Washington University (Saint Louis, Mo.). School of Medicine. Neurology and Neurological Surgery Department.

The executive faculty of the Washington University School of Medicine approved the formation of a joint department of neurology and neurological surgery effective July 1, 1974. The increasing number of mutual interests of these disciplines prompted the action. Sidney Goldring M.D., professor of neurological surgery was appointed head of neurological Surgery and co-head of the new department with William M. Landau, M.D., Professor of neurology and head at that time of the Department of Neurology. Goldring had a lifelong interest in neurophysiology and the experimental and clinical aspects of epilepsy. Ralph Dacey replaced Goldring as head of neurological surgery and co-chair in 1989. Although there was one academic program, there were two separate faculty, and the neurosurgery staff was much smaller until expansions in the 1990s. Neurology and neurological surgery were one department for nearly 30 years until the end of the 2002-2003 academic year. Before 1974 they were separate as well.

Until 1974, neurosurgery was a division of the department of surgery. Ernest Sachs, a neurosurgeon who trained under Victor Horsley, started a training program in neurosurgery at Washington University in 1921. Sachs was brought to the University in 1910, the year of the publication of the Flexner report, to develop neurosurgery in the Midwest, south of Chicago. He became professor of neurosurgery in 1919, the first such specialty post in the world. Many of Sach's trainees became outstanding teachers and clinicians. When Sachs retired as chief of neurosurgery in 1946, he was succeeded by Henry G. Schwartz, a superb clinical surgeon interested in the training of residents, the neurology service and basic neuroscience programs. Many of his trainees continued in academic neurosurgery and the neurosurgical division became strongly committed to basic and clinical research before retirement as neurosurgery chairman in 1974. Neurosurgeons William S. Cox was a distinguished member of the neurosurgical faculty from 1957-1997 and Leonard T. Furlow served on the neurosurgical faculty from 1932-1967. George Bishop, James O'Leary, and Thomas Woolsey have had long research associations with neurological surgery at WUSM.

In 1947, James L. O'Leary, director of the division of neurology in the department of neuropsychiatry, began the first formal neurology residency program at Washington University. By 1963, when Dr. O'Leary became head of the department of neurology, the program and faculty had expanded to include the neurology service at the old St. Louis City Hospital and five trainees were accepted each year. Dr. William Landau took over as head of neurology in 1970 and in 1991, Dennis Choi succeeded him. The program in child neurology at St. Louis Children's Hospital was in the department of pediatrics until 1992, when it moved from pediatrics to Neurology. Pediatric neurology began in 1967 as a division of the department of pediatrics under Philip Dodge and Arthur Prensky and Dodge remained its division chief until succeed by Dr. Steven Rothman of neurology in 1992. In 1993, the department of neurology also took over rehabilitation services forming a new division for rehabilitation within neurology. As of 2002, 10 neurology residents were accepted each year for 3 years (eight adult and two pediatric) and six residents in physical medicine and rehabilitation. SOUrce: "From the medical Schools, Washington University," Missouri Medicine, January, 1974, in FPOO1: Neurology & Neurological Surgery, WUSM Dept. Of, 1970-1979, Clippings, 1974; Washington University School of Medicine Catalogues, 2002-2003 & 2003-2004; "Department of Neurology, Historical Background, Washington University School of Medicine." http://neuro.wustl.edu/education/adultresidency/residencyhistory.htm & FP005 Neurology and Neurological Surgery, WUSM Department of, 2002; "Washington University Neurosurgery: Historical Background, Washington University School of Medicine." (http://plexus.wustl.edu/surgery/neuro/website.nsf/6c18fc53358d390286256cde00604464/51ea76829aee70f18625729f006d5005?OpenDocument & in FP005 Neurology and Neurological Surgery, WUSM department of, 2002);

From the description of Neurology and Neurological Surgery Department reprints, 1950-1984 1950-1984 (Washington University in St. Louis). WorldCat record id: 230826347