In 1969, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) licensed Indiana University’s first Instructional Television Fixed Service (or ITFS) station, WAT 21. The station was installed and operated by IU School of Medicine and used to broadcast CME programming to area hospitals; programming was also simulcast on the existing statewide telecommunications network, the Indiana Higher Education Telecommunications System, which connected universities across the state via a shared network of leased telephone lines.
The establishment of the WAT 21 station facilitated the growth of IU School of Medicine’s Medical Educational Resources Program (or MERP), which began producing recordings of biochemistry lectures and anatomy and physiology lab exercises for broadcast and individual student review. Students could access the tapes in the study carrels in the alcove on the first floor (north wing) of the Medical Science building.
“This curriculum support began in earnest in 1969,” recalled Sharon Greene, who was hired as a TV production assistant in late 1968.
Originally located in the Medical Science building, “our Med Science ‘studio’ was a converted classroom,” Sharon explained. “It was not soundproof and housed a long rack of video equipment as well as three desks, six production, engineering and clerical staff, a remote [portable] video console for switching a two-camera shoot, a couple of black and white cameras and one huge RCA TK-12 color studio camera about the size of a VW Beetle… well, almost that big.”
The RCA camera was commercial broadcast-quality, donated by local television station WFBM (now known as WRTV) after the station upgraded its cameras in the late 1960s. Elmer Friman, the second director of MERP, was formerly with WFBM.
This original studio doubled as a storage space: the earliest productions required moving all the equipment out into the hallway and setting up and tearing down portable lights.
In 1972, the MERP medical television staff, along with Director Elmer Friman and two support staff, moved into a new studio and offices on the first floor of the new University Hospital.
“It was a decent sized studio with a light grid overhead,” Sharon remembered. “A state-of-the-art master control room, video tape storage, a separate shop for the video engineers and, best of all, three new state-of-the-art color cameras. The staff joked that ‘now we’re like real TV.’”
The program’s enhanced production and technical capabilities increased the school community’s acceptance of video instruction and CME. Producer/director Don Greene, as head of the medical television facility, was instrumental in building the school’s confidence in the program and its services. As a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, Greene helped create a combined radio/TV station at Incirlik Air Base, Turkey, and oversaw its on-air operations as station manager. After joining MERP in 1968, Greene worked with faculty to identify how to best support their teaching goals: most notably, this included the development of television capabilities in microscopy, endoscopy and laparoscopy.
In 1974, John Jesseph, MD, then chair of the department of surgery, requested support in documenting rare or unexpected findings during surgical procedures. Greene designed a remote-controlled, U-shaped track for a color TV camera, installed in operating room 6 in University Hospital. Camera operators worked out of the MERP TV facility, communicating with the surgeon via two-way audio to adjust the camera angle or position as the procedure progressed. Jesseph often sent medical students on surgical rotation to the control room to watch the procedure, live, from a surgeon’s perspective.
This remote-controlled set up was also used for monthly surgery Grand Rounds; the CME series aired live, one day a month, debuting on WAT 21 on October 1, 1975.
Speaking to the The Indianapolis Star about the series, Jesseph spoke to the importance of reaching Indiana physicians statewide: “We of the School of Medicine have the. . . obligation to serve as a forum for the collection, interpretation and dissemination of new and even controversial scientific information and methods of treatment.”
Surgery Grand Rounds was the second live series on WAT 21, joining the “Today’s Medicine” series which had been broadcasting live, one a day a month, since WAT 21’s inception. In 1977, a third live series was added: The Newborn, with neontologist Richard Schreiner, MD. These series, along with all WAT 21 programming, were fully accredited for postgraduate continuing medical education from the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American College of General Practitioners in Osteopathic Medicine and Surgery.
In total, WAT 21 telecasted 40 hours of programming per week: four hours of programming each weekday, repeated each night. By 1980, the station was reaching 45 Indiana hospitals, all of which received monthly mailings of printed program schedules and flyers promoting live programs. IU School of Medicine also mailed CME programming free of charge, via the Videotape Mailing Network.
Once the broadcast network expanded north (to Lake County) and south (to three cities on the Ohio River), it’s estimated that 80% of Indiana interns and residents, and more than 25% of Indiana physicians, had access to IU School of Medicine’s taped classroom instruction and 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
