Imagine my surprise when, looking at CNN News a while ago, I saw a man standing in front of Baker Tower on the Dartmouth campus. He turned out to be H. Gilbert Welch, a professor of medicine at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. He was talking about his new book, Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health. His basic tenent is that medicine should be concerned with patients, not profits, and that there is insufficient public outrage. There was also an op-ed article by Dr. Welch in the July 4 New York Times.


Dartmouth is now seventh out of 100 four-year colleges and universities on the Forbes’ “Grateful Graduates Index.” The index is “an alternative measure to determine the return on [educational] investment.” The ranking is based on the number of private gifts to a college divided by the number of its students; donations are typically an indication of how successful an alumnus is and how grateful he feels toward his alma mater.


My powers of persuasion have failed. I’ve been unable to talk the College into printing classmates’ obits in the Alumni Magazine as they did in the past—at least for older classes like ours. The website www.dartmouthalumnimagazine.com is the place to find obits online, and for those lacking computer skills I’d be happy to send a hard copy of any individual obit—just send me your name and address.


Our thanks to Ali Field and Dartmouth’s Jennifer Casey for putting together our 70th reunion.


We regret to report the deaths of Jeremy Waldron, Gordon Carter and Hugh Lena Jr. Our condolences to their families.


—John Jenkins, 80 Lyme Road, Apt. 304, Hanover, NH 03755; (603) 643-2757; jmjenkins@kahres.org