Horace Robbins, M.D. ’51, comes home to Baylor
On October 6, 1947, Baylor College of Medicine held its first classes inside the brand-new Roy and Lillie Cullen Building. It was the first day of medical school for twenty-five-year-old Horace Robbins, a member of the first class to complete all four years of medical school in the state-of-the-art Cullen Building.
Seventy-five years after graduating, Dr. Robbins returned to Baylor for the launch of Tomorrow’s Medicine Today, a $1 billion philanthropic campaign aimed at supporting key initiatives at Baylor, including its new education building, the Lillie and Roy Cullen Tower.
The event, held on October 15, occurred 11 days after Dr. Robbins’ 100th birthday, marking a full-circle moment for the Baylor alum. The new 503,000-square-foot educational building represents a profound shift in the way healthcare education is delivered, with more small-group learning areas, mock operating rooms and exam rooms where students collaborate with each other and obtain more hands-on experience earlier.
Dr. Robbins was able to tour the new building, making particular note of how spacious the building was and how it was equipped with modern equipment to support learners in their studies.
“I’d like to re-enroll and learn medicine all over again,” Dr. Robbins said.
Like The Cullen Tower, the opening of the Cullen Building in 1947 caused a stir. The four-story building boasted fancy equipment, housed cutting-edge laboratories and classrooms and even had air-conditioning, all of which provided an unparalleled space for talented medical students to learn and hone their skills. It was widely regarded as the most impressive medical school building in the Western world.
For his part, Dr. Robbins has fond memories of students using state-of-the-art kymographs as well as an anatomy lab instructor he still calls “wonderful.”
When asked how Baylor helped prepare him for his career, which spanned decades of modern medicine, Dr. Robbins responded with a twinkle in his eye and in his customary, dry, understated way: “Oh, I don’t know—everything,” he said. “The professors were good.”
After Baylor, Dr. Robbins trained in Kansas City before returning to Baylor to pursue his surgery residency. He would go on to practice surgery and teach residents in Houston. Over the decades, he would build a thriving career and create a loving family. He would watch countless advances in medicine change the world, especially the easy access to different types of antibiotics and how that impacted what he did in the operating room.
Today, Dr. Robbins is retired and enjoys spending his time with his family. His hopes for Baylor are characteristically direct: keep competing, keep aiming to be the best. His advice to the students who will fill the new Cullen Tower is shorter still.
“Study well,” Dr. Robbins said. “It is a long journey, and it ends in saving lives.”
