Francis Scott Smyth

Francis Scott Smyth received his M.D. from the University of California, San Francisco, in 1922. He then became an intern at the Boston Children's Hospital and continued his training as a resident Cornell's New York Nursery and Children's Hospital and St. Louis Children's Hospital. From 1925 he was an instructor Department of Pediatrics, University of California, and from 1928 held a position as assistant professor at Washington Medical School, St. Louis. In 1930 he returned to San Francisco as an associate professor of paediatrics. From 1942 to 1954 he served as dean of the Medical School.

From 1950 to 1953 Smyth was chairman of the Foreign Graduate Student Committee of the Association of American Medical Colleges. In 1953 he was made member of the Board of Foreign Scholarships of the U.S. Department of State, and served on the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Foreign Visitors, for which he received a commendatory citation from President Eisenhower in 1956.

The year before, he had also become coordinator of the University of California--University of Indonesia Project, which involved responsibility for organizing curriculum, recruiting American staff, obtaining equipment, and arranging for programs for Indonesian participants in the United States from Indonesia. In recognition of his contributions to medical education in Indonesia, he received an honorary degree of doctor of medical sciences in August 1959, the graduation year of the first class of 150 students under the University of California--Indonesian Project contract program.

"It is a rare man who can institute building programs in two hemispheres, unify a medical school campus in a single campus area, initiate diagnostic and treatment centers for diabetic and allergic children, and continue to live an active family life with strong civic involvement. Students, house officers and members of the faculty in the thousands remember his patience, sympathetic understanding, his concern for the individual and for his delightful sense of humor."
Tribute by Dr. Jesse Carr in the Medical School's alumni bulletin.

• Anne M. Schmid, William C. Deamer, Stanley C. Bateman:
  Francis Scott Smyth. 1895-1972. Dean, Medical School.
  In memoriam. The website of the University of California, San Francisco: