UC Dept. of Surgery
UC Dept. of Surgery
UC Dept. of Surgery UC Dept. of Surgery
UC Dept. of Surgery
UC Dept. of Surgery
UC Dept. of Surgery
UC Dept. of Surgery
UC Dept. of Surgery
UC Dept. of Surgery
UC Dept. of Surgery
UC Dept. of Surgery
UC Dept. of Surgery
UC Dept. of Surgery
UC Dept. of Surgery
UC Dept. of Surgery
UC Dept. of Surgery
UC Dept. of Surgery
UC Dept. of Surgery		 UC Dept. of Surgery


The UC Department of Surgery was derived from pioneering American surgeons and the evolution of local colleges of medicine and hospitals that parallel the origins and growth of Cincinnati itself, dating as far back as 1788. The "Hopkins Invasion" of 1922 marks the birth of the contemporary department of surgery at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. George Heuer and a small group of surgeons from Dr.William Halsted's department at Johns Hopkins Medical School moved from Baltimore to Cincinnati and established a full-time surgical department with a pyramid-structured general surgery residency training program to graduate highly qualified surgeons after several years of rigorous training. After the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital at Harvard Medical School in Boston, the UC Department of Surgery was the second program in the country to be patterned on the Hopkins model.

Dr. Heuer, the first Christian R. Holmes Professor of Surgery, brought Dr. Halsted's method of surgical training to Cincinnati, along with several of Halsted's residents including future department chairmen, Mont Reid, B. Noland Carter and Max Zinninger. He established the now routine practice of taking thorough case histories of patients and regular follow up care. He instituted that all tissue be studied in the lab to confirm a surgeon's diagnosis, again a now routine practice.

The tradition of superior quality and surgical innovation continued under subsequent chairs of the Department. Dr. Mont Rogers Reid (1931-1943) worked tirelessly to strengthen the relationship between the university medical school and the community. He brought attention to the Department through numerous articles in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine on wound healing processes.

Dr. Max Zinninger (1943-1946) led the Department in the interim years after Dr. Reid's untimely death. He was one of the first to complete his surgical residency at UC in 1927 under Heuer. Also known for working collaboratively with community physicians on complicated cases requiring highly specialized care, he was considered a consummate surgeon and gentleman who was held in the highest regard by the community, his students and colleagues.

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