Edward Delos Churchill

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Edward Delos Churchill (born December 25, 1895 in Chenoa, Illinois , † August 28, 1972 in Vermont ) was an American surgeon at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School , known for research in thoracic surgery .

Life

Churchill studied at Northwestern University with a bachelor's degree (BS) in 1916 and a master's degree (MA) in 1917 and then at Harvard Medical School , where he received his MD cum laude in 1920 . He then completed his internship and residency as a surgeon at MGH, where he was an associate surgeon and in 1926/27 as a Moseley Traveling Fellow on a study trip to Europe, including with August Krogh in Copenhagen, Strasbourg, Munich, Berlin , London (including Wilfred Trotter ), Zurich, Bern, Hamburg ( Ludolf Brauer ), Heidelberg, Prague. He also learned from Ferdinand Sauerbruch .

From 1927 he was back at the MGH with the surgeon Edward P. Richardson . In 1928 he went to Boston City Hospital as a surgeon, where he helped set up a 24/7 surgical department, and in 1931 he became John Homan's Professor of Surgery at MGH and head of the West Surgical Service .

During World War II he was a colonel and chief surgeon in the US armed forces in the Mediterranean region (North Africa), where he improved, among other things, early wound care, blood transfusions and blood banks and air transport of the wounded. He later served as a consultant in thoracic surgery to the surgeon general . He received the Distinguished Service Medal for his services as a military surgeon.

After the Second World War he was back at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he became head of all surgery in 1948 after the various surgical departments had been merged there. In 1953 he suffered a stroke and in 1961 he retired.

Churchill died of a heart attack while walking on his Vermont farm.

In 1946 he became president of the American Surgical Association and was the longtime editor of the Annals of Surgery. He was also president of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery and the Society of Clinical Surgery. A chair in surgery at Harvard is named after him.

plant

Several surgical innovations originate from him. In 1928 he undertook with Paul Dudley White , the first removal of the pericardium in the US as surgical therapy for constructive pericarditis , previously was a case of as inoperable. In 1929 he and Oliver Cope (1902-1994) described the Churchill-Cope reflex, named after them, the occurrence of shallow, rapid breathing due to enlarged blood vessels, for example in pulmonary edema. During this time he also researched the mechanisms of pulmonary embolism . With his student John Gibbon he showed that many small embolisms increase the vascular resistance in the pulmonary circulation and gradually lead to failure of the right ventricle, while a single massive embolism from another, then unknown cause led to death (he found that the opening of the artery paradoxically led to the had little counteracting the physiological effects of the embolism, a phenomenon that was only clarified 25 years later). In 1932 he performed the first mediastinal removal of the parathyroid gland (parathyroidectomy) with Cope at the MGH as a therapy for hyperparathyroidism . In the following years he developed the surgery of the parathyroid gland with Cope and he developed the technique of pneumonectomy and lobectomy for bronchiectasis , pulmonary tuberculosis and lung cancer. Since the anesthesia also had to be further developed for these extensive operations, he promoted the American anesthesia pioneer Henry K. Beecher .

He wrote memoirs and studied medical history.

membership

In 1948 Churchill was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

literature

  • FD Moore: Edward Delos Churchill: 1895-1972. In: Annals of surgery. Volume 177, Number 4, April 1973, pp. 507-508, PMID 4570956 , PMC 1355664 (free full text).
  • Churchill: Surgeon to Soldiers: diary and records of the Surgical Consultant, Allied Force Headquarters, World War II, Philadelphia: Lippincott 1972 (War Memories)
  • Wanderjahr: the education of a surgeon, Boston, Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, 1990

He edited the diary of John Collins Warren To work in the vineyard of surgery .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Churchill, Cope, The rapid shallow breathing resulting from pulmonary congestion and edema, J Exp Med., 49, 1929, 531-537
  2. ^ Gibbon, Churchill, Changes in the circulation produced by gradual occlusion of the pulmonary artery, J. Clin. Invest. 11, 1932, 543-553
  3. ↑ Gibbon, Churchill, The physiology of massive pulmonary embolism: an experimental study of the changes produced by obstruction to the flow of blood through the pulmonary artery and its lobular branches, Annals of Surgery, 104, 1936, 811-822
  4. ↑ Churchill, Cope, The surgical treatment of hyperparathyroidism: based on 30 cases confirmed by operation, Annals of surgery, 104, 1936, 9-35
  5. ↑ Churchill, Healing by first intention and with suppuration: studies in the history of wound healing, J Hist Med Allied Sci., 19, 1964, 193-214
  6. ^ Members of the American Academy. Listed by election year, 1900-1949 ( PDF ). Retrieved October 11, 2015
  7. ↑ Review of I. Michael Leitman, PMC 1807993 (free full text)
personal data
SURNAME Churchill, Edward Delos
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American medic
DATE OF BIRTH December 25, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Chenoa (Illinois)
DATE OF DEATH August 28, 1972
Place of death Vermont