William halsted quotes
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William Stewart Halsted was a surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, during the late 1800s and early 1900s. In 1894 Halsted described his procedure for treating breast cancer by removing the breast tissue, chest muscles, and lymph nodes in the armpit, a procedure he named radical mastectomy, and that became the standard of care for treating breast cancer until 1970. He also made contributions to other novel medical procedures such as gallbladder surgery, blood transfusions, antiseptic techniques, anesthesia use, and using plates and screws to hold bones in position when setting bone fractures. At Johns Hopkins Hospital, Halsted established a surgical training program in which he allowed medical students and surgical residents to shadow him and perform procedures under his guidance. In the twentieth century, similar training programs spread across the country and informed the standardization of medical training. Halsted devised a surgical treatment for breast cancer and reshaped the way physicians practiced medicine in the twentieth century, which resulted in bet
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Genius on the edge: The bizarre double life of Dr. William Stewart Halsted
Gerald Imber. Kaplan Publishing. New York, New York, USA. 2010. 412 pp. $25.95. ISBN: 978-1-6071-4627-8 (hardcover).
This biography is the first of William Stewart Halsted in a half century. The author acknowledges it was not intended to be the definitive biography of America’s greatest surgeon but rather to tell of his life. Imber, himself a surgeon, has outlined with insight, the unlikely coincidence that was the source of Halsted’s magic: his rehabilitation from serious illness at Johns Hopkins just as this unique institution opened and his lifelong narcotic addiction. Imber focuses on Halsted’s personal life, which is the stuff of legend: the greatness achieved by this drug-craving Jekyll and Hyde, his unexplained disappearances, his probable closeted homosexuality.
Born of a wealthy New York family in 1852, Halsted was educated at Yale and Columbia’s medical school. After brief training in New York hospitals and two years visiting European clinics, he became one of New York’s most successful sur
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William Stewart Halsted
American surgeon (1852–1922)
William Stewart Halsted, M.D. (September 23, 1852 – September 7, 1922) was an American surgeon who emphasized strict aseptic technique during surgical procedures, was an early champion of newly discovered anesthetics, and introduced several new operations, including the radical mastectomy for breast cancer. Along with William Osler (Professor of Medicine), Howard Atwood Kelly (Professor of Gynecology) and William H. Welch (Professor of Pathology), Halsted was one of the "Big Four" founding professors at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.[1][2] His operating room at Johns Hopkins Hospital is in Ward G, and was described as a small room where medical discoveries and miracles took place.[3] According to an intern who once worked in Halsted's operating room, Halsted had unique techniques, operated on the patients with great confidence and often had perfect results which astonished the interns.[3]
Throughout his professional life, he was addicted to cocaine and later also to morphine,[4
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