ACOFP: OUR CONTINUING HISTORY 7 THE FOUNDING AND EARLY YEARS THE EARLY DAYS As with any new organization, ACOFP’s early days were humble ones. The California organization was first operated from offices of the founding physicians, using their existing office personnel in a dual role. Members of prominence during these early years were: • Frank York Lee, DO • W. Rowland Young, DO • J. Mancil Fish, DO, FACOFP • John Burnett, DO, FACOFP • Mary Burnett, DO, FACOFP • Eli Stark, DO, FACOFP • T. Robert Sharp, DO, FACOFP As ACOFP grew and added more state chapters to the membership, the management burden outstripped the resources of an average physician’s office. To maintain correspondence and coordinate educational events, a full-time executive secretary was desperately needed. Alfred J. Schramm, DO, one of the original eight founders and most senior of that group, became the ACOFP’s first executive director. He is the only osteopathic physician ever to run ACOFP’s day-to-day operations. Dr. Schramm resided at 5889 San Vicente Blvd. in Los Angeles, California, and his office became the official address of ACOFP for a number of years. Dr. Schramm was nearing retirement age and, therefore, had the time and resources to perform his duties. He began full-time ACOFP employment in 1960, 10 years after the ACOFP’s formal organization. Dr. Schramm would serve until 1962, when, at the annual meeting in Detroit, the criticism and suspicion that arose out of the “California Merger” forced him to resign. Although Dr. Schramm would return to California following his resignation, he never accepted the MD degree and retired from medicine completely. Dr. Schramm’s office was later razed to make way for a hospital. For more information regarding the acceptance of the “little MD” degree by DOs, see “The California Merger Challenges a Young College and the Osteopathic Profession,” on page 9. SIGNS OF GROWTH In the summer of 1958, the first official ACOFP medical education meeting was recorded in Des Moines, Iowa. Meetings had been held earlier in California, but those records have been lost for reasons that will be made clear later. 5889 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles, CA; 1960–1970 ACOFP holds its first medical education meeting in Des Moines, IA.
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