The Alexander W. Cavins Collection covers his years as a student at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. It includes a cassette tape and a transcripted portion of Cavins' oral memoirs. Cavins discusses his courses and professors, among them Lewis Weed, Florence Sabin, Max Bröedel, J. Whitridge Williams, William S. Thayer, Lewellys Barker, and John Jacob Abel. He also speaks about the following: his employment at the Baltimore Sydenham Hospital for contagious diseases, where he learned intubation for diphtheria; the boarding home where he stayed as a medical student; and the social activities of his fellow medical students.