 Dr. Hugh Huger Toland |
 Dr. Richard Beverly Cole |
The Department of Surgery at UCSF was established in 1873 by two surgeons, Hugh H. Toland and Richard Beverly Cole who were lured to California by Gold Fever.
By 1852, when Toland crossed the
2,000-mile overland route by wagon train and Cole arrived by
steamship, the gold reserves were dwindling, leaving both to resort
to surgical careers. Cole became the Dean of the new Medical
Department of the University of California, and Toland, the first
chairman of the Department of Surgery. In 1898, the school moved to
its current location, overlooking Golden Gate Park, on land donated
by former San Francisco mayor Adolph Sutro.
Photo of the new Parnassus campus of the UC Medical
Department, with streetcar in front.
(Reproduction from Special Collections, The Library, University
of California, San Francisco)
After the 1906 earthquake, San Francisco residents
took refuge in a tent city in Golden Gate Park.
The UCSF campus is on the hill in the background of this
photograph.
(Reproduction
from Special Collections, The Library, University of California,
San Francisco)
|
Howard C. Naffziger |
The Department of Surgery gained national prominence under the
leadership of Howard C. Naffziger.
After serving as an intern and resident at the University of
California Hospital, Naffziger went to Johns Hopkins Hospital in
Baltimore to work under William Stewart Halsted and Harvey Cushing,
the preeminent surgeons of their day. Naffziger returned to the
University of California to teach and develop a first-class
surgical center. Nationally renown for his many contributions to
the new specialty of neurosurgery, Naffziger became Chairman of the
Department of Surgery in 1929. He developed a residency
program modeled after Halsted's and established the first research
laboratory on the Parnassus campus. When Naffziger left
Surgery in 1947 to chair UC Medical School's new Department of
Neurological Surgery, the Halstedian tradition continued under the
new Chairman, H. Glenn Bell. Like Naffziger, Bell believed in the
importance of the basic sciences to the training of surgeons.
 Partial scene from a 1937 mural by Bernard Baruch
Zakheim, a student of Diego Rivera's, depicting the history of
medicine in California. This scene shows H. Glenn Bell (b 1893, d
1981) performing surgery in the left center foreground. |
His profound interest in surgical pathology was passed on to his
many residents, including Edwin "Jack" Wylie, a pioneering giant in
vascular surgery, who, in 1951, was the first to perform
thromboendarterectomy for atherosclerotic aortoiliac occlusive
disease in the United States. The legacy of integrating basic
science with surgical training continued under subsequent chairmen
(Leon Goldman, 1956-1963, J. Englebert Dunphy, 1964-1975, Paul A.
Ebert 1976-1986, Haile Debas 1986-1993, and Theodore Schrock,
1994-1998) and led to many pioneering clinical and research
contributions. That legacy continues today, under the leadership of
Nancy L. Ascher, MD, PhD.
Solid organ transplantation has taken place in patients with HIV, adult live-donor liver transplantation has joined adult to child for transplantation procedures, and a new center for patient-directed breast care has been developed. Other important advances over the last 5 years include the development of a novel endovascular treatment for thoracic and abdominal vascular disease, fetal endoscopic laser treatment of a single arteriovenous communication in twin-twin transfusion syndrome, and initiation of a pancreas islet program. After more than 100 years, the Department of Surgery at UCSF continues to value hard work, productivity, and creativity as it strives to improve surgical techniques, make surgery more effective while less invasive, and improve care for patients.
For a more detailed
history, see:
The Department of Surgery, University of
California, San Francisco
Pamela Derish M.A. and Nancy L. Ascher, M.D., Ph.D.
Reprinted with permission from the American
Medical Association, publishers of Derish P and Ascher NL: The
Department of Surgery, University of California, San Francisco
2005;40: 1143-48. Copyright © 2005,
American Medical Association. All rights
reserved.