In Memory of Robert M Goldwyn, MD

Updated 3/2017 -- photos and all links (except to my own posts) removed as many no longer active. and it was easier than checking each one.

I signed onto the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery website this morning to look up an article and found this tribute to Robert M. Goldwyn, MD who served as Editor-in-Chief of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery from 1979 to 2004, died on Tuesday, March 23, 2010.   I was privileged to meet him while doing my plastic surgery residency in Boston.  He and the head of my program (Dr. Gaspar Anastasi) were friends.  He was a giant in the field of plastic surgery who will be missed.

 

Please join us in remembering Dr. Goldwyn by reading his collected editorials, immortalized in the pages of PRS and gathered together in October 2004 in a special supplement.

In 2004, the supplement of editorials by Dr. Goldwyn and tributes by a few of the people who had been close to him represented a small token of appreciation. Today, the supplement will serve as an enduring tribute to a wonderful scientific journal editor, physician, role model and friend.

The supplement is complimentary and only available online at PRS.

25 Years of Selected Editorials by Robert M. Goldwyn, MD

Join PRS in the weeks and months to come for further tributes to Dr. Goldwyn.

From PRS October 2004 - Volume 114 - Issue - p v
Biographical Note:  Robert M. Goldwyn, M.D

Robert M. Goldwyn was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1930. He attended Worcester Academy, Harvard College (A.B., 1952; Phi Beta Kappa, Magna cum Laude), and Harvard Medical School (M.D., 1956).

He did his internship and residency in general surgery at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston from 1956 to 1961. During this time he was the Harvey Cushing Fellow in Surgery at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. In 1960, he worked with Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Lambarene, Gabon.

His plastic surgical training was at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center from 1961 to 1963. He returned to Harvard Medical School and became Senior Surgeon at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and at the Beth Israel Hospital, where he was Chief of the Division of Plastic Surgery from 1972 to 1996. Since 1979, he has been the Editor of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and has authored or co-authored more than 300 articles and has edited several books: The Unfavorable Result in Plastic Surgery: Avoidance and Treatment (now in its third edition), Reconstructive Surgery of the Breast, Long-Term Results in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, and Reduction Mammaplasty.

He has written The Patient and the Plastic Surgeon (two editions) and The Operative Note, a collection of his editorials, as well as a book for the general public: Beyond Appearance: Reflections of a Plastic Surgeon. With J. Saxe as translator, he wrote an introduction to G. Baronio's Degli Innesti Animali, 1804 (On Grafting in Animals). He also wrote the introduction for the first complete English translation by J. H. Thomas of G. Tagliacozzi's De curtorum chirur-gia per insitionem, 1597 (On the Surgical Restoration of Defects by Grafting, a facsimile edition).

Dr. Goldwyn has served as President of the Massachusetts Society of Plastic Surgeons, the New England Society of Plastic Surgery, the American Association of Plastic Surgeons, which made him an Honorary Fellow, and the Harvard Medical Alumni Association.

In 1972 he founded the National Archives of Plastic Surgery, housed at Harvard Medical School, and has since served as Chairman of the Archives Committee of the Plastic Surgery Educational Foundation.

He was a founding member of Physicians for Social Responsibility and has written articles on world peace, opposition to chemical and biological warfare, and medical ethics.

He has been Visiting Professor to more than 70 institutions, universities, and hospitals in this country and abroad and is an honorary member of more than a dozen national and international societies of plastic surgery. His other awards include the Dieffenbach Medal, the Honorary Kazanjian Lectureship, Clinician of the Year of the American Association of Plastic Surgeons, and the Special Achievement Award and the Presidential Citation of the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons. He has received numerous recognitions for his teaching and writing.

 

More information on this amazing man:
Boston Globe Obituary
Leonardo’s Hand – Dr. Robert Goldwyn