Introduction | Program History

Henry Ford Hospital was opened in 1916 as a personal project of Henry Ford. Dr. Roy D. McClure, one of William S. Halsted’s first resident surgeons, was personally recruited by Mr. Ford as the hospital’s first Surgeon-in-Chief. Dr. McClure brought several colleagues with him from Johns Hopkins including Dr. C.J. Allen who was hired as “Resident Surgeon in Charge of Intern Training”. Resident training in surgery has thus been a part of the hospital since its beginnings. Dr. McClure also brought with him the same traditions of excellent patient care, teaching, and research which he learned from Halsted and which have subsequently become the foundation for most modern surgery training programs. Under his leadership, the department provided a unique academic training environment with a reputation for innovation and research from the very beginning. Henry Ford was also one of the first hospitals in the country to pay house officers for their work and to accept married students into its training programs.

With Dr. McClure at the healm the hospital’s surgical training program rapidly grew in stature achieving national recognition by the late 1920’s. The Congress of the American College of Surgeons was held at Henry Ford Hospital in October 1927 where over a period of five days, 1,600 visitors attended operating clinics, demonstrations and exhibits at the hospital. Over the next several decades, world-renowned divisions emerged in vascular surgery under Dr. D. Emerick Szilagyi, cardiac surgery under Dr. Conrad Lam, Colorectal Surgery under Dr. James Barron (surgeon to the Pope), and Endocrine Surgery under Dr. Melvin Block. A succession of notables has led the department. Following Dr. McClure were Dr. Lawrence Fallis, Dr. Szilagyi, Dr. Block, Dr. Roger Smith, Dr. Frank Lewis and Dr. Scott Dulchavsky. Many seminal papers, discoveries, and pioneering efforts can be traced directly to the department including: the early use of blood transfusions, the benefits of early postoperative ambulation, among the first clinical trials of Penicillin for the treatment of surgical infections, the first ever clinical use of heparin in the United States, one of the first in the world abdominal aortic aneurysm repairs, the first clinical registry for patient outcome reporting, description of MEN II syndrome, the discovery of the first continuous enteral feeding pump, outpatient hemorrhoid banding, pioneering bioprosthetic valve replacement for endocarditis, and original training programs in vascular surgery, colorectal surgery, and surgical critical care.
 
The training program within the department has continued to flourish. Graduates have their choice of fellowships and practice opportunities, and many choose to enter academics. The same Halsted traditions of excellent patient care, teaching, and research brought by Dr. McClure to the department in 1916 are alive and well in 2004.