Wallace R. Wooles

Image source: Dr. Wally Wooles

Between 1970-1974 Wallace R. Wooles, a pharmacologist, served as the founding dean of ECU’s one-year medical program, the forerunner of the ECU School of Medicine. As founding dean, Wooles worked closely with Chancellor Leo Jenkins and Dr. Ed Monroe, director of Health Affairs, in hiring a medical faculty, recruiting students, reviewing applications for admission, and designing a curriculum that would ultimately meet standards for accreditation. Wooles also negotiated, along with Monroe, an agreement whereby UNC would accept into its medical program students who had completed their first year at ECU. During Wooles’s tenure, the one-year program was operated out of the north wing of the ECU Science Building, later Howell Science Complex. In Wooles’s final year, plans were underway to renovate Ragsdale Hall, then a dormitory, to house the medical program. The hope was that the state legislature would appropriate funds for construction of a suitable medical science building. With the latter, accreditation would be facilitated.

In a much publicized discussion of North Carolina’s crisis in physician care, Wooles publicly disputed claims made by Dr. Christopher Fordham, dean of the UNC Medical School. Fordham documented, with charts and maps that a medical school’s location has little to do with where doctors locate. Fordham noted that physicians tend to gather in urban areas, making it necessary for medical schools to establish rural outreach programs in order to provide for rural medical care. Wooles opposed Fordham’s data, asserting that the location of a medical school does indeed have a great deal to do with where physicians choose to practice.

Wooles resigned in August 1974 as UNC asserted its control over the administrative structure of the ECU program as it transitioned from a one-year to a four-year school. Acting on the authority of UNC President William Friday, Fordham placed Dr. William Cromartie, a UNC professor of clinical medicine, in charge of the ECU medical curriculum effectively bypassing Jenkins, Wooles, and Monroe, in administering it. Friday claimed that the American Association of Medical Colleges required, for accreditation, that the transition be under the aegis of Chapel Hill. While there was public resistance from Chancellor Jenkins, UNC control, sanctioned by UNC President William Friday, prevailed. Dr. William Laupus, professor and chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, was subsequently hired as the new dean of the ECU School of Medicine. Wooles was named associate vice chancellor for health affairs and professor of pharmacology at ECU. Although ECU temporarily lost administrative control over the transition process, accreditation and excellence for the ECU new program was facilitated.

Sources

• "Brody School of Medicine, First Dean: Dr. Wallace Ralph Wooles [curriculum vitae, copies, etc.], 2000, undated." Series 3: Documents and Plans. ECU School of Medicine, 1968-2013. Laupus Library Manuscript Collection, LL 02.11. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C.
• "Correspondence – Wooles/Cromartie, 1973-1974." Series 2: Correspondence and Speeches, 1964-1992. Edwin Wall Monroe Papers, 1947-2008. Laupus Library Manuscript Collection, LL 02.18. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C.
• "Dr. Wallace Wooles Speeches and News Releases – Medical School, 1971-1973." Series 2: Correspondence and Speeches, 1964-1992. Edwin Wall Monroe Papers, 1947-2008. Laupus Library Manuscript Collection, LL 02.18. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C.
• "East Carolina University – Medical School – Proposal to Establish a Master of Medical Science Degree Program by Wallace R. Wooles, 1970." Series 1: ECU Documents, 1958-2006, undated. Edwin Wall Monroe Papers, 1947-2008. Laupus Library Manuscript Collection, LL 02.18. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C.
• "ECU Drops Request for Official Ruling." Statesville Record and Landmark. August 20, 1974. P. 6.
• "ECU Med School Dean Quitting." Gastonia Gazette. August 1, 1974. P. 2.
• "ECU Shakeup Planned, Says Legislator." High Point Enterprise. July 30, 1974. P. 5.
• "Letter to Gov. Scott from Monroe and Wooles, 1971." Series 1: ECU Documents, 1958-2006, undated. Edwin Wall Monroe Papers, 1947-2008. Laupus Library Manuscript Collection, LL 02.18. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C.
• Livengood, Linda. "UNC Deans View N.C. Doctor Crisis." The Daily Tar Heel. July 26, 1973. P. 1.
• "Medical Professor in Charge of ECU's Medical School." Asheville Citizen-Times. July 31, 1974. P. 9.
• "New Dean Selected for ECU Med School." High Point Enterprise. June 14, 1975. P. 5.
• "UNC Professor Heads Medical School at ECU" High Point Enterprise. July 31, 1974. P. 7.
• "Wooles, Wallace, March 28, 2000, April 5, 2000." Series 5: Oral Histories, 2000-2001. Pitt County Memorial Hospital Collection, 1948-2015. Laupus Library Manuscript Collection, LL 02.09. East Carolina University. Greenville, N.C.

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