by Charly Mann

Dr. Isaac "Ike" Taylor was one of the most driven men ever to live in Chapel Hill. He came here at 18 in 1938 as a freshman at UNC and left in 1971 after serving as Dean of the UNC School of Medicine. Ike was born and brought up in the small town of Morganton at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. His grandfather, Dr. Isaac Montrose Taylor, moved to Morganton in the 1870s to take a job at the Western Insane Asylum (now called Broughton Hospital). He quickly became one of the most respected men in the town. In 1901 he set up a small private hospital called Broadoaks to treat the mentally ill.

Dean Isaac M Taylor of the University of North Carolina Medical School in his office from 1966.

Ike's father, Alexander Taylor, married Theodosia Haynes in 1920. She was from a well-to-do Massachusetts family, a state that has been connected to Ike and his family ever since. Theodosia gave birth to Ike in June of 1921. She had her then 64 year old father-in-law deliver the baby. Somehow she got a uterine infection during childbirth and died two weeks later. Dr. Taylor blamed himself for Theodosia's death and died in grief two months later. The double tragedy of his wife and father's deaths turned Ike's father into an alcoholic. He was incapable of caring for and raising Ike. Sarah Taylor Vernon, Alexander's sister, who had been Theodosia's roommate in College, raised him.

This is a picture of Ike Taylor at UNC in 1941.

Ike was a smart and driven youth who was determined to become a physician like his namesake, yet the tragic nature of his birth and upbringing, an only child without a father or mother, gave him a morose personality. As a student at UNC from 1938 to 1942, Ike displayed an intensity rarely seen in Chapel Hill. He not only focused at excelling in his academic pursuits, but also found the time to be an officer in an array of student organizations and as well as compete on the track team.

After Taylor received his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina he went to Harvard Medical School and received his M.D. in 1945. In 1946 he came back to Morganton for a short stint as a resident physician. During that time Gertrude "Trudy" Woodward, a Massachusetts native who Ike had met while at Harvard, came down from Boston by train to visit him. They were engaged to be married and planned to have a formal wedding in Boston, but after meeting her at the train station in Salisbury Ike convinced her they could not wait and should instead get married then and there. They were married by a judge at the Salisbury City Hall, and then drove to Morganton to enjoy their first night as newlyweds.

Isaac M. Taylor's UNC senior picture

As you can see Ike Taylor had his time very full with memberships in three fraternities and many other UNC organizations. He was also taking a challenging course load and received "A" s in all of his classes.

Ike returned to Boston in the fall of 1946 for a one year internship at Massachusetts General Hospital. He followed that with a year as an assistant resident in medicine for the hospital, and in 1948 became the senior resident in medicine. Also in 1948 he was hired by Harvard University as an assistant medical advisor. By the end of 1948 Harvard named him a research fellow in medical science. For the next two years he held this position at Harvard while serving as a clinical fellow in medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1951 Dr. Taylor became the chief medical resident at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Taylor had a bright future ahead of him at Harvard and Massachusetts General, yet he gave it all up to return to his native state. He began his career at the University of North Carolina on January 1, 1952 as an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine. He was a standout from the start as a professor of medicine at UNC, and In 1954 he was named a Markle Scholar, the highest honor awarded to promising new teachers in academic medicine.

Isaac "Ike" Taylor in his UNC track team outfit 1942

Starting in 1955 Dr. Taylor took a two year leave of absence from UNC to fulfill his Military Service from which he had been exempted during college and medical school. He served as a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy, setting up a medical dispensary in McMurdo Sound in the Antarctic. He had been offered an assignment at Bethesda Naval Hospital outside of Washington, D.C., but instead volunteered for service at the South Pole even though it would keep him isolated from the world and his young family. (He then had five children ranging in age from three to eight.) Those who knew him well say that after his return from military service he remained distant from his family for the rest of his life. The only real time he spent with his family was on summer vacations at Martha's Vineyard.

Isaac and Trudy Taylor's young family circa 1954. Left to right, Alex, James, Kate, Livingston, and Hugh Taylor

Upon his return to the UNC medical school his rise through its ranks was meteoric. In 1958 he was promoted to associate professor and then became a full professor in 1964. Also in that year at the age of only 43 he succeeded Dr. W. Reece Berryhill on Septenber 1st as Dean of the UNC School of Medicine. Ike Taylor simply excelled as a medical administrator, doctor, and researcher. During his years as dean he spent countless hours in his third floor office at UNC Memorial Hospital. People I have spoken to who knew him in those years describe him as tall and lean with rugged features and always having an intimidatingly serious countenance. He was also usually well tanned and in great physical condition, which was probably attributable to his primary means of relaxing: sailing and fishing.

Taylor enjoyed the challenge of being the Dean primarily because he wanted to implement ideas he had formulated since graduating from Harvard. He initiated a series of programs designed to make the UNC Medical School one of the best in the nation. He first wanted established doctors in the state to be made aware of all the new medical procedures and technologies being taught at the medical school. To that end, he made sure that a major function of the school became offering continuing education for practicing physicians. He also introduced the Second Chance program that allowed medical students who had flunked a course to repeat it. He believed this would ensure that almost every student who entered UNC's medical school would get an MD degree.

This is a picture of Dr, Isaac Taylor from 1964, the year he became Dean of the UNC Medical School.

Dean Taylor ensured only the best students got into his medical school. He believed that an applicant's personality was the key ingredient for success as a medical student. The trait he thought most important was being "motivated to do hard work." During Taylor's tenure the medical program averaged 350 applicants a year. Of those only 70 were admitted. Only 5% of the medical students enrolled at UNC flunked or dropped out while he was dean.

Politically Dr. Taylor was very liberal, to the left of almost every major politician of his era. He was an early advocate of socialized medicine and said in 1964 that "medical care must be made available to all". He served on many boards and became an outspoken advocate for improving the nation's health care system. He was a fellow of the NC Coastal Plains Heart Association, and a member of N.C. State Board of Mental Health. In 1965 U.S. Surgeon General Luther L. Terry appointed him to serve as a member of the National Advisory Research Resources Committee of the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Isaac Taylor stepped down as Dean of the Medical School in September of 1971 and was replaced by Dr. Christopher C. Fordham III. He died in November of 1996 at the age of 75 at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston where he had worked for several years before coming to Chapel Hill.

On February 9th, 2009 Trudy Taylor, ex-wife of former UNC Medical School Dean Isaac Taylor will be interviewed by the current Dean of the UNC School of Medicine William L. Roper. Later that day at 5:00 PM Dr. Taylor's only daughter, Kate, will appear at the UNC Student Union for a screening of Kate Taylor: Tunes from the Tipi and Other Songs from Home. After the screening, Kate, who is also the sister of musicians James and Livingston Taylor, will perform some songs and answer questions about the film. The film includes a history of the Taylor family in Chapel Hill. The event is free.

On February 12th Kate Taylor will be performing at Marsh Woodwinds in Raleigh at 8:00 PM.
 

Tweet