Lawrence Thompson Bowles, MD, PhD, who served as the dean of George Washington University (GW) School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS) from 1976 until 1988, and then as vice president for medical affairs and executive dean of the GW Medical Center until 1992, passed away Sept. 15, just days before his 95th birthday. Dean Bowles was a transformative GW medical educator, dean, surgeon, and leader who advanced medical education and patient-centered learning.
Read about his career and legacy in the online obituary.
A memorial is planned for a future date.
Below is a reprint of our 2014 profile of Dean Bowles reflecting on his time at GW SMHS.
The Good Old Days
Former GW Dean Lawrence Thompson Bowles, MD, PhD, discusses the evolution of the medical school and what life is like today.
Laura Otto
When Lawrence Thompson Bowles, MD, PhD, began medical school, he didn’t know the difference between a vein and an artery. But he learned. “I was a philosophy major at Duke University, who was fascinated by mathematical logic,” recalls Bowles, who also received his medical degree from Duke University School of Medicine. The university took Bowles in as an experiment. “Duke wanted to see if they should be admitting more liberal arts majors into medical school,” he explains. “This was very avant-garde at the time.”
Medicine, specifically surgery, captured all of Bowles interests — math, science, and hands-on learning. “I was always good with my hands,” said Bowles, who played basketball in high school. “I saw them as tools, so surgery seemed like a logical choice.” Bowles later earned a PhD in higher education at New York University.
Everything was paper and pencil when Bowles arrived at GW in 1973, where he first served as associate dean of curriculum and student affairs. Bowles quickly rose in the ranks at GW; in 1975 he became dean of academic affairs; a year later he was selected to serve as dean of medicine and professor of surgery at SMHS, where he served in that capacity from 1976 to 1988. Ultimately, Bowles was appointed vice president for medical affairs and executive dean of SMHS, a role in which he served in until 1992.
“It was crucial in those days that students learned what they had to with direct hands-on patient contact,” explains Bowles. Hospitals were filled during this time; an average hospital stay was one week, he adds. “There simply isn’t an inpatient population today for medical students in their third- and fourth-years to have that kind of time and continuity with one patient’s admission, which was possible with my own education in the 1950s and even in the 1970s,” he recalls.
Today, simulation labs such as GW’s Clinical Learning and Simulation Skills Center have become a vital learning tool. “I’m one of the old guys,” admits Bowles. “I learned by putting my hands on human beings.” Bowles believes that “patient care is better than ever, and technology is responsible for that.”
Bowles remembers with great fondness Vice President for Health Affairs and Dean of SMHS Jeffrey S. Akman, MD ’81, RESD ’85, the school’s Walter A. Bloedorn Professor of Administrative Medicine. [Akman stepped down as vice president and dean, and Bloedorn Professor at the end of 2019. Today he serves as professor and Leon M. Yochelson Chair of the Department Psychiatry and Behavioral Health] “Jeff is a remarkable guy,” says Bowles. “Besides being extremely bright, he has a wonderful way with people. I knew he would make a terrific medical center chief executive.”
During his tenure as dean, Bowles served as chair of the Special Medical Advisory Group of Veterans Administration, known today as the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as chair of the Board of Regents of the National Library of Medicine. In 1992, he was appointed president of the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME), an organization that develops and manages the United States Medical Licensing Examination.
Bowles retired from the NBME in 2000. Today, his days are spent volunteering at a local soup kitchen, which satisfies his need to use his hands to help people, and reading medical, nursing, and dental textbooks to the blind and dyslexic. He also serves on the SMHS Educational Evaluation Committee.
This past July, Bowles and his wife, Judy, celebrated their 49th wedding anniversary. Retirement has given the couple time to catch up with their three daughters: Emmy award-winning actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus; Lauren Bowles, who is also an actress and stars in the HBO series True Blood; and Amy Reyer, who is an executive coach, received her Ph.D. in women’s studies at GW in 1998, as well as their five grandchildren.
At age 82, Bowles recalls his days as dean with a great sense of satisfaction. “I’m very proud of the way GW has stayed on the forefront of the changes in medical education and happy that I was part of its evolution.”
