Ten Famous Medical Doctors

Most of our physicians are famous in our own minds as they perform scientific procedures to improve our quality of living. The folks on this list, though, either became famous through their profession or outside of it.

1. Christiaan Barnard. The West African physician served as a cardiothoracic surgeon at Groo
te Schuur Hospital in 1958, where he established the hospital's first heart unit. He had been experimenting for several years with animal heart transplants after he performed the first successful kidney transplant in West Africa in 1959. following the first successful kidney transplant in 1954 — Barnard performed the first kidney transplant in South Africa in 1959. Assisted by Dr. Michael DeBakey, he performed the first heart transplant in 1967. The operation lasted nine hours, and required a team of thirty people.

2. Sigmund Freud. The Austrian neurologist is renowned for inventing modern psychoanalysis, and for his groundbreaking theories of sexual symbology, dream interpretation, and the unconscious mind. He’s less well know for his career as a neurologist – he was one of the first doctors to research palsy, publishing several medical papers on the subject. Freud also believed that cocaine was a virtual cure-all, and prescribed it as a stimulant, and antidepressant, and as a cure for morphine addiction..

3. Emil Theodor Kocher. Winner of the 1909 Nobel Prize for his work involving the thyroid gland, he founded the Kocher Institut in Berne, Switzerland. He was a pioneering researcher, and published works on antiseptic treatments, surgical infectious diseases, gunshot wounds, acute osteomyelitis, the theory of strangulated hernia, and abdominal surgery. Kocher has several instruments and surgical techniques named after him, as well as Kocher-Debre-Semelaigne syndrome.

4. Benjamin Spock. The American pediatrician’s book “Baby and Child Care” (1946) sparked a revolution among mothers who had previously been told that only their doctors knew everything about child care – his message that "you know more than you think you do" empowered mothers, and he was the first pediatrician to study psychoanalysis as it relates to children's needs and family dynamics. After hundreds of years of child rearing that stressed discipline and obedience, Dr. Spock’s theory that parents should be more affectionate with their children and to treat them as individuals was groundbreaking, no matter how obvious it seems today.

5. Oliver Sacks. Author of a number of popular books about his patients, the British neurologist writes very entertaining, anecdotal books that go light on the clinical details and long on the personal memoir. His most famous books are “Awakenings” (which was made into a movie starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams) and “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.”

6. Michael Crichton. The bestselling American author of “Jurassic Park,” “Congo” and “Sphere” started out as a physician. Crichton wrote his first novels while he was a medical student, first at t Harvard , where he earned his M.D. in 1969, and during his post-doctoral fellowship the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, in California. His medical training and science background come into play in many of his novels, which often have themes revolving around science or technology.

7. Frederick Banting. With diabetes on the rise today, people should thank Banting on a regular basis. He, with the help of Dr. Macleod, discovered the use of insulin in the treatment of the disease.

8. Charles F. Drew. Anyone who has ever required a blood transfusion should have great respect for Drew. An African-American doctor, his research helped improve the way we store blood, which, in turn, helped us to create the necessary blood banks for World War II. Moreover, Drew argued that blood should not be separated by donor color in blood banks.

9. Orvan Hess. An antibiotic pioneer, Hess with another doctor successfully treated the first patient with penicillin. He went on to create a fetal heart monitor to better monitor pregnant women. His design is still the basic one used in OB units today.

10. Joseph Lister. For years, doctors couldn't understand why wounds became infected after surgery. Lister completed a huge body of research on how infection is created, and designed many of the hygienic procedures used in hospitals today to keep infection rates to a minimum