Austin Lamont and the Evolution of Modern Academic American Anesthesiology

Abstract

(Muravchick) Professor of Anesthesia, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.(Rosenberg) Professor and Chairman, Department of Anesthesiology, Hahnemann University.Received from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Hahnemann University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Submitted for publication August 15, 1995. Accepted for publication October 26, 1995.Address correspondence to Dr. Muravchick: Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Courtyard Building no. 402, 3400 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4283. Address electronic mail to: muravchick@a1.mscf.med.upenn.edu.AUSTIN Lamont's distinguished career as an anesthesiologist was a direct result of both his unique personality and the circumstances in which the struggling medical specialty of anesthesiology found itself during the span of his professional career. Although it is undeniably personal, the story of his achievements at The Johns Hopkins and the University of Pennsylvania Schools of Medicine also in many ways provides a general synopsis of the evolution of modern American academic anesthesiology from its beginnings, in the first third of this century, to its maturation 40 yr later. Lamont insisted that an anesthesiologist's education must include a large measure of applied clinical science, and he was, in large part, responsible for the formation of the Association of University Anaesthetists, an organization that established the academic and professional credibility of physicians who devoted themselves to the practice of anesthesiology in a university environment. Throughout his career, he brought a physician's sensitivity and sense of priorities, a scientist's discipline and analytic perspective, and an educator's understanding of the need for broadly based knowledge to a type of medical practice that had not even been considered respectable by most medical professionals when he first began his career in anesthesiology. (Figure 1).Lamont was born in Englewood, New Jersey, on February 25, 1905. As one of the three sons of Thomas W. Lamont, an internationally known banker and partner in the J. P. Morgan financial empire, his wealth and privilege were assured. Therefore, it was inevitable that young Austin would become an educated gentleman. Like his father and his older brothers before him, he graduated from the Phillips Exeter Academy and completed his undergraduate education at Harvard College, receiving his degree in 1927. Originally planning to study classic Latin and Greek at the New College, Oxford University, England, he changed his mind while still on the steamship headed for Europe. Instead, in what was to become his characteristic fashion, he decided to study science, simply because he felt he knew the least about this discipline, and he was always determined to meet and master new challenges. He began with basic biology, physics, and chemistry, and apparently found it much to his liking. However, neither was he a