The Division of General Surgery began as two separate services with one being at St. Luke’s Hospital and the other at Roosevelt Hospital. Each achieved great distinction since their separate beginnings in the 1850’s. The two services merged in 1979 as the St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Department of Surgery.

The history of our General Surgery Service is rich with tradition and innovation. Charles McBurney, MD worked at both sites and Chaired the Department of Surgery at Roosevelt during the later part of the 19th Century. He was Professor of Surgery at Columbia and Roosevelt Hospital was the primary hospital associated with Columbia Medical School. During this time, he developed the McBurney incision for treatment of appendicitis which at that time was often fatal disease. When President McKinley was shot in the abdomen by an assassin in 1901, Dr. McBurney was called from NYC to attend him in Buffalo, New York, the site of the shooting.

William S. Halsted, MD began his career at Roosevelt Hospital and was Attending Surgeon until he moved to Johns Hopkins as the founding Chairman of that Department of Surgery.

Allen O. Whipple, MD, who went on to a distinguished career at Columbia, received his surgical training at Roosevelt Hospital.

Open heart surgery, resection for lung cancer, and kidney transplantation were all performed for the first time in New York by members of the Department of Surgery at St. Luke-Roosevelt Hospital Center.

In more recent years, this tradition of innovation and leadership has continued. There are clinically active and innovative programs in minimally invasive, colorectal, bariatric, vascular, endovascular, robotically-assisted, and breast surgery to name just a few.

Minimally invasive procedures using single port laparoscopic approaches, NOTES (Natural Orifice Translumenal Endoscopic Surgery) and robotically-assisted surgical procedures have recently been described and developed by our surgeons. They are national leaders in these emerging areas.