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John Earle “Jack” Connolly, MD,
FACS, Past-Second Vice-President
and Vice-Chair of the Board of
Regents of the American College
of Surgeons (ACS), passed away
peacefully surrounded by his
family on January 20 at 92 years
old. A pioneering cardiothoracic
surgeon, Dr. Connolly was the
founding chairman, department
of surgery, University of
California, Irvine (UC Irvine).
Outstanding mentors
Jack was born May 21, 1923,
in Omaha, NE, where his
father, Earle Connolly, MD,
was a surgeon on the faculty of
Creighton University’s School of
Medicine. The elder Dr. Connolly
and Jack’s mother, Gertrude,
created an environment that
encouraged scholastic excellence.
Dr. Earle Connolly often took Jack
along on weekend rounds to share
his passion for academic surgery.
These parental influences were
evident as Dr. Jack Connolly went
on to graduate with honors from
Harvard College, Cambridge,
MA, in 1945 and Harvard Medical
School, Boston, in 1948.
Dr. Connolly then left New
England for the fast-paced life of
post-World War II California to
begin training in surgery at the
Stanford University Hospital,
San Francisco, where Emile
Holman, MD, FACS, was chief
of surgery. Dr. Holman, the last
resident to train under William
S. Halsted, MD, FACS, was an
expert in arteriovenous fistula
physiology and management.
Dr. Connolly’s residency at
Stanford included a penultimate
year as a surgical registrar on Sir
James Patterson Ross’ professorial
unit at St. Bartholomew’s
Hospital in London, U.K.
After completing a final year
as chief resident at Stanford, Jack
returned to the East Coast in
1955 for a two-year thoracic and
cardiovascular surgery residency
at Columbia Presbyterian Medical
Center, New York, N Y. At that
time, the emphasis of the program
was substantially more thoracic
than cardiac, with George H.
Humphreys II, MD, FACS, and
Robert H. Wylie, Jr., MD, FACS, at
the medical center and J. Maxwell
Chamberlain, MD, FACS, at
Roosevelt and Bellevue hospitals.
Trailblazing career
By the time Dr. Connolly
returned to Stanford in 1957 as
an instructor in surgery, Frank
L.A. Gerbode, MD, FACS, FRCS,
had performed the first open
heart operation on the West
Coast in 1954 and had a well-established cardiac team. Norman
E. Shumway, MD, FACS, had
just come to Stanford directly
from training at the University
of Minnesota, Minneapolis, with
Richard L. Varco, MD, FACS, and
C. Walton Lillehei, MD, FACS,
who were in the vanguard of
this rapidly developing field.
Jack decided to focus his
efforts on clinical research
and was awarded funding as
a Markle Scholar from 1957
to 1962. The return on this
investment included 37 reports
in peer-reviewed publications,
ranging from “Direct vision
surgery of acquired aortic
and mitral valvular stenosis
under hypothermia” in Surgery
to “Intestinal adhesions—
present status of prevention and
treatment” in California Medicine.
Most importantly, however,
In memoriam:
Dr. John Connolly, pioneering
cardiothoracic surgeon
by Peter H. Connolly, MD; James G. Chandler, MD, FACS;
and David B. Hoyt, MD, FACS