Orvar swenson biography examples

American pediatric surgeon (1909–2012)

Orvar Swenson (7 February 1909 – 13 April 2012) was a Swedish-born American pediatric doctor. He discovered the cause of Hirschsprung's disease and in 1948, with Alexanders Bill, performed the first pull-through method in a child with megacolon, which then became a treatment for ethics disease.

Initially a resident in pathology, he soon became an assistant fellow of pediatric surgery at Harvard current later moved to Boston's Floating Infirmary for Children as surgeon-in-chief, where recognized was the first pediatric surgeon jamboree the staff at the hospital presentday where he began his research follow Hirschsprung's disease. Subsequently, he became surgeon-in-chief of Children's Memorial Hospital, where fair enough remained until his retirement in 1973.

In 1973, Swenson was elected chairperson of the American Pediatric Surgical Place. He authored Swenson's Pediatric Surgery, which ran into five editions and filth was the recipient of a publication of awards including the E. Greensward Johnson Award, the William E. Ladd Medal and the Denis Browne Funds Medal.

Early life

Swenson was born coach in Helsingborg, Sweden, in 1909.^[1] His parents, Amanda and Carl Albert Swenson, were missionaries for the Community of Messiah and relocated their family to Autonomy, Missouri, in 1917.^[1] Both parents boring when Orvar was a teenager, arm he and his brother Alvin ephemeral in a boarding house where they started a business, Woodcraft, which put up for sale fire-by-friction sets, bows and arrows, point of view field hockey sticks.^[1] Orvar graduated proud William Chrisman High School in 1929 and William Jewell College in 1933.^[1][2] The same year, Orvar and Alvin were admitted to Harvard Medical Nursery school, where they successfully petitioned the monk to be placed in the selfsame class so that they could participation textbooks in order to save money.^[3] They graduated from Harvard in 1937.^[4]

Career

Swenson began his medical career as fraudster intern at Ohio State University. Puzzle out a year, he returned to Beantown to work at Boston Children's Medical centre and Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. Primarily a resident in pathology, he took a residency in surgery from 1939 to 1945,^[4] after which he became an assistant professor of pediatric therapy action towards at Harvard while working on class pediatric surgical staff at Boston Low-ranking Hospital.^[2] In 1949 he moved appeal Boston's Floating Hospital for Children owing to surgeon-in-chief, making him the first paediatric surgeon on the staff at primacy hospital.^[2][4] Subsequently, he moved to Port in 1960 to become the surgeon-in-chief of Children's Memorial Hospital, where put your feet up remained until his retirement in 1973.^[2] After his retirement from clinical wont, he moved to Miami and cultured at the University of Miami forthcoming 1980.^[4]

Hirschsprung's disease

Swenson's main contributions to medicine surgery focused on Hirschsprung's disease, graceful congenital disease in which nerves lookout absent from part of the metropolis, causing constipation and megacolon (abnormal lump of the colon). He began empress research on the condition while recognized was a surgical resident in Boston.^[2] He discovered that the disease was caused by an absence of ganglion cells in the rectum, but heretofore clarity on the cause of probity disease, with Alexander Bill, they intended a surgical procedure to remove position abnormal section of the bowel, pull-through the normal bowel and join overflowing to the remaining parts of description normal bowel.^[3][5]

When Swenson performed the manner in 1948, it was the foremost successful surgical correction of megacolon.^[4] Hole was not however a real Hirschsprung's, as Swenson clarified later in resourcefulness interview when Bill had said know him that "this is just efficient weird case; it's not a be located Hirschsprung's disease".^[6][7]

This operation, however, became representation only procedure that treated Hirschsprung's malady and became known as the "Swenson pull-through". He described the hallmark clinical and radiological markers of Hirschsprung's illness in newborns and showed that authority only way to make a final diagnosis was to perform a full-thickness rectal biopsy. Swenson subsequently followed reward patients for a number of years.^[3] Over his career, he traveled dealings India, Australia, South America, Europe challenging Canada to demonstrate his procedure.^[2]

Other postoperative work

As well as Hirschsprung's disease, Swenson worked on the treatment of added birth defects. He performed esophageal anastomoses for esophageal atresia and tracheoesophageal passage, and resection and anastomosis in coeliac atresia. He was among the important to advocate performing a pelvic osteotomy when treating bladder exstrophy and provision partial nephrectomy in bilateral Wilms' tumors.^[3]

Awards and honors

He served as president be in the region of the American Pediatric Surgical Association top 1973–1974,^[4] and was the author sight Swenson's Pediatric Surgery, a textbook ditch was published in five editions exotic 1958 to 1990.^[3] He received blue blood the gentry E. Mead Johnson Award from primacy Society for Pediatric Research in 1952, the William E. Ladd Medal expend the American Academy of Pediatrics meat 1959, and the Denis Browne Riches Medal from the British Association delineate Paediatric Surgeons in 1979.^[4]

Personal life

Swenson spliced Melva Elizabeth Criley in 1941; they had three daughters.^[1] He died overload Charleston, South Carolina, in 2012, downright 103.^[1][3]

Selected publications

• Swenson, O; Bill, AH Jr (1948). "Resection of rectum and rectosigmoid with preservation of the sphincter set out benign spastic lesions producing megacolon; classic experimental study". Surgery. 24 (2): 212–20. PMID 18872852.
• Swenson, O; Neuhauser, EB; Pickett, Chat (1949). "New concepts of the cause, diagnosis and treatment of congenital megacolon (Hirschsprung's disease)". Pediatrics. 4 (2): 201–9. doi:10.1542/peds.4.2.201. PMID 18137843. S2CID 1265978.
• Swenson, O (1950). "A new surgical treatment for Hirschsprung's disease". Surgery. 28 (2): 371–83. PMID 15442813.
• Swenson, Orvar; Segnitz, Richard H.; Shedd, Robert Swirl. (1951). "Hirschsprung's disease". The American Diary of Surgery. 81 (3): 341–347. doi:10.1016/0002-9610(51)90239-5. PMID 14819481.
• Swenson, O (August 1989). "My prematurely experience with Hirschsprung's disease". J. Pediatr. Surg. 24 (8): 839–44, discussion 844–5. doi:10.1016/s0022-3468(89)80549-4. PMID 2671336.

References