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The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017
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The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
Compiling a ranking of the most influential physicians in a century is a perilous undertaking that has fueled animated discussions between Medscape editors and advisors. Influence is a tricky thing to gauge, after all, and depends entirely on one's viewpoint, background, location, and specialty. And 100 years is a long timeframe—not to mention the decision as to whether or not 100 years meant born in the last 100 years or conducted their influential work in that time period? We elected to use the latter time period.
Some prickly questions were raised along the way: What constitutes influence? How do we measure it? How do we account for ethnic and gender centricity? What about complementary or alternative areas of medicine? How about those excluded from traditional historical discourse? And the list goes on.
With all of that said, we endeavored to identify the 25 giants of medicine from the last century who we feel stand apart due to the extent of their achievements whose contributions have had a major impact on the development of medical practice.
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The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#25 Helen Brooke Taussig (1898-1986)
The publication of Helen Brooke Taussig's Congenital Malformations of the Heart in 1947 helped to establish the field of pediatric cardiology. Other highlights of Dr Taussig's distinguished career include influential work to promote hospice and palliative care, ban thalidomide, advocate the use of animals in medical research, and legalize abortion.
Dr Taussig studied at Harvard Medical School and Boston University before completing her medical degree at Johns Hopkins, an institution with which she was affiliated for most of her career.
Together with Drs Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas, Dr Taussig created the Blalock-Taussig-Thomas shunt to treat children born with a tetralogy of Fallot defect.
Dr Taussig was the recipient of numerous international prizes and distinctions, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Albert Lasker Award, and France's Legion of Honor. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and in 1960 became the first female president of the American College of Cardiology.[1]
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The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#24 Zora Janzekovic (1918-2015)
Dr Zora Janzekovic was a pioneer in the treatment of burn victims and a proponent of tangential excision—the early excision and immediate grafting of burns to reduce morbidity and mortality. Her long medical career and innovative research, all conducted throughout the tumultuous 20th century in the Slovenian city of Maribor, helped save the lives of countless burn victims. Dr Janzekovic shaped an entire field of practice with the introduction of the gold standard of care in the treatment of deep dermal burn wounds.[2,3]
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The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#23 Virginia Apgar (1909-1974)
Dr Virginia Apgar was the first female full professor at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (1949) and the creator of the Apgar score (1953), the first standardized tool to evaluate the newborn.[4] An example of evidence-based medicine before the term existed, the Apgar score has been a gold standard to evaluate and guide the health of generations of newborn babies and is still in use today.[5]
In the 1930s and 1940s, Dr Apgar was also a pioneer in the nascent field of anesthesiology in the United States. In her later career, Apgar studied the association between the effects of labor, delivery, and maternal anesthetics on the baby's Apgar score and well-being, and focused on the prevention of birth defects.[6]
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The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#22 Victor McKusick (1921-2008)
Considered the father of medical genetics, Dr Victor McKusick was a "medical nomad" with broad interests and an early proponent of human genome mapping as a tool to study congenital diseases. McKusick wrote and published extensively, and is well known for his genetics studies in Amish populations.[7]
In 1966, Dr McKusick published the first edition of Mendelian Inheritance in Man (MIM)—the first catalog of all known genes and genetic disorders. The online version (OMIM®) became available in 1987 and is a continuously updated catalog of human genes and genetic disorders and traits, with a particular focus on the gene-phenotype relationship.[8]
Dr McKusick was the recipient of more than 20 honorary degrees and numerous international prizes, including the Gairdner International Award, the William Allan Award from the American Society of Human Genetics, and the Albert Lasker Award for Special Achievement in Medical Science.
Images from Dreamstime, Ken Cedeno/AP, and courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#21 Stanley Prusiner (1942-)
The 1997 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Dr Stanley Prusiner for "his pioneering discovery of an entirely new genre of disease-causing agents and the elucidation of the underlying principles of their mode of action."[9] Through his work on bovine spongiform encephalopathy and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Dr Prusiner was the first to propose the role of prions, a class of infectious self-reproducing pathogens primarily or solely composed of protein, in disease.[10]
Dr Prusiner is currently director of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases at University of California, San Francisco. He is also the recipient of the National Medal of Science and a long list of awards.[11]
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The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#20 Stanley Dudrick (1935-)
Stanley Dudrick's pioneering research, initially undertaken in the lab of Dr Jonathan Rhoads, led to the development of the central venous feeding technique known as intravenous hyperalimentation, or total parenteral nutrition. The new technique provided the means to nourish patients whose gastrointestinal tracts were impaired, and to this day is widely used to prevent malnutrition in patients of all ages who are unable to obtain nutrients by oral or enteral routes.[12]
Dr Dudrick is the recipient of more than 120 honors and awards and was recently named a "Living Legend" by the International Society of Small Bowel Transplantation.[13]
Images from Darron Cummings/AP and courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#19 Lawrence (Larry) Einhorn (1942-)
In 1974, as a young oncologist at Indiana University working alongside the renowned urologic surgeon Dr John Donohoe, Dr Lawrence (Larry) Einhorn proposed a three-drug, cisplatin-based regimen for testicular cancer that achieved a cure rate approaching 100% in patients presenting with locoregional disease, while reducing the duration of therapy to 12 weeks. Dr Einhorn instituted chemotherapy as the first-line therapy for advanced testicular cancer and established a model for a curable neoplasm.[14,15] He is currently working with a multidisciplinary team of researchers at Indiana University exploring the potential role of platinum-based drugs in the treatment of lung cancer.
Images from Dreamstime, Daniel Hulshizer/AP
The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#18 Eric Topol (1954–)
The founder of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, Dr Topol is now director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute in La Jolla, California. While chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, he and his colleagues were the first to raise concerns about the cardiovascular safety of rofecoxib (Vioxx),[16] which led to its eventual withdrawal from the market. In an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine,[17] Topol took the US Food and Drug Administration to task for lax oversight and long delays between the first reports of serious safety concerns and regulatory action.
Dr Topol has been on the forefront of both the genomic and digital revolutions in medicine, tackling both subjects in a widely acclaimed book titled The Creative Destruction of Medicine (Basic Books; 2012).[18] He has been elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and in 2016 was recognized as one of the top 15 most cited researchers in the world.[19]
Dr Topol also serves as editor-in-chief of Medscape.
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The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#17 Joseph Kirsner (1909-2012)
Born in Boston's East End, renowned gastroenterologist Dr Joseph Kirsner was on faculty at the University of Chicago for more than 70 years. Dr Kirsner's pioneering work led to a better understanding of the role of immunology and genetics in the pathophysiology of inflammatory bowel disease. A prodigious researcher, with more than 700 published articles and 18 books, Dr Kirsner was among the first to show the link between ulcerative colitis and colon cancer, and had a far-reaching influence on gastroenterology and oncology.[20,21]
Images from Dreamstime, courtesy of Johnpaul Jones/University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#16 Mahmut Gazi Yaşargil (1925–)
Originally from the remote southeastern corner of Turkey, Mahmut Gazi Yaşargil is celebrated as one of the founding fathers of microsurgery and a pioneer in the field of neurologic surgery.
During his early medical training in Germany, Yaşargil was influenced by the emerging field of psychiatry before turning his attention to cerebral anatomy; physiology; and, ultimately, neurologic surgery. He honed his skills at the Microvascular Laboratory of the University of Vermont in the 1960s, where he collaborated with Dr R.M. Peardon Donaghy—a meeting of minds that helped create microsurgery.[22] Yaşargil earned a reputation for surgical dexterity and skill in developing tools to further his techniques, including the floating microscope, the self-retaining adjustable retractor, and ergonomic aneurysm clips and appliers, as well as various microsurgical instruments.[23]
With these innovations, he transformed surgical practice and outcomes, in many cases presenting options for patients who had previously been considered inoperable.[24]
Yaşargil also advanced the field of angiography and his work on subarachnoid spaces was influential in neurosurgery.[23]
Images from Dreamstime, Associated Press, courtesy of Simon & Schuster
The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#15 Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926-2004)
Long ignored by medical professionals, death and dying was the central focus of Dr Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's career.
Kübler-Ross, a Swiss-American psychiatrist, proposed that death be considered a normal passage of life and established five phases of grief through which she believed a dying person passed: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.[25] Her book, On Death and Dying, published in 1969, became a standard text for healthcare professionals with terminally ill patients.
Kübler-Ross transformed the discourse surrounding death, confronting age-old taboos and helping to ease the difficulty with which patients, families, and healthcare professionals discussed terminal sickness, mortality, and death. She was also influential in improving end-of-life care—for the dying and their families, as well as the medical teams caring for them.[26,27]
Images from Science Photo Library, Eric Miller/AP, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#14 E. Donnall Thomas (1920-2012); Joseph Murray (1919-2012)
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1990 was awarded jointly to Drs Joseph Murray and E. Donnall Thomas "for their discoveries concerning organ and cell transplantation in the treatment of human disease."[28]
Thomas established bone marrow transplantation as a successful method to treat leukemia and other blood disorders, which led to the practice of bone marrow and blood stem cell transplants for several conditions, including as a cure for severe aplastic anemia, thalassemia, and sickle cell disease in patients with well-matched donors.[29] Despite initial failure, Thomas discovered the importance of matching tissue types between patient and donor as well as the necessity of using immunosuppression.[30]
Joseph Murray served as a surgeon during the Second World War and, on returning to the United States, led a team of Harvard physicians whose objective was successful organ transplantation.[31] Murray developed early solutions for the dilemma of organ rejection, which helped pave the way for the first kidney transplantation.[32]
Images from Dreamstime, courtesy of David L. Sackett, MD
The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#13 David L. Sackett (1934-2015)
Dr David L. Sackett was a leader in the field of epidemiology and is considered the father of evidence-based medicine. His innovations include the creation of the research framework and methodologies to test healthcare innovations and gauge scientific validity.[33]
Education played a central role in Dr Sackett's career. He helped to usher in the era of evidence-based medicine by guiding clinicians to practice the "current best evidence from research."[33]
Originally from Chicago, Sackett trained in nephrology, internal medicine, and epidemiology before founding North America's first department of epidemiology and biostatistics at McMaster University in 1967.[34] He was the founding director of both the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University (1994) and the Cochrane Collaboration Steering Group (1993).[35]
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The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#12 George Papanicolaou (1883-1962)
The inventor of the revolutionary "Pap" test, Dr George Papanicolaou emigrated to the United States in 1913 after growing up in Greece and undertaking part of his training in Germany. His theory that a vaginal smear could detect uterine cancer gained traction in 1943 following the publication of Diagnosis of Uterine Cancer by the Vaginal Smear,[36] which he co-wrote with Dr Herbert Traut. Dr Papanicolaou was a pioneer in cytopathology and early cancer detection, and his work has contributed to a 70% reduction in cervical cancer mortality over the past 60 years.[37]
Images from Dreamstime, Frank Barratt/Keystone/Getty Images
The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#11 Dame Cicely Saunders (1918-2005)
A qualified nurse, social worker, and "lady almoner" before training as a physician, Dr Cicely Saunders dedicated her career to the care of the dying and founded the first modern hospice in 1967 at St Christopher's Hospital in London. The introduction of the concept of "total pain," which included the physical, emotional, social, and spiritual dimensions of distress, was one of her many accomplishments.[38]
Saunders was also instrumental in providing effective pain management while implementing thorough care for the varied needs of her patients—insisting that the dying require not only the best-possible medical treatment but also dignity, compassion, and respect.[39] It's unsurprising that Saunders paid close attention to the patient narrative and is remembered as an excellent listener.
To further well-being in her hospice, Saunders abolished the notion of visiting hours. She allowed the patient to share time with family and friends, as desired.
Through her life work, Saunders transformed the way we look at death and dying.[40,41]
Images from Dreamstime, courtesy of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Wellcome Images
The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#10 Cicely D. Williams (1893-1992)
The first Jamaican-born woman to earn a medical degree—graduating from Oxford University just after World War I—Dr Cicely D. Williams was a pioneering pediatrician whose career spanned the globe. She died just short of her 100th birthday.
Williams managed to forge ahead at a time when the medical profession was all but closed to women. She received many postings in hospital settings throughout Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas, where her love of children underpinned the advances she made in pediatric care.[42]
In the 1920s, during her time in the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana), Williams correctly diagnosed protein deficiency as the cause of an illness common in young children. She adopted the term "kwashiorkor" (or "displaced child" in the Ga language) for the ailment [43]—which is still being studied[44]—and throughout her career continued to emphasize nutrition, education, and the prevention of childhood diseases.
Williams was a vocal proponent of breastfeeding and campaigned against misinformation from multinational corporations that marketed substitutes. She is also celebrated for having developed integrated and curative health services for children and mothers.
Image from Dreamstime, Science Source, courtesy of the Journal of the American Medical Association
The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#9 Charles D. Kelman (1930-2004)
Dr Charles D. Kelman gave the gift of sight to millions of people by advancing the standard of care for the treatment of cataracts and developing innovative techniques and technologies for extracting them—including the cryoprobe, phacoemulsification, and extracapsular cataract extraction.[45]
Born in Brooklyn and raised in Queens, Kelman dreamed of a career in music and tinkered with standup comedy before turning his energies to medicine.[46] His New York Times obituary suggested that his combination of performance skills, business acumen, drive to educate, and extroversion made him a natural for popular media—and helped spread his fame.[46] Kelman made many television appearances with Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin, Barbara Walters, Oprah Winfrey, and David Letterman.[46]
Kelman's innovations and drive in the field of ophthalmology revolutionized the care of cataracts, transformed the specialty, and improved the lives of millions.[47]
Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#8 Brian Druker (1955–)
With the development of imatinib—a drug that targets specific cancer-causing molecules, eliminating cancer cells while avoiding serious damage to noncancerous ones—Dr Brian Druker transformed the treatment of myeloid leukemia, raising patient survival rates from 50% to 90%.[48] The success of imatinib revolutionized approaches to cancer treatment by introducing the notion of targeted therapies, a feat for which Druker, along with Drs Nicholas Lydon and Charles L. Sawyers, were rewarded with the 2009 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award.[49]
Druker is also noted for having cofounded the Oregon Health & Science University Knight Cancer Institute, a leading center in the fight against cancer that, in collaboration with philanthropists Phil and Penny Knight, recently achieved the remarkable feat of raising $1 billion for research.
Druker has been instrumental in unveiling an unimagined possibility: that cancer can be transformed to a manageable disease.[50]
Images from Dreamstime, courtesy of National Institutes of Health
The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#7 Basil Hirschowitz (1925-2013)
A native of South Africa, where he undertook his initial training in physiology and medicine, Dr Basil Hirschowitz wrote his PhD dissertation—on the physiology of pepsin and pepsinogen secretion—in the United Kingdom. He completed internships in cardiology and gastroenterology—the latter with Dr Avery Jones, a fellow pioneer in in the realm of gastroenterology and endoscopy.[51]
Collaborating with countless researchers and clinical professionals, spanning time spent at the University of Michigan, Temple University, and the University of Alabama, Hirschowitz was guided by his goal of improving techniques of visualization of the gastrointestinal tract. He was adept at establishing partnerships to encourage emerging technologies—such as the rods of optical glass by Dow Corning that helped lead to the creation of the flexible fiberoptic endoscopy.[52]
Hirschowitz also contributed to research to diagnose the rare genetic condition known as Groll-Hirschowitz syndrome.[53]
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The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#6 Barry J. Marshall (1951–); J. Robin Warren (1937–)
Drs Barry J. Marshall and J. Robin Warren were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2005 "for their discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease."[54]
By theorizing that gastritis and peptic ulcer disease are communicable diseases caused by the bacterium Helicobacter pylori, Marshall and Warren—in common with most influential physicians—challenged prevailing dogmas and met with initial disbelief. They established the veracity of this causative link using clinical and epidemiologic studies. Their discovery led to simple and effective treatment options in 90% of cases for a disease that had previously been considered the result of stress and lifestyle.[55]
Born in Western Australia, where he studied medicine and surgery, Marshall is the recipient of numerous other awards and distinctions and is a professor at the University of Western Australia.[56] His initial interest in sports and environmental medicine took a back seat to gastroenterology and advanced clinical studies when he met Warren during his early rotations.
Warren, an Australian pathologist, earned his MBBS from the University of Adelaide. In the 1970s, Warren developed an interest in gastric biopsies, working to improve bacterial stains, which eventually led to the discovery of bacteria growing on the surface of gastric biopsy specimens.[57] An ideal fusion of minds and skills came about in 1981, when Warren and Marshall started their collaboration.
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The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#5 Carl Jung (1875-1961)
As the founder of analytical psychology, Carl Jung's influence over psychology, psychiatry, medicine, and culture at large is unmistakable. Among his long list of accomplishments, Jung's prolific career gave us the concepts of the introverted and extroverted personalities and the notion of the collective unconscious, as well as extensive contributions to the study and interpretation of religion, literature, history, and culture.[58]
On the basis of his family background, Jung was perhaps destined to become a priest.[59] He opted instead for medicine, launching a career in psychiatry. Branching out from Sigmund Freud's school of thought to new concepts and psychotherapeutic methods, Jung helped develop 20th-century discourse to describe the subconscious mind. Many of his theories and part of his vocabulary continue to fuel research in the fields of psychology and psychiatry, and far beyond.[59]
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The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#4 Aaron Beck (1921–)
The father of cognitive therapy, Dr Aaron Temkin Beck is considered one of history's most influential psychotherapists and a pioneer in the field of mental health.[60]
Dr Beck's early work on psychoanalytic theories of depression led to his development of cognitive therapy,[61] a new theoretical and clinical orientation, "based on the theory that maladaptive thoughts are the causes of psychological symptoms such as anxiety and depression, which in turn cause or exacerbate physical symptoms."[62] Through this empirical framework, Dr Beck conducted extensive research on the psychopathology of depression, suicide, anxiety disorders, panic disorders, alcoholism, drug abuse, personality disorders, and schizophrenia, and developed cognitive therapy for these disorders—helping to establish theories that are widely used in the treatment of clinical depression.[61]
Dr Beck has published over 600 scholarly articles and 25 books and is the recipient of a long list of awards, including the 2006 Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award "for the development of cognitive therapy, which has transformed the understanding and treatment of many psychiatric conditions, including depression, suicidal behavior, generalized anxiety, panic attacks, and eating disorders."[63]
Originally from Providence, Rhode Island, Dr Beck attended Yale Medical School and completed residencies in pathology, neurology, and psychiatry. He joined the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Pennsylvania in 1954 and has remained affiliated with the institution for most of his long career.[63]
Beyond his influence in the realm of psychiatry, Dr Beck made important contributions to public health, founding the Beck Initiative in collaboration with the Department of Mental Health/Mental Retardation Services in Philadelphia. He was also the first recipient of the Kennedy Community Health Award from the Kennedy Forum.[64]
Images courtesy of National Institutes of Health, Pocket Books
The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#3 Benjamin Spock (1903-1998)
"Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do." is the opening sentence of Dr Benjamin Spock's Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, which was published in 1946 and rapidly became a runaway parenting and cultural phenomenon—and, with over 50 million books sold in 42 languages, one of the best-selling books in history.[65,66]
In writing his book, Dr Spock sought to encourage a more permissive approach to child-rearing, different from existing orthodoxy grounded in strict routines and schedules and a sparing use of affection. With his gentle method, Dr Spock wished to encourage parental instinct and the use of common sense. From a theoretical standpoint, Dr Spock implemented some of the ideas of Sigmund Freud and the philosopher John Dewey.[66]
The oldest of six children, Benjamin Spock grew up in New Haven and attended Yale University where, as a member of the rowing team, he won a gold medal at the Paris Olympics in 1924.[65,66] Dr Spock graduated from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons and went on to specialize in pediatrics, combining these studies with psychiatry. As a clinician, he earned a reputation for caring about his patients' (and their parents') feelings and being approachable. He chose to wear ordinary business suits rather than the more intimidating white doctor's coat.[66]
Dr Spock wrote several other books on childcare and rearing, including Dr Spock Talks with Mothers (1961), Raising Children in a Difficult Time (1974), and Dr Spock on Parenting (1988). His work touched a nerve in the postwar era, radically altered the path of child-rearing in the Western world,[65] and continues to influence the care of children well into the 21st century.[67,68]
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The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#2 Jonas Salk (1914-1995)
Dr Jonas Salk is celebrated for having created the first polio vaccine.[69]
Contrary to accepted theories at the time, Dr Salk believed that he could design an effective vaccine from killed virus that would not cause disease to propagate. His theory was borne out by subsequent clinical testing. The new vaccine caused the incidence rate of the disease in the United States to drop from 45,000 cases per year in the early 1950s to 910 cases in 1962.[70]
Dr Salk was born and raised in New York City. He completed his medical studies at New York University and worked on a research fellowship to develop a vaccine for influenza at the University of Michigan before being appointed as director of the Virus Research Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. In Pittsburgh, Dr Salk set out to work on a vaccine for paralytic poliomyelitis, an incurable disease that spread fear throughout the United States and beyond.[70] The discovery of the vaccine shot Dr Salk to immediate international stardom.[71]
Just 5 years after creating the polio vaccine, Dr Salk began work on "a collaborative environment where researchers could explore the basic principles of life and contemplate the wider implications of their discoveries for the future of humanity."[70] With support from the March of Dimes, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies was established, with a mission "to dare to make dreams into reality…[to] explore the very foundations of life, seeking new realities in neuroscience, genetics, immunology and more."[72]
At the end of his life, Dr Salk was actively involved in AIDS research.[73]
Images from Dreamstime, Alamy, Associated Press
The 25 Most Influential Physicians in the Past Century
Steven Rourke | September 25, 2017 | Contributor Information
#1 Francis Crick (1916-2004); James Watson (1928–); Maurice Wilkins (1916-2004); Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958)
In 1962, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to Francis Crick, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material."[74] Although they were not physicians, it's hard to overlook the work of these scientists whose work has had such far-ranging influence over medicine.
Francis Crick's advanced studies were disrupted by the Second World War, but after an internship at the Medical Research Council, he completed his PhD thesis, titled "X-ray Diffraction: Polypeptides and Proteins," at Cambridge University. Crick's collaboration with the young James Watson led to the theory of the double-helical structure for DNA and the replication scheme, described in 1953.[75]
A native of Chicago, James Watson combined his interests in ornithology, zoology, and genetics to earn his PhD from the University of Indiana, where he studied the effect of hard X-rays on bacteriophage multiplication.[76] After the discovery of the double helix, Dr Watson dedicated much of his career to the study of the gene and wrote a series of widely used textbooks.[77]
Maurice Wilkins was born in New Zealand and educated in the United Kingdom. His PhD thesis was "a study of thermal stability of trapped electrons in phosphors, and on the theory of phosphorescence, in terms of electron traps with continuous distribution of trap depths."[78] By sharing his X-ray diffraction images with Crick and Watson, Wilkins contributed to the understanding of DNA structure.
Rosalind Franklin's pioneering research was an important factor in the discovery of the structure of DNA, although her contribution has been in part overlooked.[79] Franklin's accomplished career in molecular biology was tragically cut short by her death from ovarian cancer at the age of 37.
The 50 Most Influential Physicians in History, Part 1
Countless original thinkers and groundbreaking clinicians have helped to lay the foundation for medical practice as we know it today. But who were the most influential physicians in history?Medscape Features Slideshow, February 2017
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Einhorn LH. Testicular cancer as a model for a curable neoplasm: The Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award Lecture. Cancer Res. 1981;41(9 Pt 1):3275-3280.
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Topol E. The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care. New York, NY: Basic Books; 2012.
Ranking Web of Universities. 1040 highly cited researchers (h>100) according to their Google Scholar Citations public profiles. Fourth edition. January 2016. http://www.webometrics.info/en/node/58 Accessed September 11, 2017.
Mammas IN, Spandidos DA. George N. Papanicolaou (1883-1962): Fifty years after the death of a great doctor, scientist and humanitarian. BUON J. 2012;17:180-184.
Richmond C. Dame Cicely Saunders. BMJ. 2005;331:238.
Cicely Williams. Caribbean Icons in Science, Technology and Innovation. National Institute of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology (NIHERST) of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and Caribbean Council for Science and Technology (CCST). http://www.niherst.gov.tt/icons-1/profiles/cicely-williams.htm Accessed September 11, 2017.
Krawinkel M. Kwashiorkor is still not fully understood. Bull World Health Organ. 2003;81:910-911.
Palsson OS, Whitehead WE. Psychological treatments in functional gastrointestinal disorders: a primer for the gastroenterologist. Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2012;11:208-216. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/779877_3 Accessed September 19, 2017.
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