好色先生

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Abstract Details

Harvey Cushing's Birthday Book and the Genre of Medical Festschrift
Research Methodology, 好色先生, and History
S36 - History of Neurology (1:36 PM-1:48 PM)
004
To describe the 1929 Harvey Cushing festschrift
Harvey Cushing (1869-1939) was the founder of modern neurosurgery, but by age sixty, he faced a forced retirement from surgery at Harvard at his career’s zenith. At this Janus-like inflection point, Cushing’s early protégé Elliot Cutler produced a unique festschrift of his mentor published in Archives of Surgery.
Review of the festschrift and relative contributors’ correspondences
At over 2000 pages and 83 contributors, the Cushing festschrift is a testament to his influence. It stands as a unique evolution in the genre of medical hagiography for being published within an academic surgical journal; its contributors were limited to exclusively Cushing’s pupils; the contents were organized chronologically in reference to when the contributor studied under Cushing; and the contents were exclusively surgical-scientific at the exclusion of memoir or biography. The work was especially presented to Cushing’s Johns Hopkins mentors Kelly and Welch. Some of these decisions were motivated by intents to avoid anything suggesting an ending or decline, given Cushing’s worsening health and ongoing frustration with an upcoming forced retirement from surgical practice by Harvard and his eventual removal to Yale. Later Cushing festschrifts at age 70 conform to a memoir/biographically-driven content more typical of the genre.
Unlike previous medical genre whose hagiography lies in the content of the product, the Cushing festschrift of 1929 displaces hagiography from the pages into the process of memorialization by focusing largely on the role academic lineage plays in consolidating a profession’s experience of achievement. That memorialization was heavily influenced by charged circumstances in which Cushing faced policy constraints by his institution at the height of his academic career. It reminds current trainees about how past mentors influence our present perspective of the field and raises questions of how we contextualize our own academic lineages.
Authors/Disclosures
Michael P. Stanley, MD (Tufts Medical Center)
PRESENTER 		Dr. Stanley has received personal compensation in the range of $0-$499 for serving as a Consultant for Roon. Dr. Stanley has received personal compensation in the range of $500-$4,999 for serving as an Editor, Associate Editor, or Editorial Advisory Board Member for Annals of Neurology. Dr. Stanley has stock in Roon. Dr. Stanley has received personal compensation in the range of $0-$499 for serving as a writer at large with WBUR/Cognoscenti . Dr. Stanley has received personal compensation in the range of $0-$499 for serving as a Poet with Writing the Land. Dr. Stanley has received personal compensation in the range of $0-$499 for serving as a writer at large with Psyche. Dr. Stanley has received personal compensation in the range of $0-$499 for serving as a Writer at large with Wall Street Journal.