New Palo Alto History Museum Announces 2017 Programs
IT HAPPENED HERE. UPCOMING PROGRAMS EXPLORE PALO ALTO’S UNIQUE HERITAGE.
Palo Alto, CA – The Palo Alto History Museum invites the public to three programs touching on the history of innovation in Palo Alto – in health, tech, and education. Scheduled from January through March 2017, they are free and open to the public.
“We’re taking the museum inside out,” says president Rich Green. Each program explores the innovative spirit of Palo Alto, with stories from the 1930s through the 1960s… and amazingly relevant today. Friday, January 13 is the first program, 5-7pm at Palo Alto Medical Foundation. The building PAMF started in will house the new Museum, set to open in 2018–in time for the city’s sesquicentennial.
The Historic Roth Building: From the Palo Alto Medical Clinic to the Palo Alto History Museum
Explore the history of medicine in Palo Alto as practiced at the visionary Palo Alto Medical Clinic. Drs. Tony Marzoni & Ben Maser will speak on the transformation of PAMC into today’s peninsula-wide PAMF, followed by Myron Freedman, Executive Director of the Palo Alto History Museum who will share our vision for the new Museum. With your support, the original 1932 Birge Clark-designed building will house our community’s first history museum, opening in 2018.
It was 1930. “When the Palo Alto Medical Clinic (PAMC) – the oldest of the three historic physician groups affiliated with the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) – formed, the idea of doctors working together was so revolutionary that some thought it to be anticompetitive–even communist. PAMC was not only one of the first physician groups in the country, but also one of the first in the region to offer a specialist in obstetrics and surgery, and a pediatrician who also happened to be one of Palo Alto’s first female physicians.” (http://www.pamf.org/about/history/)
“As Palo Alto and Stanford University grew, so did PAMC. The group soon developed a synergistic relationship with Stanford, helping to teach its medical students and recruiting many of its new physicians from among the Stanford -more- New Palo Alto History Museum Announces 2017 Programs Page 2 graduates. PAMC also played a key role in bringing Stanford Medical School, originally located in San Francisco, to Palo Alto in 1960.
“By the 1970s, however, factors such as the growth of managed care and the rising cost for incoming doctors to buy into the partnership were threatening PAMC’s future well-being. To solve the problem, the for-profit physician group decided to create a not-for-profit foundation that would control its operations and assets. In 1981, the Palo Alto Medical Foundation was formed and a period of dynamic change began, including the opening of a second clinic, the Fremont Center, in 1984 and the addition of an outpatient surgery center in 1986.
“In 1993, PAMF became a Sutter Health affiliate and continued to grow. Work soon began on a new medical campus, and in 1999, the 305,000-square-foot PAMF Palo Alto Center opened to patients. On the eve of the physician group merger, PAMC had grown to include more than 380 doctors caring for patients at 15 locations…” including Castro Valley, Dublin, Fremont, Los Altos, Menlo Park, Portola Valley, Redwood City, San Carlos and Sunnyvale.
Refreshments will be served. Space is limited. This free educational program is presented by the Palo Alto History Museum in conjunction with the Palo Alto Medical Foundation.