Dr. Robert Rakel, President of the American Osler Society in 1993-1994, stands in front of a fireplace surround which was originally in Sir William Osler's home, the Open Arms, in Oxford, England.

In 2004, the American Osler Society's Annual Meeting was held in Houston, Texas. Participants attended a reception at the John P. McGovern Historical Collection and Research Center in the Houston Academy of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library where they posed for pictures in front of the fireplace. The fireplace surround was found in the basement of the Open Arms during renovations and was a gift to Dr. McGovern from Green College, Oxford University.

As a medical resident in 1960, Dr. Rakel wrote a short paper, Anecdotes from the Life of Sir William Oster. He later published "A Modern Version of Osler's Bedside Library" in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 1988 (vol. 31, pp577-585).