J.E. Wallace Sterling Award History and Recipients
HISTORY OF THE J.E. WALLACE STERLING “MULESHOE” LIFETIME ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
On November 9, 1959, as Stanford University President Wallace Sterling was walking across an open field to the groundbreaking ceremony at the site of the future medical school, he stumbled on an old horseshoe and took it with him as a good luck omen. Years later Gunther W. Nagel, MD ’21, spotted the horseshoe in an administrator’s office. Acting on a belief that the School of Medicine should honor distinguished alumni, Dr. Nagel proposed that the horseshoe symbolize that honor. He took the shoe to an expert who explained it was actually a muleshoe and may have been lost during the Portola expedition. In 1983 the SUMCAA Board conferred the first J. E. Wallace Sterling Muleshoe Lifetime Alumni Achievement Award. The award is presented annually to an individual in recognition of his or her exceptional lifetime achievements. For those who questioned the propriety of awarding a muleshoe rather than a horseshoe, Dr. Nagel was quick to point out that a mule is smarter and more reliable than a horse and has a lot more kick.
Excerpted from Stanford Medicine magazine.
STERLING AWARD RECIPIENTS
1983
Esther Clark, MD ‘25
1984
Donald E. King, MD ‘27
Carleton Mathewson Jr., MD ‘27
1985
David Rytand, MD ‘33
1987
Sherman Melinkoff, MD ‘44
1988
David Wood, MD ‘30
1989
Gunther Nagel, MD ‘21
Wlibur Hurlbut, MD ‘38
1990
Roy B. Cohn, MD ‘33
Robert E. Tranquada, MD ‘55
1991
Alvin Cox Jr., MD ‘31
Marcus A. Krupp, MD ‘39
1992
Victor Richards, MD ‘39
Sidney Raffel, MD ‘43
1993
Cecil C. Cutting, MD ‘35
William P. Creger, MD ‘47
1995
Richard S. Lee, MD ‘45
Peter V. Lee, MD ‘47
Philip R. Lee, MD ‘48
Hewlett Lee, MD ‘49
Margo Lee Paulsen, MD ‘53
1996
Allan Goodman, MD ‘61
1998
Thomas N. Elmendorf, MD ‘45
Jack McCleary, MD ‘51
Robert D. Burnett, MD ‘53
Eugene S. Ogrod II, MD ‘70
1999
Donald Tsang, MD ’57
Norman Rich, MD ’60
2000
Irving Weissman, MD ’65
2001
F. William Blaisdell, MD ’52
2003
William R. Brody, MD ’70, PhD ’72
2004
Ronald Levy, MD ’68
2006
Augustus A. White, III, MD '61, PhD
Frances K. Conley, MD '66, MS
2007
J.D. Northway, MD '60
Linda Hawes Clever, MD '65
2008
Donald Prolo, MD ‘61
Laurence A. Boxer, MD ‘66
