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J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2004;128:1-3
© 2004 The American Association for Thoracic Surgery

In memoriam

Henry T. Bahnson, MD (1920-2003): Himalayas of the mind—Challenges and expectations

^a Division of Cardiac Surgery, University of Maryland, Baltimore, Md, USA

Received for publication August 15, 2003; accepted for publication August 19, 2003.

^* Address for reprints: Bartley P. Griffith, MD, Division of Cardiac Surgery, University of Maryland, Baltimore N4W94, 22 S Greene St, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA
bgriffith@smail.umaryland.edu

The first 300 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Henry T. Bahnson was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, November 15, 1920. He presided over The Society of University Surgeons, The American College of Surgeons, The American Association for Thoracic Surgery, and The American Surgical Association. This combination of leadership has been held by fewer than 10 surgeons. Along with 9 peers, he was selected by The Lancet as a top surgeon of the 20th century. Importantly for me, he led the department of surgery and the University of Pittsburgh's School of Medicine during a period of 30 years, from a position of indifference to empowering significance. His death in January 2003 from a stroke prompted those who knew him to remember what made this quiet and dignified man special. Many of us gathered at a memorial service held beneath the gothic spirals of his adopted university's Heinz Chapel at the foot of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. With our specialty and academic medicine generally searching for direction, I found the service to be a compass magnetized by the lessons of his life.

Dr Bahnson had an unusual balance of intellectual curiosity, emotional control, and physical strength that permitted him to excel. Ben Eiseman commented that "Hank considered sleep deprivation as some unusual psychiatric abnormality." He trained for his often month-long Himalayan absences by running the more than 50 flights of stairs in Pitt's Cathedral of Learning with a rock-loaded rucksack on his back. He was one of the strongest snow skiers I have ever seen, and later in life he would rush to pedal his bicycle through bouts of atrial fibrillation to test its effect on his endurance. He was an undersized lineman at Davidson College and became a good botanist, tolerable beekeeper, good horseman, and outstanding black-and-white photographer. Most who knew him learned firsthand of his interest . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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