A Life Of Accomplishments
Following are some, but not all, of the ways in which Dr. Halsted changed the world of medicine at the highest level:
He introduced the 8 year residency training program which encouraged residents to research as they perfected their craft.
He changed the idea of surgery – at his time, rapid surgery was the norm, but he slowed things down to develop the philosophy of safe surgery which is slower and more gentle. This is the common practice today.
He spent months working on a way to refine hernia repair, which he was successful in by creating a method of overlapping tissues.
Breast cancer surgery was changed forever due to his accomplishments in which he removed the breast in a single block, including portions of the muscle under the breast and the lymph nodes, then closing the removal with skin grafting from the thigh.
He was the first surgeon to resect a periampullary cancer. As well as the first to use buried plates and screws to fix long bone fractures.
He introduced surgical gloves by working with the Goodyear Rubber Company. Six years after his suggestion, a Doctor by the name of Bloodgood suggested they were to be worn at all times.
As Dr. Halsted saw the world changing, but likely not at the pace he expected, he wrote “It is now, as it was then, and as it may ever be, conceptions from the past blind us to facts which almost slap us in the face… how blind we are, and how blind we will ever be.”