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Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) is a national medical honor society that recognizes scholarship and leadership in medicine and related fields. It is composed of medical men and women, in medical schools in North America who show promise for attaining professional leadership, notable physicians in practice, and others who have gained unusual recognition in fields related to medicine. The original chapter was founded in 1902 by William W. Root, then a junior in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago, medical department of the University of Illinois.

Root founded the organization as a protest against 'a condition which associated the name medical student with rowdyism, boorishness, immorality, and low educational ideals.' Root and his fellow medical students formed a society that would foster honesty and formulate higher ideals of scholastic achievement.

The Washington University Chapter, called the Alpha of Missouri, founded in 1905, was the seventh chapter. The founding members of AOA at the medical school saw the need for a higher educational standard before the 1910 Flexner report changed the department and American medical education as a whole. The Washington University Medical Department raised its standards for entrance to the medical school, hired full time faculty, reformed the curriculum, and built a new medical campus with numerous hospitals on site as partners in medical education.

As the negative image of the medical student changed, the society continued to foster and honor student scholastic achievement at Washington University. The activities for members changed over the years but included initiation with an AOA membership key and certificate, annual banquets and lectures, and an AOA Book Prize still given each year at commencement for outstanding scholarship (News from the Medical School, Washington University, press release, March 10, 1954; Washington University School of Medicine Bulletin online, accessed 3/17/2006; Online Finding Aid to the Alpha Omega Alpha Archives, 1894-1968, at the National Library of Medicine, accessed 8/11/2006).

American Medical College was organized in 1873. Its backers were promoters of “eclecticism,” which was an approach to therapeutics that emphasized herbal remedies. The first class graduated in 1874, when instruction was offered at 7th and Olive Streets. The college admitted two classes each subsequent year up to 1883, thereafter a single class annually but with a longer term of instruction. From 1878 until 1890 the institution was located at 310 North 11th Street in St. Louis, and then moved to 407 S. Jefferson Avenue. Some time around 1900 the faculty staffed what was billed as “the only eclectic hospital in the west,” Metropolitan Hospital, but this facility evidently did not remain open long. Flexner graded American along with several other Missouri medical schools as “utterly wretched” following his visit in 1909. In 1910 the college abandoned eclecticism and formally embraced “regular” medicine. The college purchased a new building and also opened a second hospital and a dispensary on Pine Street at Theresa Avenue. Again the clinical facilities were short-lived. In 1911 American merged with nearby Barnes University. The combined institution was renamed National University in 1912.

A third generation Altonian, Mrs. Anschuetz grew up on Bluff Street. She was the daughter of Dr. Mather and Hortense Pfeiffenberger, the granddaughter of three-time Alton mayor Lucas Pfeiffenberger, the mother of seven children and the grandmother of six. Her maternal grandfather Rodgers and Uncle Eben Rodgers established the Alton Brick Company. Before her marriage in 1942 to surgeon Robert R. Anschuetz of the Washington University class of 1942, Ella attended schools as near as the former Irving and Roosevelt schools in Alton and as far away as the University of Heidelberg in Germany. While in Germany, she attended the 1936 Berlin Olympics and saw Adolph Hitler. She graduated from Monticello Seminary, a high school, and in 1934, she graduated as valedictorian of Monticello College, a junior college. Later she earned an undergraduate degree from Wellesley College, class of 1936, and a master's degree from Washington University.

Many Altonians remember Mrs. Anschuetz as a talented harpist. One of the high points of Mrs. Anschuetz's life was her harp study at Michigan's Interlochen Music Camp. She was the oldest of seven children who played together as a family orchestra and even had a composition adapted for them. In addition to playing with the Alton Civic Orchestra, as an active member of First Presbyterian Church of Alton she played the harp at Christmas Eve services for 50 years. "When she served as an elder at First Presbyterian Church," said her daughter Mary Vogt, "Dad fondly referred to Mom as "Elder Eller."

After his Army service in WWII, Ella brought her husband to Bluff Street to raise their six children. In addition to her extraordinary dedication to her family, she was particularly devoted to excellence in classical music and education, as well as serving the Alton community in several leadership positions. Mrs. Anschuetz's involvement in Alton community service spanned more than half a century. She led the Alton Community Service League as well as numerous Cub Scout, Brownie and Girl Scout troops. She also served on the Jenny D. Hayner Library Foundation Board for 40 years and on the United Way, Monticello Foundation and Alton Museum of History and Art Boards.

Ella Pfeiffenberger Anschuetz, 93, died Saturday, June 27, 2009 in Denver, Colorado. A longtime Alton resident and widow of former Alton surgeon Dr. Robert R. Anschuetz, she moved to Denver from Alton in 2002 to be near family.

Robert R. Anschuetz was a longtime surgeon in Alton, Illinois. He opened his private surgery practice in 1949, and was the founding chairman of the surgery department and former chief of staff at St. Anthony's Health Center. Anschuetz was also the president of the medical staff and chief of surgery at Alton Memorial Hospital. He was a Washington University alumnus, having received both his undergraduate and medical degrees (M.D. 1940) from the institution. He married Ella Pfeiffenberger in 1942.

Andrew B. "A.B." Barbee was a physician and surgeon who practiced in St. Louis. He graduated from Kemper Medical College in 1843 and authored a history of Missouri Medical college from 1840 to 1861, published in 1914.

Barnes Medical College was founded in 1892 as a "for-profit" institution by a group of St. Louis physicians and businessmen. In 1911, Barnes Medical College merged with American Medical College. In 1912, the product of this merger was given a new name: National University of Arts and Sciences. The effort failed, however, and all programs ceased by 1918.

Barnes Medical College was named in honor of a recently deceased merchant, Robert A. Barnes (1808-1892). Barnes had bequeathed money for the construction of a hospital and it has been widely presumed that the educators’ choice of name was part of an attempt to secure an affiliation between the two institutions. If so, the attempt failed, for the trustees of the Robert A. Barnes estate chose instead to reinvest the assets and wait for a more favorable time to build Barnes Hospital. Ignoring the rebuff, the college trustees constructed a building of their own at 2645 Chestnut (later renamed Lawton) Street. The institution quickly became the largest medical college in the city (ca. 400 students) and its program outgrew the original structure. In 1896 a second building opened two blocks west, on Lawson at Garrison Avenue. In 1902 the objective of a college-related clinical facility was achieved with the establishment of Centenary Hospital and the Barnes Dispensary in a new adjoining building. The institution also operated a dental college (see below), a college of pharmacy, and a nurses’ training program. At its height, the college enrolled approximately 600 students, and in 1904 changed its name to Barnes University. Despite these enhancements and changes of name, it became increasing apparent that the institution was financially unstable. The trustees offered their properties to the Curators of the University of Missouri in 1906 to house the state medical college. The negotiations lasted over a year and the Curators came close to accepting what seemed at first to be a generous offer. In the end, however, the state refused to pay the private venture’s debts and plans for the connection collapsed in 1908. During this same period, Barnes did absorb a smaller private school, the Hippocratean College of Medicine. Flexner severely criticized the Barnes institutions in 1909, however, a contemporary reviewer writing for the American Medical Association (Philip Skrainka, 1910) judged their quality “good.” One year following the merger with American Medical College in 1911 the names Barnes ceased to refer to medical instruction by this organization. For a brief period (1911-1914?) the Centenary facility was administered by Christian Hospital. From 1919 until 1936 the city of St. Louis used the building as a hospital for African American patients (City Hospital No. 2). The structures at Garrison and Lawton were demolished in 1960.

The Baumgarten family was a German-American family who settled in St. Louis in 1850 and had great influence on the local medical profession with its members practicing medicine across four generations. It began with Frederick (1810-1869), and passed down through succeeding sons in the next three generations with Gustav (1837-1910), Walter Sr. (1873-1945), and Walter Jr. (1912-1980).

Born in Nordheim, Germany, Friedrich Ernst Baumgarten was a German-American physician who emigrated to the United States in the 1840s, settling in St. Louis in 1850. He received his medical degree from the University of Gottingen in 1831, and became a mining surgeon in in the town of Clausthal in the Harz Mountains. After earning another degree from the University of Jena in 1844, Friedrich became interested in the prospect of a better life in the United States. He left his family for Galveston, Texas and attempted to establish a medical practice there, but yellow fever epidemics pushed him to settle further north. In 1850, Friedrich (now known as Frederick) came to St. Louis and found it to his liking due to the growing German immigrant community, so he sent for his wife and children to move in with him. The family settled in 1851, and Frederick became an American citizen in 1852. However, his wife could not adjust to life in America so she soon moved back to Germany with their daughters while their son, Gustav, remained behind with his father. During his career in St. Louis, Frederick emphasized his medical interest in obstetrics, but carried on a successful practice with patients with a variety of backgrounds and medical afflictions. He was a founding member of the German Medical Society of St. Louis and participated in the St. Louis Medical Society, the St. Louis Academy of Science, and the Masonic Order.

The son of Frederick Baumgarten, Gustav joined his father with the rest of his family in St. Louis as a young teenager. He enrolled in E. Wyman's English and Classical High School. Like his father, Gustav was interested in medicine and earned a medical degree from St. Louis Medical College in 1856 with a thesis on nutrition. After graduating at 19 years old, he was not yet ready to practice medicine so he returned to his native country in 1857 to spend a year at the University of Gottingen in its Ernst-Augustus Hospital. Gustav also spent a year at the University of Berlin, working at nearby clinics and studying under Rudolph Virchow, the leading authority in cellular pathology at the time. He then spent a third year in Europe, studying at the University of Vienna and working at clinics in both Vienna and Prague. Upon his return to St. Louis, Gustav entered practice with his father, seeing patients at St. Louis Sisters of Charity and City Hospital. During the Civil War, he served as a naval surgeon in the Union Navy throughout the Gulf Coast and at the Memphis Naval Hospital. After the war, Gustav's German fiance joined him in St. Louis for marriage and family, raising three children as his medical practice took off. While he was a private physician for the rest of his career, Gustav was active in the local and national medical communities. He was a co-editor of the St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal in 1866, contributed articles to the Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences (1885), and served as president of the Association of American Physicians in 1899. In addition, Gustav joined the faculty at St. Louis Medical College in 1871 as a professor of physiology and medical jurisprudence and later professor of special pathology and therapeutics. He was a significant figure in the medical college's independence from St. Louis University in 1872 and its affiliation with Washington University in 1891, along with the college's merger with Missouri Medical College to become Washington University Medical Department in 1899-1900. He also served as the dean of the school during the merger. He passed down his medical practice to his son Walter in the early 1900s, and died in 1910 after a prolonged illness.

Walter Baumgarten, Sr. followed in his father's and grandfather's footsteps into medicine after earning an A.B. degree from Johns Hopkins University and a medical degree from St. Louis Medical College in 1896. Walter Sr. spent his early medical career throughout the country, serving assistantships at St. Louis City Hospital, Harvard University, and Johns Hopkins Medical School. In 1903, he returned to St. Louis to enter private practice at his father's medical practice and also began teaching in 1907 as a lecturer in chemistry and microscopy at Washington University. Walter Sr. became an instructor in medicine at Washington University in 1917 and remained in the position until 1943. He was a councilor of the Southern Medical Association, an editor of the Missouri State Medical Journal, a fellow in the American College of Physicians, and a member of various local and national medical societies. Walter Sr. married in 1910 and raised three children, but died in a fire at his home in 1945 while his elder son, Walter Jr., was returning from WWII.

As the fourth and final member of the Baumgarten family to practice medicine in St. Louis, Walter Jr., was a doctor of internal medicine from 1946 to his death in 1980. He graduated from John Burroughs School in St. Louis, and received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Washington University. Between 1939 and 1942, Walter Jr. served internships and residencies in St. Louis and Chicago. He then became a flight surgeon with the United States Army Air Force until August 1945. After WWII, Walter Jr. spent his medical career as a staff surgeon at St. Luke's and Barnes Hospitals, and taught clinical medicine at Washington University School of Medicine. Along with his work in surgery and medical education, Walter Jr. served as president of the St. Louis Heart Association and the Missouri Heart Association, and as the chairman of the social planning council of St. Louis Department of Health and Hospitals. In 1967, he became the head of the medical staff at St. Luke's Hospital, and helped establish a hospice for terminally ill patients at the hospital. Walter Jr. was also known for his passion in historic preservation, having acted as trustee for the Jefferson National Expansion Historical Association and a member of the Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. He made the history of medicine and collection of rare medical texts a special field of study, and was a chairman of the Library for the St. Louis Medical Society, which named him as honorary curator in 1964.

Born in Nordheim, Germany, Friedrich Ernst Baumgarten was a German-American physician who emigrated to the United States in the 1840s, settling in St. Louis in 1850. He received his medical degree from the University of Gottingen in 1831, and became a mining surgeon in in the town of Clausthal in the Harz Mountains. After earning another degree from the University of Jena in 1844, Friedrich became interested in the prospect of a better life in the United States.

He left his family for Galveston, Texas and attempted to establish a medical practice there, but yellow fever epidemics pushed him to settle further north. In 1850, Friedrich (now known as Frederick) came to St. Louis and found it to his liking due to the growing German immigrant community, so he sent for his wife and children to move in with him. The family settled in 1851, and Frederick became an American citizen in 1852. However, his wife could not adjust to life in America so she soon moved back to Germany with their daughters while their son, Gustav, remained behind with his father.

During his career in St. Louis, Frederick emphasized his medical interest in obstetrics, but carried on a successful practice with patients with a variety of backgrounds and medical afflictions. He was a founding member of the German Medical Society of St. Louis and participated in the St. Louis Medical Society, the St. Louis Academy of Science, and the Masonic Order.

When Johanna Ernestine Luise BAUMGARTEN was born on May 28, 1840, her father, Friedrich, was 30, and her mother, Louise, was 25. She married Karl Adolf Friedrich GREIFFENHAGEN on July 3, 1862, in Northeim, Lower Saxony, Germany. They had five children during their marriage. She died on August 15, 1916, in Einbeck, Lower Saxony, Germany, having lived a long life of 76 years.

Johanna Ernestine Luise BAUMGARTEN 1840–1916 https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/family-tree/person/tree/117212765/person/190161913419/story

Louise Beckmann Baumgarten was born Amalie Louisa Bechman and lived in Nordheim Germany where she met Doctor Frederick Ernst Baumgarten (1810-1869) also of Nordheim. They had three children, Gustav (1837-1910) , Joanna (1840)and Theodora (1842-) Her youngest daughter, Theodora was born in Clausthal in 1842 according to the marriage record for her and her husband, Rev ? Bose in 1873. Louise and her children joined her husband in St. Louis in January 1850.

When Theodora BAUMGARTEN was born in 1842 in Clausthal, Germany, her father, Friedrich Ernst, was 32, and her mother, Louise, was 27. She had one brother, Gustav Baumgarten, MD (1837-1910), and one sister, Joanna (Johanna) Baumgarten Greiffenhagen (1840-1916). Gustav, Joanna and Theodora were in St. Louis, MO in Ward 3 for the 1850 United States Census. However Joanna and Theodora returned with their mother to their native Germany sometime before the 1860 United States Census. Johanne Ernestine Louise Theodore Baumgarten married Carl Bernhard Gustav Ernst Leopold Bose in Hannover, Lower Saxony, Germany, on November 9, 1873, when she was 31 years old. They had two male children during their marriage: Ludwig Bose and Hermann Emil Bose (born 1874 in Bremen, Germany). Photographs in the Baumgarten Family Photographs and Drawings show that Theodora Baumgarten Bose was photographed in Northeim, Germany in 1890 and in Nordhausen, Germany in 1900 and 1910 and that the Bose Family home was in Nordhausen, Germany in 1900 and 1910.

Librarian at the St. Louis Medical Society, 1950-1981. Member of the Medical Library Association, 1950-

George H. Bishop received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1919 and joined the faculty of Washington University School of Medicine in 1921. He held a variety of appointments, among them research associate and associate professor in the Department of Physiology (1921-1930), professor of applied physiology in the Department of Ophthalmology (1930-1932), professor of biophysics in the Neurophysiology Laboratory (1932-1947) and professor of neurophysiology in the Department of Neuropsychiatry (1947-1954). Dr. Bishop is remembered for his collaboration with Joseph Erlanger and Herbert S. Gasser in research on the properties of nerve fibers, for which the latter two received the 1944 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Dr. Bishop is also well-known for his work in the development of electroencephalography as a diagnostic tool in the understanding of epilepsy.

Vilray P. Blair, Jr., the son of Vilray Papin Blair, earned his Bachelor's degree at the University of Virginia. M.D. as part of the Washington University School of Medicine class of 1939. He interned in surgery at Barnes Hospital in the academic year of 1939-1940. He stayed on as assistant in Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine, in the academic years, 1940-1942. After serving in the U.S, Army in World War II, he practiced in St. Louis from 1948-1978. He was on staff at St, Luke's Missouri Baptist and Barnes hospitals, joining the Barnes Hospital medical staff in 1951. Upon retiring from practice in 1978 he became associate clinical emeritus professor of othopedic surgery at the Washington University, School of Medicine. Vilray P. Blair III is his son and Barbara B. Drey and Kathryn C. Blair and Mary G. Blair are his daughters. Vilray P. Blair III, his son, is also an orthopedic surgeon.

Vilray Papin Blair is most known for his pioneering work in plastic surgery. A native of St. Louis, Blair graduated from Christian Brothers College in 1890 and subsequently enrolled in the St. Louis Medical College. There he was greatly influenced by Elisha Hall Gregory, a professor of surgery. He graduated in 1893 and began an internship at Mullanphy Hospital under distinguished surgeon Paul Yoer Tupper.

In 1894 Blair was appointed instructor with the Anatomy Department of St. Louis Medical College (which had joined Washington University in 1891). In 1896 he took a leave from medicine to join the crew of a merchant vessel bound for Europe, a decision that led to him becoming a ship surgeon for a journey to Brazil and then a military surgeon for British troops sailing to West Africa.

Upon his return to St. Louis in 1900, Blair established a private surgical practice and resumed teaching at the School of Medicine. He was named to the visiting staff of St. Louis City Hospital in 1910. In 1917 Blair joined the U.S. Army Corps entering World War I and was named chief of oral and plastic surgery. On his return to St. Louis he was active in the Medical Reserve Corps and served as attending specialist in plastic surgery at the Jefferson Barracks Veterans Hospital.

Blair served as assistant professor of clinical surgery at the School of Medicine in 1922 and was named professor in 1927. He also served as professor of oral surgery at the Washington University School of Dentistry. He became an emeritus professor of both schools in 1941. Throughout his career, Blair published many influential books and articles in the areas of plastic and oral surgery. Another foremost achievement was his leadership in creating the American Board of Plastic Surgery, which helped seal his place as a pioneer in establishing plastic surgery as a unique branch of medicine.

C. Read Boles graduated from Washington University School of Medicine in 1943. He then joined the Army and was assigned to South America, where he served as a base surgeon until 1946. After his military service, Boles returned to St. Louis and completed his residency in pediatrics at St. Louis Children's Hospital, and in 1949 and entered private practice as a pediatrician. Boles also held a position as an Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine.

When Hermann Emil Bose was born on October 20, 1874, in Bremen, Germany, his father, Carl [Carl Bernhard Gustave Ernest Bose (1850-)], was 24 and his mother, [Johanna Louise Ernestine] Theodora [born Baumgarten], was 32. Emil earned a D. Phil and served in the military in Bremen from 1893-1899. He married Clara Elisabeth Egebrecht on August 15, 1900, in Bad Arolsen, Hesse, Germany. He then married Margrethe Elisabeth Hejberg on September 8, 1903, in Roskilde, Denmark.

Lewis H. Bosher, Jr. was a physician who specialized in thoracic surgery. As a Virginia native, Bosher stayed in state to earn his bachelor's degree from University of Virginia in 1936 and then received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1940. Bosher started his career in medicine as an assistant resident at Bellevue Hospital, but WWII interrupted his residency. During the war, he was a staff member of the Army Medical Corps, the First General Hospital, the Fourth Auxiliary Surgical Group, and McGuire General Hospital. Bosher left the Army in 1946 with the rank of Major.

Bosher resumed his surgical residency at Medical College of Virginia (MCV) for a year, and completed postdoctoral training in general surgery at the Lahey Clinic in Massachusetts and in thoracic surgery at Barnes Hospital. Upon the completion of his studies, Bosher returned to MCV in 1950 as an assistant professor in the Department of Surgery. He became a full professor in 1974 and retired from academic medicine to start a private practice in 1979. Known for his leadership, Bosher helped establish cardiac surgery programs at Chippenham and Henrico Doctors' Hospitals, and served in various roles for numerous medical organizations.

Frank R. Bradley was born in LaClede, Illinois. He received his medical degree from Washington University in 1928 and served as head of Barnes Hospital for 22 years, from 1939 to 1962. He is widely recognized as a pioneer in the field of hospital administration. During his tenure as director of Barnes, the institution grew from 400 beds to 959 beds. The David P. Wohl Jr. Memorial Clinics building, Wohl Hospital building, and the Barnard Free Skin and Cancer Hospital building were all erected during this time and came under his administration. McMillan Hospital and St. Louis Maternity Hospital also became a part of the Barnes complex during Dr. Bradley's years as director.

Dr. Bradley brought about many "firsts" at Barnes Hospital:

1. Barnes was one of the first general hospitals to accept patients with communicable diseases. During a poliomyelitis epidemic in 1943, Dr. Bradley observed that with proper infection control, persons suffering with the disease could be cared for in a general hospital. This principal later was accepted by other St. Louis hospitals and allowed the city to close an institution which previously served only this type of patient.

2. Barnes was one of the first general hospitals to accept psychiatric patients.

3. Dr. Bradley guided Barnes when it became one of the first university-affiliated hospitals to organize and operate diagnostic laboratories along centralized lines of control.

4. In conjunction with key physicians at the Washington University School of Medicine, Dr. Bradley established one of the first hospital blood banks gathering and typing blood routinely, rather than on a "crisis" basis.

5. Dr. Bradley recognized the potential for the use of computers in data processing and Barnes was one of the first hospitals in the country to use computers in its business operations.

After retiring from his position at Barnes Hospital in 1962, Dr. Bradley continued to develop Washington University's graduate program in Hospital Administration. He served as Professor of Hospital Administration at Washington University School of Medicine from 1946 to 1968. A former president of the American College of Hospital Administrators (1946-1947), Dr. Bradley was president of the American Hospital Association from 1954-1955. He served as vice chairman of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals in 1960, and that same year was president of the American Protestant Hospital Association and the National Society of Medical Administrators.

A former president of the St. Louis Hospital Council, Dr. Bradley was active in the St. Louis Medical Society and the St. Louis Chapter of the American Red Cross. He was chairman of the Blue Cross Hospital Advisory Committee from 1957 to 1960. National activities included his appointment as the first chairman of the Citizen's Consultant committee of the National Joint Commission for Improvement of Patient Care, a consultant for the Atomic Energy Commission at Los Alamos, a member of the Hoover Committee Task Force in 1948-1949 (Medical Services Committee of Commission on Organization of Executive Branch of the Government), and Consultant to both the offices of Surgeon General of the Army and Surgeon General of the Navy.

Dr. Bradley was chairman of both the Missouri Conference for Improvement of Patient Care and the Missouri State Health and Hospital Survey Committee. He was chairman of a subcommittee of the Health and Hospital Advisory Committee to the Mayor and Director of Public Welfare of St. Louis in 1950. Other community activities included the Community Health League of St. Louis, the Community Chest of Greater St. Louis, the Tuberculosis and Health Society of St. Louis, the Commission on Religion and Health of the Metropolitan Church Federation, the Rotary Club of St. Louis, and the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce.

The author of many papers and publications, Dr. Bradley also was a historian with a particular interest in the history of Barnes Hospital. His unfinished manuscript titled "History of Barnes Hospital" is included in his collection of papers.

Richard V. Bradley, son of Rachel Ida Mayo Bradley and Frank R. Bradley, earned his M.D. in the Washington University School of Medicine class of 1952. Dick Bradley interned at Barnes Hospital and completed his residency in general surgery at Barnes Hospital. Later he was fellow in surgery and chief resident at Veterans Hospital in St. Louis (1958) .

He then practiced in St. Louis as a general surgeon until he retired in 1990. He served on the staffs of Barnes (1957-) and Children's Hospital. He joined the academic staff of the School of Medicine in 1968 as an instructor in surgery and became assistant professor of clinical surgery in 1974, He participated in Missouri state medical associations serving as president of Barnes Hospital Society, the Missouri State Medical Association (1974-1975) and the St. Louis Medical Society (1974). He was elected in 1982-1983 a member of the Executive Faculty of Washington University School of Medicine. He was elected by the school's part-time faculty to serve on the council, the schools governing body at that time. Dr. Richard Bradley helped found MOMEDCO or Missouri Medical Insurance Co., a physician owned professional liability insurance company. Dr. Bradley, as its president, weighed in on the rising cost of medical insurance for gynecologists, obstetricians and other surgical specialties in the St. Louis print media n 1987-1988.