Skip to main content.

1990-1999

Aerial view, 1990.

Aerial view, 1990.

February 27, 1990: Jameson Forster, M.D., director of KU Medical Center's Liver Transplant Program, successfully performs the first liver transplant in Kansas.

1990: James G. Price, M.D., is appointed executive dean of the KU School of Medicine.

1990: Kirmayer Fitness Center opens.

1990: KU Medical Center's Rehabilitation Unit becomes the only one in Greater Kansas City and Kansas accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities.

1990: Santiago Grisolia, M.D., Ph.D., Sam Roberts Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry, receives the Principe de Asturias Award for Science and Technology from the Prince of Spain.

1990: KU Medical Center researchers, led by James Cook, M.D., professor of medicine and director of the International Center for Control of Anemia, develop a new iron supplement that was absorbed three times better, with fewer side effects, than supplements that were currently in use.

1990: KU Medical Center is the first institution in the Midwest to use microplates made of vitallium in craniofacial surgery.

1990: Bartender and local legend Jimmy Bowers retires from Jimmy's Jigger and is given a Meritorious Service Award by KU Medical Center.

September 23, 1991: Norman Estes, M.D., KU Medical Center surgeon, with M.M. Butts, M.D., performs the first two laparoscopic cholecystectomy surgeries in Kansas at the Clay County Hospital.

October 1, 1991: KU Medical Center receives a $2.8 million grant from the National Institute on Aging to create an Alzheimer's Disease Center. KU Medical Center was one of only 12 institutions in the United States to be awarded this grant.

1991: Joseph C. Meek, M.D., is appointed dean of the KU School of Medicine-Wichita.

1991: The team of Gerald Kerby, M.D., professor of medicine, Linda Mayer, RN, and Susan Pingleton, M.D., are the first in the United States to develop a nasal mask ventilator that allowed patients with diseases that weaken breathing muscles to breathe more efficiently and comfortably.

1991: John A. Ferraro, Ph.D, associate dean and chair of the Department of Hearing and Speech, is appointed acting dean of the School of Allied Health.

1992: Lydia Wingate, Ph.D., is appointed dean of the School of Allied Health and serves until 1997.

September 1, 1993: The Sutherland Institute, led by John Hiebert, M.D., a unique facility for physical and facial reconstruction and rehabilitation, is dedicated.

1993: Sebastian Faro, M.D., Ph.D., is appointed interim dean of the KU School of Medicine.

1993: The Kansas Primary Nurse Practitioner Program is established.

1994: Charles E. Andrews, M.D., serves as executive vice chancellor until February 1995.

1994: Daniel Hollander, M.D., is appointed dean of the KU School of Medicine.

1994: The School of Nursing establishes a faculty practice plan incorporated as the KU School of Nursing Corporation, allowing nursing faculty to spend a portion of their time to maintain their clinical skills and financially contribute to the School of Nursing.

February 1995: Al Chapman, Ph.D., serves as executive vice chancellor until September 1995.

July 1, 1995: Rita Clifford, RN, Ph.D., is appointed acting dean of the KU School of Nursing.

October 5, 1995: The first pallidal stimulation in the United States for the treatment of Parkinson's disease is performed at KU Medical Center by Steven Wilkinson, M.D., and William Koller, M.D.

1995: Herbert Swick, M.D., is appointed interim and acting dean of the KU School of Medicine.

1995: The University of Kansas Hospital is the first in the Kansas City area to perform matched unrelated donor (MUD) bone marrow transplantation.

1995: The Wichita Campus begins its first major expansion, with construction starting on the Kansas Health Foundation Center for Primary Care and the Daniel K. Roberts Center for Research.

1995: Ed LeCluyse, Ph.D., becomes one of the few researchers in the United States to successfully grow human liver cells in a Petri dish long term. The technique allows cell biologists their first look at liver function on a cellular level to see how drugs are deactivated in the body and what causes liver failure.

1995: Virologist Bill Narayan, DVM, Ph.D., Marion Merrell-Dow Distinguished Professor and director of the Laboratories for Viral Pathogenesis at KU Medical Center, draws worldwide attention when he succeeds in developing a virus, KU SHIV, which causes AIDS in monkeys. This breakthrough speeds the development of new vaccines and drugs to fight AIDS:

Joag SV, Li Z, Foresman L, Pinson DM, Raghavan R, Zhuge W, Adany I, Wang C, Jia F, Sheffer D, Ranchalis J, Watson A, and Narayan O. Characterization of the pathogenic KU-SHIV model of AIDS in macaques. AIDS Res. Hum. Retroviruses 1997;13:635–645.

1995: Kidney research by Billy Hudson, Ph.D., chair of biochemistry and molecular biology, leads to the discovery of the genes that cause two serious renal diseases - Alport's syndrome and Goodpasture's syndrome:

Kalluri R, Gattone VH 2nd, Noelken ME, Hudson BG. The alpha 3 chain of type IV collagen induces autoimmune Goodpasture syndrome. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1994 Jun 21;91(13):6201-5. doi: 10.1073/pnas.91.13.6201. PMID: 8016138; PMCID: PMC44166.

Kalluri R, van den Heuvel LP, Smeets HJ, Schroder CH, Lemmink HH, Boutaud A, Neilson EG, Hudson BG. A COL4A3 gene mutation and post-transplant anti-alpha 3(IV) collagen alloantibodies in Alport syndrome. Kidney Int. 1995 Apr;47(4):1199-204. doi: 10.1038/ki.1995.170. PMID: 7783419.

Hudson BG, Tryggvason K, Sundaramoorthy M, Neilson EG. Alport's syndrome, Goodpasture's syndrome, and type IV collagen. N Engl J Med 2003; 348:2543.

1995: The School of Nursing virtual classroom for online learning is launched, breaking new ground, and leading the nation in high-tech, long-distance education.

1995: Donald Hagen, M.D., is appointed executive vice chancellor of KU Medical Center.

March 1996: The University of Kansas Hospital becomes one of the first medical facilities in the United States to offer a treatment for cytomegalovirus (CMV) retinitis, a potentially blinding condition that often attacks AIDS patients. KU Medical Center ophthalmologist and retinal surgeon Keith Warren, M.D., is the first physician in the Kansas City area to treat CMV retinitis with a device implanted directly into the patient's eye.

April 1996: Donald Eckard, M.D., neuroradiologist, becomes the first physician in Kansas to perform a procedure that uses platinum coils to fill balloon-like aneurysms in the brain which previously had been considered inoperable.

July 1, 1996: Karen Miller, RN, Ph.D., FAAN, is appointed dean of the School of Nursing.

1996: Joseph Beshare, Ph.D., professor and chair of anatomy, and Carla Green, Ph.D., discover a gene thought to be a component in the working of the circadian clock. It was the first candidate for a circadian clock gene in vertebrates.

1996: The University of Kansas Cancer Center is the first in the area to use mammotomy, or stereotactic core needle biopsy, to sample tissue suspicious for breast cancer.

1996: Virginia J. Savin, M.D., KUMC professor of medicine, Division of Nephrology and Hypertension, is the lead author on a paper consolidating the evidence for a soluble factor involved in pathogenesis of focal segmental glomerulosclerosis. The cause of primary FSGS remains unknown but almost certainly involves one or more such factors:

Savin VJ, Sharma R, Sharma M, McCarthy ET, Swan SK, Ellis E, Lovell H, Warady B, Gunwar S, Chonko AM, Artero M, Vincenti F. Circulating factor associated with increased glomerular permeability to albumin in recurrent focal segmental glomerulosclerosis. N Engl J Med. 1996 Apr 4;334(14):878-83. doi: 10.1056/NEJM199604043341402. PMID: 8596570.

1996: Carol McAdoo, associate administrator, University of Kansas Hospitals, was accorded the prestigious Ruth Ravich Founders Award, a national patient-advocacy honor.

1997: Deborah Powell, M.D., is appointed executive dean of the KU School of Medicine.

1997: Karen Miller, RN, Ph.D., FAAN, dean of the School of Nursing, is appointed interim dean of the School of Allied Health.

1997: As part of an FDA study, KU Medical Center neurologist William Koller, M.D., implants a "brain pacemaker" in 60 patients over three years for relief of essential tremor or Parkinson's disease. These clinical trials led to FDA approval for the new tremor control therapy for general use on August 4, 1997, thus clearing the way for thousands of people with essential tremor or Parkinson's to gain relief.

1997: KU Medical Center and Kansas State University start a joint agromedicine program to address the needs of farm and ranch families, agricultural workers, ag-related industries, and consumers of agricultural products in Kansas.

October 1, 1998: The University of Kansas Hospital becomes an independent public authority, a step that leads to the hospital's transformation to a top academic medical center on the forefront of U.S. medical care.

1998: Karen Miller, RN, Ph.D., FAAN, accepts the position of dean of the School of Allied Health in conjunction with her position as dean of the School of Nursing.

1998: The nation's only Radiopharmaceutical Drug Information Center is founded at KU Medical Center by Jay Spicer, M.S., radio-chemist and RDIC director, William Hladik, M.S., radio-pharmacist, and Joyce Generali, R.Ph., clinical pharmacist and director of the KU Drug Information Center. The center provides accurate data to nuclear medicine facilities where tests show unusual results, especially among cancer patients who are undergoing certain chemotherapies.

1998: KU Medical Center is the first facility in the region to acquire a patient simulator used to train anesthesiologists and anesthesiology students.

1998: The Virtual Classroom, an internet website spearheaded by the KU School of Medicine, draws nationwide attention in Time magazine and on CNN for its innovative approach to web-based instructional courses. Virtual Classroom serves the Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Allied Health, Pharmacy, Graduate Studies, and Continuing Education.

February 15, 1999: KU MedWest opens in Shawnee, Kansas. The center is designed to offer area residents the clinical expertise of KU Medical Center in an easily accessible neighborhood setting.

February 1999: Daniel Murillo, M.D., KU Medical Center surgeon, performs the first pancreas-kidney transplant in the Kansas City area.

1999: The KU Women in Science and Medicine (WIMS) organization is founded to serve all faculty and trainees from the School of Medicine, School of Nursing, and the School of Health Professions. Their mission is focused on advancing the careers of women in the fields of medicine and science through development of mentoring, networking, and faculty retention.

1999: Paul R. Schloerb, M.D., develops a computer program to determine optimum parenteral and enteral nutritional support based on calculated body cell mass (BCM) as the reference. As a result of this work, Dr. Schloerb published "Electronic Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition," in the Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, Vol. 24, No. 1, 2000.

Kirmayer Fitness Center basketball court, 1991.
Students working at computers in Dykes Library, 1991.
Nursing students practicing with mannequins in the skills lab, circa 1993.
Med student studying in Orr-Major, 1993.
Students at work with microscopes, 1995.
KU Med West lobby, 1999.
KU School of Medicine

University of Kansas Medical Center
History and Philosophy of Medicine

Mail Stop 1025
3901 Rainbow Blvd.
Kansas City, KS 66160
Tel: 913-588-7098 | Fax: 913-588-7060