History

HISTORY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SURGERY AT THE NEW JERSEY MEDICAL SCHOOL

In 1954, the Seton Hall College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (SHCMD) was established as the New Jersey’s first medical school.  Since that time, the school grown and been renamed several times prior to its current designation as Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.  It was not until 1969 that there was an established Department of Surgery which was marked by the recruitment of its inaugural chair, Dr. Benjamin F. Rush, Jr., from the University of Kentucky.  As a relatively new medical school and program, Dr. Rush’s shed light into his motivation to join the institution: “A marked advantage in establishing and fostering a new school is the great satisfaction that each step upward provides. There is no past track record and no one here is intimidated by the specter of a Halsted, Cushing, Phemister or other giant who previously occupied the chair. It can be, and is, and exciting and yeasty environment for the departmental and sectional chairmen to develop new programs.”   

At the time, there was no university behind the medical school, the school was in disarray split between Jersey City and Newark and there was no true “university hospital”. Students and residents were scattered, and the department faculty consisted primarily of local surgeons working in multiple “loosely” affiliated hospitals (United, St. Michaels, Newark-Beth Israel, Martland and the East Orange VA).  Dr. Rush’s first yearbook message set forth his goals for the department which exemplifies his overall approach to academic surgery. “The goal of any medical school service must be to set an example of excellence…The role of our Surgical Service is to render patient care as close to the ideal as possible… Thus, in patient care on a Surgical Service, the diagnosis of the disease, the selection of patients for operation, the preoperative preparation, postoperative care, and follow up care probably equal or exceed in importance the operative act itself. It is my hope that we will constantly improve our ability to establish or confirm diagnosis; to identify those patients who cannot tolerate surgery; to select accurately the most physiological and appropriate procedures for the disease under treatment to conduct the operation precisely and to carry out the patient through the postoperative period with a thorough understanding of the physiological and biochemical changes we have created….”

The faculty that Dr. Rush inherited was incredibly varied and diverse at a time when most academic surgical departments were comprised of mainly white middle-aged and older men. Some members of that department included Dr. Anita Falla, first woman pediatric surgeon in New Jersey who would go on to become Chief of Pediatric Surgery, Dr. Rene Joyeuse,who had a fascinating story going back to WWII, Dr. Victor Parsonett, who was the first surgeon to implant a permanent pacemaker in NJ and would later perform New Jersey’s first heart transplant and, Dr. Saurel Placide, a Haitian orthopedist who would later complete his career at the Brooklyn VA. Two additional members of the department, Dr. Christine Haycock and Dr. Eric Lazaro  deserve special mention as it should be noted that Dr. Rush embraced and continued this legacy of recruiting and promoting diversity throughout his career.

The first decade of Dr. Rush’s tenure was a time of great growth and change. By the end of that decade, the NJMS campus, including the new University Hospital in Newark, were finally completed and operational. Almost all the surgical residents were now graduates of American medical schools and the department research portfolio increased from zero to over $1 million dollars. Dr. Rush recruited several faculty members who would go on to have long and productive careers at NJMS and elsewhere including Dr. George Macheido (who stayed following residency as the first “home grown” faculty member), Drs. Ken Swan and Robert Hobson recruited from the military and Walter Reed and Dr. Paul Bolanowski. These individuals along with several of the original faculty became the backbone of the department through that decade.

The 1980’s began another decade of growth and change in the Department Surgery.  As was observed and reflected in other medical schools across the country, many former divisions became departments in their own right. These included orthopedics, ophthalmology, and anesthesia. Several other pivotal changes occurred in the 1980’s which would help shape the department for decades to come. The first was the creation of a trauma fellowship in 1982. This was more than a decade before ACGME accreditation and the American Board of Surgery developing the added qualifications certificate for Surgical Critical Care. Although there is no official (or unofficial) list of programs in 1982, to this author’s knowledge there were only a handful of such programs around the country, most being filled by “word of mouth”. The third fellow (1984-1985) was C. Clayton Griffin, MD.  Dr. Griffin was a spectacular administrator as well as surgeon and with contributed to the developed the statewide trauma system as well as Jemstar aeromedical program. By both design and a bit of luck, New Jersey has had a robust and non-competitive trauma system from its inception. This system also included being one of the earliest states to verify their trauma centers by the American College of Surgeons.  

Following Dr. Griffin’s untimely death in 1989, Dr. James Blackwood served as the interim trauma director until Dr. Rush recruited Dr. John Siegel from Maryland Shock Trauma in the spring of 1991. This recruit was also championed by then Dean Ruy Lourenco and Dr. Seigel also became the chair of Anatomy (later renamed Anatomy, Cell Biology, and Injury Sciences). This dual role and allegiances would eventually prove to be too much of a conflict and soon following the arrival of the Dr. Edwin Deitch (second chair of Surgery) Dr. Siegel was replaced by Dr. David H. Livingston.  Dr. Livingston assumed the titles of Wesley J. Howe Professor and Chief of Trauma and Surgical Critical Care as well as being the Trauma Medical Director of the New Jersey Trauma Center at University Hospital. He held these positions for over 25 years until his retirement in 2020. During that time-period, the Department gained a national and international reputation as a premiere academic trauma center. Both the Trauma Center and the Trauma Fellowship have been continuously accredited and verified for over 30 years.

Dr. Rush also made several other pivotal recruits in the 1980’s which include Dr. Frank Padberg (1981), Dr. Joyce Rocko (1983), Dr. David Livingston (1988), Dr. Solly Baredes (1988) and Dr. Eric Munoz (1988).  The other major event in 1988 that would shape the department was the return of Dr. Dorian Wilson (NJMS class of 1982 and graduate of the surgical residency in 1986) from his transplant fellowship in Pittsburgh. Dr. Wilson brought with him and helped recruit Dr. Baburao Koneru (1988) to begin New Jersey’s first liver transplant program. In the ensuing years, the transplant service first under the leadership of Dr. Koneru and presently under Dr. James Guarrera has been another shining star in the Department.  Under Dr. Guarrera’s leadership, the Rutgers-NJMS liver transplant service was ranked first in the nation in 1 year survival.

In 1994, Dr. Rush stepped down as chair and Dr. Edwin Deitch was recruited from the University of Louisiana at Shreveport. Dr. Rush remained in the department for the next several years, completing work on his last NIH grant which culminated over 30 years of continuous funding. At the time of his recruit Dr Deitch had a national reputation, was NIH funded and was a past-president of the Society of University Surgeons. He would later go on to become president of the American Burn Association and The Shock Society. The first half of Dr. Deitch’s tenure was another period of great growth in the department with respect to faculty and research. At one time the department was in the top 10 surgical departments in the country with respect to NIH funding including a P50, center grant, a T32 trauma training grant and the CREST trial. Like other academic medical centers, this time period also saw the divisions of Neurosurgery, Otolaryngology and Emergency Medicine split off from General Surgery to become their own departments. By the early to mid-2000’s there was an exodus of faculty in the department paralleling the larger unrest within the medical school itself.  Ultimately in 2011, Dr. Deitch stepped down as chair to be replaced by Dr. Anne C. Mosenthal as interim chair.

At the time of her appointment, Dr. Mosenthal was the seventh woman chair of surgery in United States. She had a national reputation as one of the founders of palliative care in surgery and had been a faculty member within the department since 1994. Following a national search, she was appointed chair of surgery in 2013. Dr. Mosenthal also took the reins of the department at another critical time, that is the dissolution of UMDNJ and the takeover by Rutgers. Dr. Mosenthal not only successfully navigated this incredibly complex political environment but stabilized the department but increased recruitment and retention of faculty in all divisions. Major achievements under her leadership include: the resurrection of liver transplant program and the recruitment of Dr. James Guerrera, fund raising and establishing the Benjamin F. Rush, Jr. Chair of Surgery, expanding clinical footprint in New Jersey, resurrection of general surgical care at EOVA, and the development of current surgical residency combining NJMS with the St. Barnabas program.  Dr. Mosenthal left the department in 2020 to become Chief Academic Officer and Academic Dean at Lahey Health and Dr. James Guerrera assumed the role of interim chair.

Dr. Guerrera was another chair of national reputation and continued much of the work that was established in the department. He continued to grow the department and its research portfolio. He was also the chair of the search committee which brought the current chair, Dr. Daniel Jones from Beth-Israel Deaconess to Rutgers-NJMS in 2022. Dr. Jones continues the legacy of Dr. Rush in being nationally recognized as a clinical surgeon and educator. He is past-president of the Association of Surgical Education and the Society of Alimentary and Gastrointestinal Surgeons (SAGES) and the Association for Surgical Education (ASE).

As with all the past chairs and paralleling the external events in medical education, Dr. Jones assumes the leadership at a time of uncertainty and change. Rutgers, after over two hundred years of being a reluctant participant in medical education, now plans on consolidating both medical schools under one umbrella with the first class planned for 2028. There is great concern among the faculty that what has made the department of surgery at NJMS unique; its commitment to education, diversity, academic excellence and research and the city of Newark itself may be at jeopardy. It has been 55 years since Ben Rush was recruited to NJMS. One can only hope that his legacy and words “The role of our Surgical Service is to render patient care as close to the ideal as possible” will continue to ring out for many years to come.