It Sounds Like Hoosier Pride

Robert Holden, MD '63, Retires as Dean

Robert Holden grew up in Indiana, the son of public school teachers. But his early lessons went far beyond the three R's. The human politic that infuses public school administration impressed young Robert, who can clearly recall the heated talks when parents came calling on his father, the superintendent, about their children. Robert's take-away lessons not only included the dynamics of persuasive speech but a bent toward leadership.

Seeking roles of leadership in whatever he tackled, Robert sought opportunities available to rural Indiana youth. He was an American Legion Boy's State representative, school thespian, basketball player, school reporter and a member of Sigma Delta Chi at Purdue. He attended the Methodist church in Martinsville, where he absorbed faith-based values that have provided strength through times of personal loss and adversity.

He credits Purdue Univer-sity's pharmacy school for developing his curiosity and giving him the framework for his professional development, and the Army for his first taste of leadership.

As Robert Holden turned to medicine, he sought out mentors, many now close friends, whose qualities he strived to integrate into his character.

He says IUSM colleague Eugene Klatte, MD '52, Dr. Holden's teacher and boss as chairman of radiology, could inspire him to do anything. Long-time colleague and teacher John Robb, MD, was "a man's man." Harry Shumaker, MD, was "an awesome surgeon." And Stan Battersby, MD '39, "is probably, technically, the most proficient surgeon I've ever watched." He describes recently retired John Mackey, MD (Dec.) '44, as "one of the most genteel, wonderful human beings." Walter Daly, MD '55, is "a terrific friend who has been my confidant during my times of stress. I say he gives me group therapy; my wife says 'that's bunk, he gives you individual psychotherapy,'" chuckles Dr. Holden.

"You go through life and pick people, impacts and experiences, and you grow as you evolve," he says. "All of these things have been instrumental, but when you come to the end, you can only be as successful as the institution or company you work for allows you to be.

"His five years as dean have been a labor of love. "It's a very pressure-packed job; on the other hand, it is a job made worthwhile because the School is so important to Indiana," says Dr. Holden.

One of his most stimulating experiences has been as chief advocate for an identifiable and cohesive medical school faculty. As the physicians at IUSM develop their business relationships with non-faculty who share medical staff status in the Clarian Health-owned facilities of Riley Hospital for Children, IU Hospital and Methodist Hospital, he has sounded the waters to raise institutional pride. "I am proud that I could promote and maintain consensus and endorsement of the school's faculty at a provocative time for academic medicine," he says.

Dr. Holden has focused much of his energy on convincing Indiana's legislators that state support of biomedical research in the School of Medicine - and the university as a whole - is urgent. As federal dollars flow into the National Institutes of Health (Congress just proposed a budget that would increase the NIH budget by $2.7 billion to $20.5 billion), he believes a robust biomedical research engine will promote education, quality of life for Hoosiers, products for commercial industry and dramatic disease cures or total avoidance of disease.

The $50 million the General Assembly approved for the 1998-2000 biennial budget is the product of a concept Dr. Holden carried to IU President Myles Brand, who championed it with the academic and industry research communities. Dr. Holden looks forward to the upcoming legislative session; this time he will be encouraging the General Assembly to identify $100 million, with half for biomedical research, half for technology research.

"The School must double its current level of research funding from NIH over the next five years to remain a viable force among medical schools," he says. "I hope Indiana will want to promote this. Every dollar we bring to the table we can leverage four-fold. We need a progressive and visionary Indiana."

"Robert Holden has been a superb dean and, even more importantly, a wonderful, caring, committed person," says Gerald Bepko, chancellor of IUPUI and vice president for strategic planning of Indiana University. "I've been privileged to work with him."

A similar sentiment is echoed by the man Dr. Holden succeeded. "Bob Holden's strength is identifying a vision which is contemporary with the future and marshalling the resources to carry through with it," says Dr. Daly. "He's a passionate, honorable, emotional, hard-working and surprising individual. By 'surprising' I mean that he's sufficiently independent in his thinking; he doesn't follow the obvious railroad track."

The passion that Dr. Holden has brought to his work in the School of Medicine during the past thirty years is surpassed only by his passion for family and the successes of his wife Miriam. "What I'm most proud of is the thing I have not done, and that is my family," he says. "I have a truly wonderful life; I have two wonderful kids who have married two wonderful people, and two superstar grandkids. I don't know that I deserve that; I'm really lucky, in the vernacular sense. I chose a wonderful wife, and she has done a super job with our family, because I've been an absent husband." But that's a situation Dr. Holden intends to change.

"Bob wants to start a new business with the kids," says Mrs. Holden, "something that they can do together. A legacy that he wants to leave them." (And then there are those sign-up sheets for the children and their spouses and children to join him for blueberry picking.) Certainly, whether it's a legacy of better health care for all Hoosiers or pursuing new possibilities with his family, leaving legacies is what Bob Holden is all about.