A Magnet for MCV

Leo Dunn’s influence transformed women’s health care in Richmond

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The following is a sneak peek from our April Top Docs issue, heading to newsstands soon.

Leo Dunn, a much-sought-after researcher and doctor at age 35, knew he wanted to make a big impact. For him, that meant going to the least-known institution that offered him a job in 1967: the Medical College of Virginia.

“I thought, ‘If you want to make a dent in something, [the bottom] is probably where you want to start,’ ” he recalls of the decision he and his late wife, Betty, made to come to Richmond.

Dunn had spent the previous five years in academic medicine at the University of Iowa. The offer to chair MCV’s OB-GYN department was one of five he received from medical schools across the country.

In his 30 years as OB-GYN chair at MCV/VCU Health, Dunn collected numerous awards, served as president of numerous national and regional medical groups, and transformed the department, growing its faculty from two in 1967 to 23 by 1990 and taking it from obscurity to national prominence.

Even with his numerous leadership roles and administrative and teaching responsibilities, Dunn never lost sight of his patients. He remained on call on a regular basis, taking night shifts in the delivery room. He encouraged women to participate in their own health care and was receptive to new ideas, such as embracing the Lamaze method at a time when heavy sedation during childbirth was the norm. In 1987, he started a Women’s Health Community Advisory Council whose feedback led to the establishment of one of the first multidisciplinary women’s health centers in the country at Stony Point.

“He took a department that was barely in existence … and built it up so it was a place of pride and accomplishment that attracted medical students and residents and faculty with a laser focus on giving great health care to women,” says Christine Isaacs, who was a resident under Dunn and is an associate professor and division chair in general obstetrics and gynecology in VCU Health’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

A Year of Firsts

In 1967, not only was Dunn one of the youngest medical chairs in the nation, but he was also MCV’s first full-time OB-GYN chair — previously, the post had been held part time by a practicing physician. During his tenure, more than 200 residents were graduated in OB-GYN specialties. Dunn’s legacy as a mentor lives on in these doctors today.

Erika Blanton, who received her medical degree from Westfalische, Landes University in Germany, was one Dunn’s first medical residents. She was also the first woman to finish the OB-GYN residency program at MCV and became the first female OB-GYN in Richmond.

“The previous department chairman did not accept women,” she recalls. “Dr. Dunn gave me a wonderful chance to have absolutely the best training. … [He] really taught me the skills of becoming a good surgeon. He was very particular. With him there was only one way to do it — the right way.”

After Blanton’s residency, she continued her training at MCV with a fellowship in infertility and reproductive endocrinology. She still sees patients today.

Not only was Dunn a medical mentor to Blanton, but he helped her in her personal life as well. “It was a culture shock to come over here from Germany,” she recalls. “I always had the feeling that he cared.”

As the only female OB-GYN, Blanton struggled. “It was not easy; patients were not used to women,” she says. “I was the first woman resident out of his training to go out into the community, and sometimes, when I came in, some patients actually walked out of the office.”

In the late ’60s, Dunn recalls, it was believed that the specialty was too physically demanding for women. It required long, grueling hours, and at MCV, OB-GYN residents also had to cover several hospitals, including a busy labor and delivery unit at East Hospital, the formerly segregated St. Philip Hospital.

Even when Georganne Long began her residency in 1984, she says, the medical field was still “a good old boys club.” She wanted to come to Richmond specifically to learn from Dunn. “He was such a gentleman, such a man of integrity,” she says. “He was like a magnet to me. He just drew me in.”

Many were drawn to the program by Dunn. In 1988, about 1,000 medical students applied for OB-GYN residencies across the United States, with 530 of them applying for eight slots at MCV.

Dunn also recruited MCV’s first African-American OB-GYN resident, James Price, in 1967. “I told him I was happy to talk with him about any problems he might have … but he got through his residency without one complaint [from patients],” Dunn says, adding that a male resident with a ponytail caused more or a stir.

Calm in the Storm

Isaacs, who began her residency under Dunn in 1997, recalls that it was “terrifying” to leave the safety of medical school and begin working with patients as a resident. “The work and responsibility and magnitude of what we do changes,” she says. “Having a fabulous physician mentor to guide you and lift you up, like a good coach does for a team, is just priceless. … Dr. Dunn was able to bring out the best in those he taught by setting an example.”

She recalls a situation as chief resident where she was treating a patient with abdominal bleeding. She needed Dunn’s help, but he was in surgery himself. “I told him we were taking her in for emergency surgery, and he was very calm and unfazed,” Isaacs recalls. “He told me to take good care of her and that he was coming. In the eye of the storm he was steady. … Deep down inside he knew I could take care of it, and that’s what gave me the powers to do it.”

Dunn says that whenever a resident began to unravel as something unexpected happened, “I would say, ‘There is no emergency that is ever improved by panic.’ … Yes, there are problems, but every problem has a solution. Being panicked never helps when you’ve got a human life in your hands.”

Isaacs recalls that Dunn never made residents feel as if they could not ask him a question or go to him for help. “He had a kindness and a wisdom that was just wonderful to learn from,” she says. “You could ask him any question, and he would guide you and help you understand. It was never about the hierarchy. He was there to serve and help.”

Long says she learned from Dunn to always “proceed with caution” in the operating room. “Don’t make any assumptions,” she says. “That keeps you out of trouble.”

Dunn earned his medical degree from Columbia University. He completed his residency at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, then received an additional two years of training in endocrinology, high-risk pregnancy and gynecologic oncology there. “It was a prestigious program internationally,” he says. “I trained with some of the best in the world.”

Rather than enter private practice, Dunn felt an obligation to pass on his extensive training by going into academic medicine. He was at the right place at the right time, he says, entering the field as the National Institute for Health’s research grant budget expanded from $100 million in 1957 to $1 billion in 1974. “Medical schools throughout the country suddenly found themselves with a need for physicians with research skills,” he says. “In those days there were very few people who went into academic medicine.”

Dunn’s example made an impact — by 1990, the year Dunn received a Distinguished Service Award from VCU, the number of MCV/VCU Health graduates entering academic medicine was four times the national average.

Patient First

Blanton says another valuable lesson she learned from Dunn is to always listen to your patient. “Your patient will tell you a lot,” she says. “He took all the time for his patients and taught us to do that.”

Long says that over the years her patients would tell her how much they learned about their health during their appointments with her. “Dr. Dunn helped us realize that we need to listen and we need to teach,” she says. “You never felt rushed with him.”

Dunn says that the idea of listening to the patient came from his experiences in medical school. “I was just brought up right,” he says.

Judy Collins, a women’s health nurse practitioner, began working as a nurse at MCV in 1967, the same year as Dunn. Collins says that Dunn was one of the only people who would listen to her and other nurses when they were interested in bringing the Lamaze method of prepared childbirth to Richmond from the West Coast. “He told us to start small, to do a good job and that it would eventually grow,” she says. “MCV was the first hospital that would let us try it and allow fathers in the delivery room.”

In 1971, Collins formed the Richmond Childbirth Education Association to educate other nurses on how to teach Lamaze classes, and the practice spread through Richmond. Dunn encouraged women to become more active participants in childbirth.

He recalls that as an undergraduate at Hofstra University, he read something that has always stuck with him and served as a guide: You can tell the quality of a society by how it treats its women. “That has caused me to reflect many times,” he says. “If you follow it through to your own neighborhood, it is absolutely true.”

Dunn helped to start the nurse practitioner program at MCV, and Collins was one of its first graduates. “Dr. Dunn has always been a mentor, not only to doctors, but to nurses and other medical professionals,” she says. “He was always trying to make things better.”

Collins, who retired in 2000, today volunteers at Cross Over Ministry’s medical clinic and says, “I still call Dr. Dunn if I have a question.”

Dunn retired as chair in 1996. He continued as a faculty member and started graduate school the next week, earning a master’s of health care administration degree from VCU Health. He also continued to work in the clinic and the clinical research center as a research subject advocate, until he retired for good about three years ago at 85 to care for his wife, Betty, his childhood sweetheart, who had dementia. She died last year.

To this day, when physicians gather for a conference or a retirement party and Dunn speaks, “the room will go silent,” Isaacs says. “I imagine it’s what hearing from the Pope is like. He’s such an honorable man. Everybody wants to hear what he has to say. He has that presence and magic about him. … The world needs more legends like Dr. Dunn.”

Leo Dunn’s influence reached beyond Richmond as he led national and regional medical organizations and received many prestigious awards.

  • President of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology
  • President of American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society
  • President of the American Gynecologic Society
  • Director of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology
  • Founding member of the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists
  • Vice president of the Society of Pelvic Surgeons
  • President and treasurer of the American Board of Medical Specialties
  • Chair of the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education
  • President of the South Atlantic Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
  • President of the Virginia Obstetrical and Gynecological Society
  • Interim dean of the VCU School of Medicine and chairman of the board of the MCV Physicians practice plan
  • Markle Scholar in Medical Science
  • Outstanding Alumnus Award of Columbia University
  • ACOG Distinguished Service Award
  • MCV Dean’s Distinguished Service Award
  • VCU Distinguished Service Award,
  • VCU President’s Medal
  • South Atlantic Association of OB-GYNs’ Lifetime Achievement Award

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