A Brief History
The story of Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center and its Department of Surgery is the story of two institutions and their subsequent affiliation in 1911.
In 1767, the Medical School of King's College (the predecessor to Columbia University) became the first chartered medical school in the Americas and the first school in the colonies to award a doctorate in medicine. The physician and surgeon who founded the school had hoped to create an academic medical center combining a medical school and a hospital and founded New York Hospital for that purpose. Unfortunately, that merger was never fully realized. Instead, the professors of the medical school practiced at a succession of hospitals, including New York Hospital and Roosevelt Hospital.
However, in 1868 a new hospital was founded at Madison and 71st by James Lenox. Although initially reserved for Presbyterians, following the guidance of Mr. Lenox's personal physician, it began to welcome all comers and became, as noted in a tablet which remains on the hospital today, "For the Poor of New York without Regard to Race, Creed, or Color."
In 1911 an alliance agreement was signed between Columbia University and its medical school (the College of Physicians and Surgeons or P&S) and Presbyterian Hospital. Four years later a site for the new Medical Center was identified in Washington Heights. Finally, following delays due to World War I and further financing, in 1928, the doors of Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center were opened at 168th Street and Broadway.
Since that move, the Department of Surgery has had only 5 chairmen. Each has provided his own contribution to the Deparment and its surgical training program.
Allen O. Whipple, chairman until 1946 is best known for his performance of the pancreaticoduodenectomy which bears his name. But at Columbia he instituted a training program, modeled on that of Halstead at Hopkins which would form the basis for the residency program in place today. He raised the Department from relative obscurity to the top rank of surgical training programs.
Past Chairmen
| Chairmen of the Department of Surgery (1921 to 2003) | |
| 1994- | Eric A. Rose |
| 1971-1994 | Keith Reemtsma |
| 1969-1971 | Frederick P. Herter (acting) |
| 1946-1969 | George H. Humphreys II |
| 1921-1946 | Allen O. Whipple |
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