Fergie's Tech Blog

8 April 1869: Happy Birthday, Harvey Cushing

Harvey Williams Cushing (April 8, 1869 - October 7, 1939) was an American neurosurgeon and a pioneer of brain surgery. He is considered by many the greatest neurosurgeon of the 20th century. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Cushing graduated from Yale, where he was a member of Scroll and Key, studied medicine at Harvard Medical School and graduated in 1895.

He completed his internship at Massachusetts General Hospital and then studied surgery under the guidance of a famous surgeon, William Stewart Halsted, at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore. During his medical career he was a surgeon at this hospital, at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston and as professor of surgery at the Harvard Medical School. From 1933, until his death, he worked at Yale University.

In the beginning of the 20th century he developed many of the basic surgical techniques for operating on the brain. This establised him as one of the foremost leaders and experts in the field. Under his influence neurosurgery became a new and autonomous surgical discipline.

posted by Fergie @ 4/07/2006 10:01:00 PM