The seven professorial protégés of John Gillies

John Gillies was the founding head of the Department of Anaesthetics at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, which began in 1940. An astute educator, he was instrumental in establishing anesthesia as a medical specialty, on equal footing with surgery, from the start of the National Health Service in 1948. Gillies' kudos attracted medical graduates from the UK, USA and Canada to work in his Department. The excellence of his teaching and mentoring may be judged from the fact that no less than seven of his protégés became professors of anesthesia/anesthesiology. This paper identifies these seven professorial protégés and reviews their careers. Reasons for the successful consequences of John Gillies' tutelage are considered.

A genealogical approach to academic success

We analyse academic success using a genealogical approach to the careers of over 95,000 scientists in mathematics and associated fields in physics and chemistry. We look at the effect of Ph.D. supervisors (one's mentors) on the number of Ph.D. students that one supervises later on (one's mentees) as a measure of academic success. Supervisors generally provide important inputs in Ph.D. projects, which can have long-lasting effects on academic careers. Moreover, having multiple supervisors exposes one to a diversity of inputs. We show that Ph.D. students benefit from having multiple supervisors instead of a single one. The cognitive diversity of mentors has a subtler effect in that it increases both the likelihood of success (having many mentees later on) and failure (having no mentees at all later on). We understand the effect of diverse mentorship as a high-risk, high-gain strategy: the recombination of unrelated expertise often fails, but sometimes leads to true novelty.

Pioneers in Modern Craniofacial Surgery: Assessing the Academic Impact of Drs. Joseph Gruss and Paul Manson

BACKGROUND

The authors conducted this study to assess the impact that Drs. Joseph Gruss and Paul Manson have had on craniofacial surgery through their individual contributions and through their trainees.

METHODS

This was a retrospective analysis of fellows trained by either Dr. Gruss or Dr. Manson. Demographic and bibliometric measures were recorded for each fellow. Demographic factors included years since completion of fellowship training, current practice of craniomaxillofacial surgery, academic practice, and academic leadership roles. Bibliometric measures included number of publications, number of citations, and h-index. To adjust for scholarly activity before fellowship training, only contributions published after fellowship training were included.

RESULTS

Over a 39-year period, a total of 86 surgeons completed fellowship training with either of the two principal surgeons. The mean time since completion of training was 18.7 ± 11.4 years. Seventy-nine percent of surgeons had active practices in craniomaxillofacial surgery; 54 percent had academic practices. The mean number of publications was 26.4 ± 69.3, the mean number of citations was 582 ± 2406, and the average h-index was 6.7 ± 10.6. Among academic surgeons, the average h-index was 10.7 ± 13.1, 89 percent practiced in North America, 89 percent had active practices in craniomaxillofacial surgery, and nearly 50 percent had achieved a leadership role.

CONCLUSIONS

Modern craniofacial reconstruction has evolved from principles used in trauma and correction of congenital differences. The extensive impact that Drs. Paul Manson and Joseph Gruss have had on the field, and plastic surgery at large, is evident through their primary contributions and the immense impact their trainees have had on the field.

Thomas John Wydrzynski (8 July 1947-16 March 2018)

With this Tribute, we remember and honor Thomas John (Tom) Wydrzynski. Tom was a highly innovative, independent and committed researcher, who had, early in his career, defined his life-long research goal. He was committed to understand how Photosystem II produces molecular oxygen from water, using the energy of sunlight, and to apply this knowledge towards making artificial systems. In this tribute, we summarize his research journey, which involved working on 'soft money' in several laboratories around the world for many years, as well as his research achievements. We also reflect upon his approach to life, science and student supervision, as we perceive it. Tom was not only a thoughtful scientist that inspired many to enter this field of research, but also a wonderful supervisor and friend, who is deeply missed (see footnote*).

The split between Gall and Spurzheim (1813-1818)

An acerbic footnote in Volume 3 (1818) of the five-volume great work of Franz Joseph Gall and Johann Gaspar Spurzheim, Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System in General and of the Brain in Particular with Observations on the Possibility of Understanding the Many Moral and Intellectual Dispositions of Man and Animals by the Configuration of Their Heads, marked the end of the collaboration between Gall, the founder of organologie, and Spurzheim, promoter of phrenology. We discuss the background of this note and the nature of the rift that marked the end of Gall and Spurzheim's collaboration.

Nina Braunwald: A Female Pioneer in Cardiac Surgery

Nina Starr Braunwald, the first female cardiac surgeon, made headlines during a time when almost all specialty surgeons were men. Women have typically been deterred from entering surgical specialties, in part because of their traditional dual burden of managing their households and careers. Instead, female medical students and junior doctors have tended to be more attracted to medical specialties. This was the reality during Dr. Braunwald's venture into medicine in 1949. However, she never allowed negative ideas to keep her from joining a surgical training program. Under the mentorship of the prominent cardiac surgeons Charles Hufnagel and Andrew Morrow, Dr. Braunwald progressed in her career by conducting research that led to her development and implantation of the first prosthetic mitral valve. She was also a great teacher. Dr. Braunwald balanced her personal and professional activities admirably, and her example still inspires female doctors to consider careers in cardiothoracic surgery. In this report, we provide details of her impact on cardiac surgery and insights into her successes.

[Christophle Glaser, one of Lemery’s]

Christophle Glaser was born in Basel in Switzerland. He was apothecary of the King’s brother and became demonstrator of chemistry at the King’s Gardens in Paris. He had a bad reputation reported by Fontenelle or by the Marchioness of Sévigné. He had also been suspected during the inquiry concerning the Brinvilliers’ murders. He was also known as the author of a book of chemistry, entitled Traité de la Chymie, that had been translated into German or English. He received Lemery in his laboratory. Fontenelle reported that Lémery left Glaser very quickly to go to Montpellier, but he is supposed to have stayed for a longer time with him. Lemery and Glaser had the same opinion on many subjects and their books were similar on many points. It is then established that Glaser was really one of Lemery’s master.

More than a Mentor: Leonard Darwin's Contribution to the Assimilation of Mendelism into Eugenics and Darwinism

This article discusses the contribution to evolutionary theory of Leonard Darwin (1850-1943), the eighth child of Charles Darwin. By analysing the correspondence Leonard Darwin maintained with Ronald Aylmer Fisher in conjunction with an assessment of his books and other written works between the 1910s and 1930s, this article argues for a more prominent role played by him than the previously recognised in the literature as an informal mentor of Fisher. The paper discusses Leonard's efforts to amalgamate Mendelism with both Eugenics and Darwinism in order for the first to base their policies on new scientific developments and to help the second in finding a target for natural selection. Without a formal qualification in biological sciences and as such mistrusted by some "formal" scientists, Leonard Darwin engaged with key themes of Darwinism such as mimicry, the role of mutations on speciation and the process of genetic variability, arriving at important conclusions concerning the usefulness of Mendelian genetics for his father's theory.

Hannelore Wass: The Lasting Impact of a Death Educator, Scholar, Mentor, and Friend

While there is no doubt that every individual's experiences with death and grief have a significant impact on his or her work as a death educator, scholar, or a clinician, it is a deeply personal choice whether or not one chooses to disclose those experiences to others thoughout one's career. Drawing upon memories of Dr. Hannelore Wass shared by colleagues, this article documents Wass's impact on the lives of thanatologists as a result of her talents as a scholar, death educator, and mentor as well as her friendship.

Max Wertheimer, Habilitation candidate at the Frankfurt Psychological Institute

Max Wertheimer told Edwin B. Newman that it was pure chance that on his way to the Rhineland he prematurely got off the train in Frankfurt, and that he did so because he had an inspiration for an experiment that he wanted to perform. Most historians of psychology accept this anecdote, but fail to mention that thereby Wertheimer also mastered the next and decisive step toward his academic career in accomplishing his Habilitation. Exposing the institutional, personal, and intellectual context of Wertheimer's going to Frankfurt and giving a detailed account of the procedure of Habilitation will show that Newman's and similar reports of the episode, even if verbatim to Wertheimer's own telling, are nevertheless too improbable to accept at face value.