Farewell to CFOB
  ‘You served Michigan well’

Photos: Martin Vloet

The Clinical Faculty Office Building stands empty today, silently awaiting the bulldozers. It will be razed this summer to make way for the University’s new Cardiovascular Center, but for decades after it opened its doors in 1939, this simple, gracious edifice was home to hundreds of young hospital interns. It was here they caught a few hours’ sleep before their next shift, or stayed up discussing difficult cases. It was here they lined up beer bottles at the end of long corridors and bowled, here that they hauled their Victrolas down to the basement recreation room and let the music of Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw melt away the stresses of long days of life and death decisions.

This was home to young people becoming doctors.

Stefan Fajans (M.D. 1942, Residency 1949), professor emeritus of internal medicine, lived at the residence during the summer of 1947. “It was a very nice place to stay,” he recalls. “There was a lot of comradeship between the interns and residents. I remember there was a resident, Henry Shock — he went on to become chief of internal medicine at the VA — who would go out every night and get hamburgers for everyone. It was a good time, with good friends.”

Years later, the building was refitted for offices and the long tunnel connecting it to the Hospital was sealed off. Most recently, the building was home to the Department of Psychiatry, whose staff and faculty members enjoyed its old-world touches: beautiful inset wooden bookcases, dumbwaiters, thick, carved crown molding, and signature huge, golden clocks.

Says John Greden, M.D., chair of the Department of Psychiatry and executive director of the U-M Depression Center, “CFOB always reminded me of Michigan’s impressive medical traditions. A generation of doctors had their roots in this facility. Various department chairs had their offices in CFOB before the Replacement Hospital and Taubman Center were constructed. The building’s time arguably had come, but there’s still a sense of nostalgic loss for me and for others who worked there. Many good things were accomplished. You served Michigan well, CFOB...”

—WH