The Galens Smoker:
Still Bawdy, Still Ambitious After All These Years
A History by Megan Schimpf
Irreverent, uncouth, and a must-see for medical students every
year, the student-run Galens Smoker is a raucous display of
medical student talent, dedication and energy that is now more
than 80 years old.
The first documented “All-Medic Smoker” was held
at the Michigan Union in 1918 and featured a program of skits
followed by refreshments and talks by professors. The “Smoker”
name recalls those early performances when the Galens men enjoyed
the pleasures of tobacco along with their ribald humor.
“The Thymico-Lymphatic Constitution,” a humorous
printed satire of Medical School life bordering on the obscene,
was distributed for the first time at the 1931 Smoker. By 1948
the outrageous content of the publication as it had developed
over many classes of students caused the Galens group to be
sentenced to social probation for a year by the administration,
but their good standing was reinstated after a year. Officially,
Galens members attempted to “clean up” the Smoker’s
humor for the next several years, but this effort seems to have
been pursued with little enthusiasm.
The first modern Smoker debuted in 1962 when then-junior Robert
Bartlett (M.D. 1963, Residency 1969), now a professor of surgery
and a Galens honorary, proposed a Smoker with a theme designed
around the popular musical, “The Music Man,” instead
of a series of random skits. Since that time, the Smoker has
parodied musicals and movies while lampooning medical student
life and those who shape it.
The admission of women to the Smoker audience was a hotly debated
issue, with the Galens men fearful that their humor would have
to be restricted in mixed company. However, in 1963 wives of
Galens members were admitted to a rehearsal and the following
year, three members of the Alpha Epsilon Iota sorority hid in
the rafters during a performance of “JAMA Game,” and
afterwards sent a check for their admission to the outraged
Galens president, Philip D. Allmendinger, who attached it to
his president’s report with the notation that “it
is our fond hope that never again shall the shadow of a female
fall upon the stage of the Galens Smoker.”
Allmendinger’s fond hopes were dashed in less than a decade,
however, with Galens membership being opened to women in 1971
and women joining the cast of the Smoker for the aptly named
1972 performance, “Michigan Impossible.” Renewed calls
for purifying the Smoker’s content throughout the 1960s
met with scant success, and the admission of women in the 1970s
did little, as had once been feared, to tame the content.
Since 1974, all medical students, not just Galens members,
have been invited to participate as members of the cast, crew
and band, though many today are still Galens members. “These
are our future colleagues, and the Smoker provides an excellent
way to form bonds that are not totally based on medicine,”
says Victoria Jewell, a three-year Galens member. “Each
of us has something special about us that usually isn’t
seen by classmates. The Smoker allows us to explore these other
sides of our character.”
David Rosen (M.D. 1984), clinical associate professor of pediatrics
and communicable diseases, insists he actually made his decision
to attend the University of Michigan Medical School because
of the existence of the Smoker, a performance of which he had
attended as an undergraduate with his friend, and later Smoker
co-director, Matthew Bueche (M.D. 1984, Residency 1989). “It
was always my plan to try to go to Stanford to medical school,”
Rosen says, “but when it came time to choose, I came to
Michigan so that I could do Smokers. Really!”
“The Smoker is one of the truly creative outlets we have
in medical school. It’s a chance to relax and poke fun
at the stresses of daily life,” says current Smoker “czar”
Erik Bauer. “The faculty here know they haven’t really
made it until they’ve been humiliated in the Smoker.”
Back to the Suture, the 81st Galens Smoker, lived up to the
tradition of its 80 outrageously tasteless predecessors, which
have included such inspired productions as Piddler on the Roof,
My Fair Malady, the Wizard of Gauze and How to Succeed in Medicine
Without Really Trying.
This year’s performance met all previous standards with
its Viagra-fueled time machine, its remorseless parodies and
uncanny representations of faculty behavior, its high-energy
dances and original song lyrics (“Our fourth year, has
been a piece a’ cake, eeeee-zzzzzz rotations but our future
was at stake, We applied and now we’re done, Residency,
yah, here we come.”).
A production that includes writing of the script in the fall,
casting in January, choreography of dances in February and rehearsals
and set construction through the spring, the Galens Smoker’s
carefully constructed elements all come together on the stage
of the Lydia Mendelssohn theater in late April. “Opening
night is very exciting and always a surprise,” says Jeremy
Kaplan, a third-year student and veteran of two Smokers. “The
audience reactions are what really make the show. You have no
idea where the high points are going to be, but when they happen,
you can feel the electricity and you know you made the connection.”
Author's note
Megan Schimpf is a third-year student in the Medical School
from East Lansing. She earned her undergraduate degree, a bachelor
of science in biology, from the University of Michigan in 1997.
She was on the staff of The Michigan Daily for six years, including
one year as a news editor, and two and a half years as an editorial
columnist. She earned a Gold Circle Award from the Columbia
Scholastic Press Association last year for her column on her
experiences as a student in the anatomy lab. She is vice president
of the Galens Medical Society and has provided support for the
Galens' Smoker for the past two years, helping with the writing
of the script and design of the program and the scrapbook.
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