The Cabot Club Revisited

BEGINNING IN 1929, THE CABOT CLUB met weekly at the Sacramento Society for Medical Improvement for lunch and to study the Clinico-Pathological Exercises as published in each issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

It was named for Richard Clarke Cabot, MD (1868-1939) of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, who championed teaching medicine by case histories. The local founding spirit and guiding light was Oscar Johnson, MD, an extraordinary physician and gentleman who became active in SSMI in 1919 and died in 1981.

It was our custom to listen to a reading of that week's clinical case, discuss the differential diagnosis, and finally read the published solution by the pathologist. A varied membership attended over the years, the only requirement being one's presence.

With the gradual devaluation of autopsies in the 1970's and more advanced in vivo diagnostic methods, CPC's in general, and The Cabot Club in particular, slowly faded away. Seated (from the left) are Doctors Rob Kirkpatrick, Arthur Huntley, Byron Demorest, Suzanne Snively, Oscar Johnson, Dave F. Dozier, Frank Peter and W.A. Vinks. Standing (from left) are Doctors William Kohl, Donald Depp, John Wozniak, Gilbert Schoefer, John Farrell, J. Sampson, Richard Frink and Mark Dentinger.