in obstetrics who served as Chief of the UofL obstetrical service for over 25 years.  She guided her field through times of enormous changes, and she brought great care improvement for women and their newborns.

Alice Pickett was born December 22, 1878 into a Kentucky farming family near Shelbyville.  At a time when women were thoroughly discouraged from becoming physicians, her parents and a schoolteacher supported her early aspirations to study medicine.  In that era, medical students often obtained cadavers for anatomic education by surreptitiously robbing graves.  Alice and some like-minded high school classmates set out to do the same, until stopped by her alarmed father.  He then purchased a skeleton for her to learn anatomy in a more acceptable manner.

After high school and college, she taught briefly in a Shelbyville private school, but her desire to become a physician took her to the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, from which she graduated in 1909.  After internship, she practiced briefly in Columbus, Mississippi, before pursuing obstetrics residency training in New York and Philadelphia, and further post-graduate obstetrics studies at the New York Lying-in Hospital.  During World War I, she served as a volunteer civilian physician with the Red Cross in France for over a year.  Upon returning, she modestly said, “if I have anything to contribute, I want to give it to Kentucky.”  She then came to Louisville to establish an obstetrics practice and to teach obstetrics at the University of Louisville School of Medicine.  Her skill, compassion, and personal kindness brought enormous respect and affection from patients, students, and peers, and she rose to become Chief of Obstetrics at the University of Louisville, a position she held for over 25 years.

Although gentle and reserved, she could act decisively when necessary.  When a late-term expectant mother with heart disease suddenly died at the Louisville General Hospital, there was no time to send for instruments.  She asked for a pocket knife from one of her students, and rapidly performed a Cesarean section that saved the baby.  Her commitment to teaching was intense, and she inspired exceptional admiration from her students, many of whom were drawn into obstetrics by her leadership.  She was affectionately called “Ma Pickett”, and students continued to correspond with her for years after their graduation.

As a community medical leader, she established local and statewide clinics for prenatal care and birth control, and she wrote many articles and a regular column for the Journal of the Kentucky State Medical Association.  After 38 years of faculty service, Louisville’s esteemed “Great Lady of Medicine” retired in 1952.  At her retirement testimonial, a colleague proclaimed her to be “…one of the best practical psychiatrist I have ever seen.  Her patients displayed toward her an affection and depth of feeling I have never seen associated with any other doctor.”  She received many such accolades, always with exceptional humility and modesty.  The voluminous outpouring of respect and affection for her continued even after her death in 1971.  The School of Medicine is proud of the legacy of Dr. Alice N. Pickett and has named this college in her honor.

- Gordon R. Tobin, M.D.