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To the Editor: On October 8, 2004, the osteopathic medical profession and the state of Texas lost a historically significant institution: the Osteopathic Medical Center of Texas in Fort Worth, which closed after many years of financial turmoil.

For 58 years, this 265-bed institution functioned as the primary hospital for several generations of osteopathic physicians. In a house with only two beds on Summit Avenue, brothers Ray Fisher, DO, and Roy Fisher, DO, founded Fort Worth Osteopathic Hospital on July 19, 1946. Virgil L. Jennings, DO, served as the hospital's first chief of staff between 1946 and 1948. The original bylaws for the medical staff were drafted by six osteopathic physicians attending the first staff meeting.

I am saddened that it has fallen on me to be the last chief of staff for this fine hospital—an institution whose bylaws eventually covered more than 300 physicians.

The hospital's closure was swift. Patients are no longer in beds, and the operating rooms are silent. The physicians' dining room, where discussions occurred that ranged from medicine to sports, is now darkened.

As you walk through hospital halls that once carried the voices of osteopathic medical students, interns, doctors, and medical residents, all you hear are your own footsteps.

Also now dark is a site on the fifth floor that is marked by a plaque commemorating the inception of what is now the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth—Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine.

A once shining example of how much the osteopathic medical profession can achieve is no longer. Future osteopathic medical students will never have the privilege of walking in the footsteps of our founders.

This hospital closure affects osteopathic physicians in Texas—as well as many throughout the nation—as numerous students, interns, and residents trained at "the O."

Because we have lost this important symbol of the achievements of the profession we serve, it is up to us to continue to remind our students and ourselves of our beginnings. Although we cannot reconstitute the bricks and mortar of the hospital, we can keep the institution alive in our hearts and minds.

In closing—and with my deepest apology to both Drs Fisher and Dr Jennings—I regret that I must suspend the bylaws of the Osteopathic Medical Center of Texas.

University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine Editorial Board, JAOA—The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association

This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by O-Yurvati, A. H. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by O-Yurvati, A. H.