Records of College of Physicians & Surgeons’ Assistant Dean Dr. Melvin D. Yahr who served 1959-1973. Unlike some other assistant and associate deans, Yahr’s areas of responsibility were numerous and varied. As documented in these records, he had important roles in overseeing construction of the William Black Research Building and the adjacent Alumni Auditorium and in coordinating the medical school’s role in the federal government’s Medical Education for National Defense program (MEND). There are also minutes of several Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center committees.

The bulk of the records here, however, relates to Yahr’s work on the medical school’s affiliation with Harlem Hospital, a municipal hospital for which P&S became responsible for professional staffing starting in 1962. This was part of a larger program promoted by New York City Commissioner of Hospitals, Ray Trussell, to spread the city’s elite medical school faculty – until then concentrated at Bellevue Hospital – to other municipal hospitals in medically underserved areas.
Documented in the records are searches for heads of clinical departments; residents and residencies; labor relations; and budgets and finances. There are also minutes of several committees including the Affiliation Committee and the Joint Committee.