It was not unusual for those working closest with Seymour Friedberg to be on a first-name basis, calling him “Sy.” However, when mentioning him in discussions with others, everyone referred to him as “Mr. Friedberg.” Administrative and operations staff always addressed him as “Mr. Friedberg,” a sign of well-deserved and hard-earned respect. Friedberg was the first director of the Indiana University School of Medicine’s Medical Educational Resources Program. TV facility production assistant Sharon Greene remembers him as “humble” and “always pleasant, courteous and kind.”
When you are the “first,” that means you are building from scratch — and that is exactly what Friedberg did. He was the one who took what was envisioned and championed by Dean Glenn W. Irwin, MD, of the IU School of Medicine, Provost Kenneth Penrod, PhD, of the Indiana University Medical Center, and others, and connected the dots to make their dream for an educational television network that would join all the IU campuses come true. It was an exciting time of change and new possibilities. In 1969, Indiana University and Purdue University merged to create Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). In 1970, IUPUI held its first commencement.
Friedberg’s job was to conceptualize and develop a facility offering consultation and services in instructional media to the IU School of Medicine for undergraduate education, and to physicians of Indiana for graduate and continuing education.
IU President Elvis J. Stahr (1962–1968) recognized Friedberg in his State of the University address on November 9, 1967:
“Late in the summer of 1968 another very important program was created, entitled Medical Education Resources, with Mr. Seymour Friedberg as Director and with the objective of tying in with the statewide telecommunications system necessary for the I.U. Plan, the Regional Medical Program, and the new curriculum.”
A New York City native, Friedberg attended grade and high schools in New Jersey, then attended Rutgers and New York universities before going into the Army. After WWII, he returned to New York University to receive his bachelor’s degree in biology in 1948, then went to George Washington University for his master’s degree in zoology in 1952. His master’s thesis was titled “Some Effects of the Androgens, Testosterone, and Testosterone Propionate on the Developing Chick Mesonephros.”
From 1952 through 1955, Friedberg was a graduate assistant in the Duke University Medical School Department of Anatomy, the first two years of which were on a personal research grant from the Office of the Surgeon General. In 1956, he enrolled in the AudioVisual Center at IU to complete the course and language requirements for a PhD in audiovisual communications.
From 1956 to 1964, he was a graduate assistant, lecturer in education and production supervisor in the Indiana University AudioVisual Center in Bloomington. In 1965, he was acting chief of the Communications Section for the Center for the Study of Medical Education at the University of Illinois.
He also worked in audiovisual sales and services. From 1943 to 1945, he was a clinical lab technician for the U.S. Typhus Commission at the fever hospital in Cairo, Egypt. Friedberg was a member of Sigma Xi, Phi Delta Kappa and Kappa Alpha Mu, and was past president of both the Chicago and Central Indiana chapters of the Biological Photographers Association, Inc.
Friedberg was appointed director and developer of the new educational resources program at the IU Medical Center in September 1966. One of his initial projects was to establish a television link between the medical center and the university’s Bloomington campus — one of the links in the building of the planned statewide educational television network. Under his leadership, he set up the telecommunications system that transmitted information to practicing physicians throughout the state, as well as to interns and students enrolled in the statewide medical education program.
Irwin, then dean of the IU School of Medicine, wrote in the 1968 IU School of Medicine yearbook to the 1968 graduating class:
“When you were juniors, a new project was initiated called the Medical Educational Resources Program. This provided television production of conferences, experiments and lectures for medical students. Construction of a closed-circuit television network was started so that the medical students, interns, residents and practicing physicians throughout the state could benefit from TV communications for the School of Medicine.”
In the 1969 IU School of Medicine yearbook, Irwin wrote to the graduating class:
“You will find, in effect, that the Indiana Program is eliminating the traditionally abrupt divisions between medical school, graduate medical education, and continuing medical education.”
Friedberg developed a closed-circuit color medical television network, which served 17 teaching hospitals in Indiana. A medical videotape mailing network serving 34 Indiana hospitals also was established under Friedberg’s direction. In addition, he added a motion picture facility and an instructional media section for medical educational materials.
Friedberg was vice president and a member of the board of trustees of Medical Television Broadcasters, past president of the Chicago and Central Indiana chapters of the Biological Photographic Association, Inc., and a member of the University Film Association, the AudioVisual Conference of Medical and Allied Sciences, and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. Locally, he served in many capacities, including being the institutional representative to EDUCOM (today known as EDUCAUSE) for Indiana University and IUPUI (now IU Indianapolis). At age 50, Friedberg passed away at work in the Medical Science Building at the IU Medical Center on April 29, 1971.
References
Indianapolis Star, September 20, 1966, p. 29, accessed through Indianapolis Public Library.
1965 Staff directory by University of Illinois at the Medical Center: https://archive.org/details/staffdirectory1965univ/page/57/mode/1up?q=%22Friedberg+seymour%22
Indiana University Register, 1970-71: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112111985468&seq=72&q1=Friedberg
State of the University, November 9, 1967, p. 40, Speeches of President Elvis J. Stahr, 1962-1968: https://digitalcollections.iu.edu/concern/archival_materials/zk51vp88c?locale=en&query=seymour+friedberg
Seymour Friedberg, Bloomington Herald-Telephone, April 30, 1971, p. 2, accessed through Indiana State Library.
Seymour Friedberg, IPI Executive Dies, Indianapolis Star, May 1, 1971, p. 12, accessed through Indianapolis Public Library.
Friedberg Given Med Center Post, Indianapolis Star, September 20, 1966, p. 29, accessed through Indianapolis Public Library.
MERP MEMO. Vol. 1, No. 1 (October 1970, p. 2, courtesy Indiana State Library.
H. Lou Gibson, The Biological Photographic Association, Its Half Century, Biological Photographic Association, Inc., 1981.: https://bca.org/files/galleries/BPA50th.pdf (Biological Photographic Association)—see page 95 (Central Indiana Chapter)
Indiana University Register, 1970-71 (Friedberg, Seymour), accessed at HathiTrust: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112111985468&seq=72&q1=Friedberg
Indiana University School of Medicine Yearbook, 1968, p. 2: https://iuidigital.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/IUSOMY/id/3425/rec/1 (1968)
Indiana University School of Medicine Yearbook, 1969, p. 2.: https://iuidigital.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/IUSOMY/id/502/rec/2 (1969)
Indiana University Indianapolis: An Unstoppable Force of Innovation for more than a Century: https://indianapolis.iu.edu/about/history/
Authors:
Kim M. Denny, MSEd, CHCP, Director, Office of Continuing Education in Healthcare Professions, Indiana University School of Medicine;
Sharon Chenoweth Greene, TV Production Asst. 1968 -1974; WAT 21 Station Mgr. 1974-1980
Medical Television Facility, Medical Educational Resources Program
Karen Bruner Stroup, Ph.D., Retired Director, Community Education and Child Advocacy, Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health; Secretary, Riley Hospital Historic Preservation Committee
