ON RUNNING A SMALL DEPARTMENT

Having survived for 29 years as the chief or chairman of neurology in one location, which may be at this moment the record among active chairmen, and appreciating that there is not a great clamor for positions of departmental leadership in neurology, especially in small medical schools, and realizing that the worries of McKhann at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Md, and Ringel at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, are different from mine in Mississippi, the urge to comment as I retire is hard to resist. In the first place, boys and girls, it is not too hard. All you need is the skin of a rhinoceros, the patience of an ant colony, the optimism of Pollyanna, the balance of a Wallenda, the willingness of Hercules, the morals of a vestal virgin, and the humor of Rodney Dangerfield. You have to convince. © 1990, American Medical Association. All rights reserved.