Surgeon Named to Endowed Chair

Dean Patricia Monteleone, M.D., and faculty and staff at the School of Medicine welcomed Johnson at a formal investiture ceremony Oct. 15 at the Health Sciences Center.

"I have great confidence that Dr. Johnson will provide strong leadership and will skillfully guide the department of surgery into the next decade," Monteleone said.

Johnson comes to St. Louis from Boston, where he was chief of the division of cardiothoracic surgery at Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center and associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School.

Receiving his doctor of medicine degree from the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine in 1978, he served his internship and residency in general surgery at the University of Oklahoma. He completed a clinical and research fellowship in cardiovascular surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, from 1980 to 81; was chief resident of general and vascular surgery at the University of Oklahoma Teaching Hospitals from 1982 to 1983; and chief resident of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery at the University of Oklahoma Teaching Hospitals from 1983 to 1985.

In 1985, Johnson was appointed instructor in surgery at Harvard Medical School, assistant professor in 1987 and associate professor in 1993. Johnson is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha honorary medical society and has received numerous other awards and honors. He has written more than 75 manuscripts, books and chapters and has served in several leadership roles in Boston and nationally, including president-elect of the American College of Chest Physicians, effective this month.

The Hanlon Professorship of Surgery at Saint Louis University honors the man who devoted his active clinical career to the establishment of a strong teaching program in surgery at the School of Medicine. Dr. Cyril Rollins Hanlon, the first full-time professor of clinical discipline at the School of Medicine, established a teaching program in surgery that has set an example throughout the University and won wide respect throughout the nation.

The endowment was assembled principally from individual gifts from Hanlon's patients, students, colleagues and guides. It attracts to the chair candidates of outstanding personal and professional promise, reflecting the commitment of the donors and the University to those qualities in surgery and surgical education exemplified by Hanlon.

Hanlon is best known in St. Louis as a pioneer in heart surgery. In 1956, he led a 12-person team in the first open-heart surgery in the lower Midwest region. And in 1972 he conducted the research that led to the area's first human heart transplant.

Hanlon received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins in 1938 and came to Saint Louis University in 1950 as the school's first full-time chairman of surgery. In 1969, he left to become director of the American College of Surgeons, a Chicago-based organization.

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