June 1961
Dr. William J. Weaver, Jr. '36 quits his private practice and joins Drs. James DeWitt Mills, Jr., Chalmers "Babe" Loughridge, Jr. and John McDade to initiate what becomes known as the "Alexandria Plan," a system for staffing hospital emergency departments that is now standard throughout the Anglo-American world.
Emergency rooms were previously staffed by moonlighting physicians and interns. The Alexandria four developed a system for devoting staff exclusive to the emergency department to provide better and more consistent care. Bro. Weaver helped found the American College of Emergency Physicians in 1968, which organized training programs for ER docs, and in 1979 emergency medicine was first recognized as an independent specialty.