Our Mission
Neurosurgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital Boston, and the Dana-Farber Cancer Center is dedicated to achieving excellence in patient care, teaching and research. Our clinical service, which is provided without discrimination, has as its goal compassionate and effective care which is enhanced through the advancement of scientific knowledge and technological expertise. Our teaching program includes students, residents, and graduate physicians. It is designed to promote understanding of neurosurgery, to inspire caring for patients, technical and surgical skill, and scientific inquisitiveness. Our research efforts in neuroscience and tumor biology aim to achieve significant scientific discovery while being relevant to neurosurgical practice. Physicians, each of whom has an area of subspecialization, strive to function as a group in an atmosphere of collegiality and mutual respect. We promote multidisciplinary collaboration in the medical and scientific communities and are committed to the continued improvement and growth of our comprehensive program, which addresses the needs of patients through the integration of science and quality care.
Our History
1913
The Peter Bent Brigham hospital opens with Harvey Cushing as its first surgeon-in-chief.
1913-1933
Harvey Cushing’s tenure at the Peter Bent Brigham hospital. He was a visionary who saw neurosurgery as the highest achievement of the surgeon’s art and was one of the most respected physicians in the world during his time.
The 1920s
The Children’s Hospital was founded in 1848 but had very little neurosurgery as part of its early years. In the 1920’s brain tumors in children were operated upon by Cushing at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and then transferred back to Children’s. By 1926, Cushing had operated on 1108 brain tumor patients, 154 of whom were under the age of 15 and two dozen under the age of five.
1929
Cushing suggested to one of his trainees, Dr. Franc Ingraham, that he start a pediatric neurosurgical service at the Children’s Hospital. This was the beginning of world pediatric neurosurgery. With the text “Neurosurgery of Infancy and Childhood”, Dr. Ingraham essentially created the field of pediatric neurosurgery.
1939
Like Dr. Cushing, Dr. Ingraham acquired a following of fellows who worked in the laboratory or clinic. Two of them were Dr. Eben Alexander, Jr. and Dr. Donald Matson, who started as surgical interns at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. Dr. Matson was to become one of the leading lights of American neurosurgery in both adult and pediatric neurosurgery.
1940s
When World War II took Matson and many others abroad, Dr. Ingraham assumed the neurosurgical responsibilities at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital as well as the Children’s Hospital. This began a tradition of the Neurosurgical Service as a unified group of attending neurosurgeons at the two hospitals.
1949
After the war ended, Dr. Matson returned to Boston and was invited to return to the Brigham.
1958
Ingraham and Matson were joined by Dr. John Shillito, who started as a surgical intern at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in 1952 and after a year in Memphis with Dr. Francis Murphy returned to join the staff.
1964
Dr. Ingraham retired as Chief of Neurosurgery. A year later he succumbed to his second myocardial infarction. In his memory, the Franc D. Ingraham Professorship of Neurosurgery was established at the Harvard Medical School.
1968
Dr. Donald Matson was appointed the first Franc D. Ingraham Professor of Neurosurgery. He died untimely in 1970.
1970
Dr. Keasley Welch of Denver, Colorado, was appointed as the second Franc D. Ingraham Professor of Neurosurgery.
1976
The Peter Bent Brigham Hospital became part of the Affiliated Hospitals Center which was renamed the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 1980.
1985
Dr. Welch retired as Chief of Neurosurgery at the two hospitals.
1987
Dr. Peter Black was selected as the third Franc D. Ingraham Professor of Neurosurgery at the Harvard Medical School and Neurosurgeon-in-Chief at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital Boston.
1988
Dr. Michael Scott as Director of Clinical Pediatric Neurosurgery.
1997
Partners, Inc. was created as a partnership between the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Recently the Faulkner hospital has joined the Brigham family.
2002
Dr. Arthur Day was recruited to head the BWH Cerebrovascular Center and Residency Program.
2004
Dr. Scott becomes the Neurosurgeon-in-Chief at Children’s Hospital Boston and Dr. Black continued as the Chair of the Departments of Neurosurgery for both Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital Boston.
The Future
The future for academic neurosurgery is changing; a crucial issue now is to maintain the ability to carry forward the academic mission despite fiscal and regulatory constraints. We believe that it is critical to continue to train neurosurgeons who are expert scientists and clinically skillful surgeons and who want to live in these two increasingly complex worlds. Otherwise we believe that the speciality will wither, lose its academic respectability, and become pedestrian. This is an unparalleled time to bring the understandings of neuroscience and oncology, among other disciplines, to the neurosurgical bedside. The Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Children’s Hospital Boston Neurosurgical Service is determined to remain in the forefront of this effort as we help train the neurosurgical leaders of tomorrow.
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