Historical perspectives of The American Association for Thoracic Surgery: D. Craig Miller (1946-)

Abstract

David Craig Miller (Figure 1), 88th president of The American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS), was born on December 3, 1946, in San Francisco to Dr Charles ‘‘Bebe’’ and Helen Miller. After spending the first 9 years of his life in the San Francisco Peninsula, Miller’s father grew weary of the crowds and moved the family to the mountains in northern California. Miller grew up in Redding, where he spent his formative years alternating between being a bibliophile, a high school athlete, and a farmhand on his father’s ranch (Figure 2). Miller broke a lot of bones as a youngster on the rodeo circuit, a sport that epitomized the adventurous spirit that would dominate his future career path and extracurricular interests as an adult. Miller attended Dartmouth College for 3 years and entered Stanford University School of Medicine in 1968 without an undergraduate degree (as was then permissible). Subsequently his bachelors degree in basic medical science was awarded by Stanford in 1969 and his MD in 1972. Under the spell of Dr Norman Shumway (67th AATS president), Miller decided to pursue a career in cardiovascular surgery. Miller also credits Drs Randall Griepp and Lawrence Cohn (79th AATS president) with guiding his early career. Dr Griepp was a young faculty member at Stanford who helped convince Dr Shumway to give Miller a chance, and Dr Cohn was Shumway’s chief resident during Miller’s formative medical school years. Miller then spent 4 years in general surgical training, 1 year in peripheral vascular surgery, and 18 months in adult cardiothoracic surgery. In January of 1978, he joined the faculty of Stanford. Sometime along the way, Miller dropped his first given name, becoming ‘‘Craig’’ or, to his colleagues and residents, ‘‘DCM.’’