Three directors guided the Medical Educational Resources Program (MERP) in its early years. Seymour Friedberg served as the first director from 1966 to 1971; Elmer Friman served from 1971 to 1978; and Beverly Hill served as the third director from 1981 to 2001. The technology that allowed MERP to operate, expand its statewide outreach and achieve its early successes is outlined below.
1960s Cutting Edge Technology
WAT 21 medical television was an instructional television fixed service (ITFS) station licensed to Indiana University in 1969 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). ITFS was a one-way, analog, line of sight technology, first authorized by the FCC in 1963, designed to offer closed circuit transmissions via microwave signals to down converters at designated locations.
The FCC licensed WAT 21 to Indiana University to be installed and operated by the Indiana University School of Medicine. Its purpose was to provide continuing medical education (CME) programming to interns, residents and practicing physicians within a 25-mile radius of the transmitting antenna, located on the Medical Center campus in Indianapolis. All the city’s hospitals were equipped to receive and convert the microwave signal for viewing on standard television monitors. WAT 21 was the first leg of an anticipated statewide network.
Three additional ITFS stations, operated by the Indiana Higher Education Telecommunications System (IHETS), would eventually come online in northwest Indiana, Evansville and New Albany. By 1980, 45 hospitals were connected.
Indiana Higher Education Telecommunications System (IHETS)
The Indiana General Assembly created IHETS in 1967. Leased telephone lines were the bones of IHETS’ telecommunications network, which represented a consortium of Indiana’s state universities including Indiana, Purdue, Indiana State and Ball State. Several committees made up of representatives from each institution met regularly, including a scheduling committee, which met three times a year to negotiate time on the network for the upcoming semester.
Without the IHETS network, WAT 21’s programming would have remained limited to Indianapolis. By the 1970s, IU School of Medicine’s CME offerings dominated the network.
The network offered a unique opportunity for inter-institutional cooperation: for example, IU School of Medicine retransmitted live Purdue University engineering courses to Indianapolis industries via WAT 21, while IHETS provided Lafayette hospitals access to IU’s CME programming.
Thank you to the following individuals for contributing their time and expertise to develop this blog series:
- Sharon Chenoweth Greene, TV Production Assistant, 1968-1974 and WAT 21 Station Manager, 1974-1980, Medical Television Facility, Medical Educational Resources Program.
- Kim M. Denny, MSEd, CHCP, Director, Office of Continuing Education in Healthcare Professions, Indiana University School of Medicine.
- Richard L. Schreiner, MD, Edwin L. Gresham Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics, Indiana University School of Medicine; Retired Chairman, Department of Pediatrics Indiana University School of Medicine; Retired Physician-in-Chief; Chairman, Riley Hospital Historic Preservation Committee
