I spoke earlier about the reluctance of the departments at the school to take on some of the new activities that I thought, and some of my colleagues thought, could be so productive to address public health problems. And, we set up a series of units outside of the departments. One that was particularly useful, and I think important, was the Center for the Analysis of Health Practices which was directed by a colleague of mine who had come to join me from Beth Israel Hospital, Howard Frazier. And Howard, a marvellous teacher, wonderful doctor, and a... a great mentor for young people, had around him a group of people who have since become really very well known: Harvey Fineberg, who's now the President of the Institute of Medicine; Milton Weinstein, who is one of the leaders, perhaps the leader, in medical decision-making, and its teaching and its research; Don Berwick, who is the, perhaps the leading figure in quality of medical care issues in this country and around the world - he has a, actually an honorary knighthood from the Queen for his work in the UK.

Emerged... what emerged from their activities was a great deal of research, research that was encouraged by Herb Sherman, the engineer whom I had described earlier, and who came with me from Beth Israel Hospital, and they looked at a whole range of medical practices, evaluated them and published work on their effectiveness or lack of it. Milt Weinstein wrote the first book on the use of decision science in medical decision-making and that's... he has since really spawned a field. In addition, we began a series of courses for physicians, for medical hospital leaders, for people in medicine in a range of areas, courses that focused on economics and on management science, and for those activities we recruited a number of people from the Harvard Business School who have actually... many of whom have stayed on at the school and who have been leaders in their field. That was... those were some examples of extra-departmental activities that I thought were quite important.