The Hospital for Special Surgery 1955 to 1972: T. Campbell Thompson Serves as Sixth Surgeon-in-Chief 1955-1963 Followed by Robert Lee Patterson, Jr. the Seventh Surgeon-in-Chief 1963-1972.

Abstract

After two decades as the fifth Surgeon-in-Chief (1935-1955) of The Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), Philip Duncan Wilson, MD (1886-1969) retired, having implemented, during his administration, major changes in the hospital. The first most important accomplishment was finalizing a formal affiliation with New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center in 1955 and moving adjacent to the medical campus at 535 East 70th Street. The second was changing the name of the Hospital in 1940 from The Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled to The Hospital for Special Surgery. During the two decades as Surgeon-in-Chief, Dr. Wilson was able to reestablish the hospital as a foremost hospital in the orthopedic world. The Board of Managers of the New York Society for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled appointed T. Campbell Thompson, MD (1902-1986), as the sixth Surgeon-in-Chief of The Hospital for Special Surgery. He assumed that office on July 1, 1955. During the previous year, Dr. Thompson served as President of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Philip D. Wilson, upon his retirement as Surgeon-in-Chief, took on a newly created role as Director of Research at HSS. In 1962, adverse relations between The Hospital for Special Surgery and New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center seriously threatened the continued affiliation agreement between the two hospitals. Because of difficulties over a faculty and staff appointment, Dr. Thompson resigned from the office of Surgeon-in-Chief. He was replaced in1963 by Robert Lee Patterson, Jr., MD (1907-1994), who had first joined the staff of The Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled in 1936 as a Visiting Surgeon.