How the Texas Medical Center News Came to Be

The Texas Medical Center News was born in the Iranian oil crisis of 1979. By the late 70s, the need for a medium that would provide "hard news" about the institutions of the Texas Medical Center for the patients, physicians and staff of those same institutions was obvious. Dr. Richard Eastwood, executive vice president for the Texas Medical Center, Mark Crosswell, chair of the public relations committee of the Texas Medical Center board of directors, and I had discussed how to initiate such a newspaper. My responsibilities as executive assistant to Dr. Eastwood included publicity. As a consequence of the Iranian crisis of 1978, gasoline was rationed and an effort to increase vanpooling in the Texas Medical Center began. In the fall of 1978, this was promoted through "Getting Around," a publication paid for by the Texas Medical Center funds provided to Richard Somerville, director of TMC's vanpooling. This provided an opportunity for a pilot of the Texas Medical Center News, which first appeared as a two-page insert in "Getting Around." It received good reviews, the Texas Medical Center board liked it and in January, 1979, the first "stand alone" edition of the Texas Medical Center News appeared with its own logo designed by the Texas Medical Center staff. This logo, in a modified form, is still used on the masthead today. Financing was achieved by accepting limited advertising. The policy was to publish a free paper of news supplied by the public relations departments of the Texas Medical Center institutions with its purpose to provide a communications medium that could assist in providing a common base of public understanding to the expanding and increasingly diverse membership of the Texas Medical Center.

Harry Holmes is vice president for governmental affairs at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. He was the first editor of the Texas Medical Center News.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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