Cushing Center News

"Harvey Cushing and John Fulton: Two Founders Bonded By Science, Medicine, And Books": Full video of June 3 event now online

On June 3, 2016 the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library hosted a talk titled "Harvey Cushing and John Fulton: Two Founders Bonded By Science, Medicine, And Books." The focus of this event was a conversation between Drs. Dennis D. Spencer and Gordon M. Shepherd, moderated by Cynthia Tsay, YSM ’18. The panel spoke about the personal and professional relationship of these men, and touched upon the founding of the Yale Medical Library and how they worked together to make it a reality. At the post-lecture reception, we also took a few photos of attendees with Harvey Cushing himself: Dr. Cushing's great-grandson, Harvey Cushing Dr. Frank Lobo and Sharon McManus Dr. Dennis Spencer and Harvey Cushing Library Curator of Prints and Drawings Susan Wheeler L to R: John Gallagher, Cushing's great-great-grandson Kevin Cushing, Dr. Gordon Shepherd, Cushing's granddaughter Kate Whitney, Dr. Dennis Spencer, Cynthia Tsay

Cushing Center featured in Atlas Obscura

On May 30, the Cushing Center will be one of the destinations for Obscura Day. Obscura Day will include "more than 150 events in 39 states and 25 countries, all on a single day, and all designed to celebrate the world's most curious and awe-inspiring places." Other Obscura Day destinations will include the ghost towns of Chernobyl, Mayan ruins in Mexico, and Pasadena's Bunny Museum, to name just a few. A recent article published by Atlas Obscura features some newly digitized images from the Cushing Tumor Registry: http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cushing-tumor-registry-cushing-whitney-medical-library

Humanizing a Historic Brain Collection

Nice write up by Allison C. Meier following a visit to the Cushing Center during last year's 2014 Atlas Obscura tour: https://hyperallergic.com/138968/humanizing-a-historic-brain-collection/

Electrosurgical in the Operating Room

(Post authored by Terry Dagradi) Cushing operating at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital Photo by Dr. Walter Willard Boyd 1928-32 On October 1, 1926 at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, Harvey Cushing performed an operation—removal of a mass from a patient’s head -- using the first commercial electrosurgical generator developed by to William T. Bovie [1], an engineer employed at Harvard University. The Bovie unit passed high frequency alternating current into the body, allowing the current to cut or coagulate. The device drastically reduced the complications of bleeding during intracranial operations, further reducing the mortality rates during brain surgery. After 88 years this basic device remains a fundamental tool in the practice of surgery. When Cushing began his surgical career in the early 1900s, brain tumors were considered to be inoperable. At that time the mortality rate for a surgical procedure involving the opening of the skull was around 90%. Cushing dramatically reduced the mortality rate for neurosurgery to less than 10%, and by the time of his retirement from the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in 1932, he had successfully removed more than 2,000 tumors.[2] [1] Bovie, WT; Cushing, H (1928). "Electrosurgery as an aid to the removal of intracranial tumors with a preliminary note on a new surgical-current generator". Surg Gynecol Obstet 47: 751–84. [2] http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/980.html https://www.mjhlifesciences.com/ http://www.uptodate.com/contents/overview-of-electrosurgery

Happy 145th Birthday Harvey Cushing!

Happy 145th Birthday Harvey Cushing! Harvey Cushing, born on April 8th in Cleveland in 1869, was the last of ten children of Henry Kirke and Betsey Maria Cushing and descended from a long line of Cushing doctors. A brief list of his accomplishments include: He considerably improved the survival of patients after difficult brain operations for intracranial tumors. In clinical medicine, he was an early advocate of x-ray and blood pressure determination. He developed techniques to control bleeding from the scalp and promoted decompression for relief of pain in cases of inoperative brain tumors. Cushing was an early adopter of electrosurgery, playing a role in the development of Bovie electrocautery tool with physicist W. T. Bovie. He was the world's leading teacher of neurosurgeons in the first decades of the 20th century. For Cushing’s 70th birthday in April of 1939, The Harvey Cushing Society, formed in 1932 by younger neurosurgeons in Cushing’s honor, met in New Haven Ct. for a celebration. At the formal dinner Louise Eisenstadt, MD, colleague and collaborator of the Curator of the Brain Tumor Registry presented Cushing with the gift of Bibliography of the Writings of Harvey Cushing, prepared by the Harvey Cushing Society and published by Charles C Thomas. To learn more about Cushing’s life and accomplishments, visit the Cushing Center.

The Cushing Center: “Insightfully beautiful”

Since its opening in June 2010, the Cushing Center has become a destination of interest to many visitors including students from area schools, members of the Yale University and the New Haven community, medical students, physicians, and writers worldwide. As of page 126 of the guest book, visitors have come from at least 33 US states and 46 countries including places as far away as Tasmania and Madagascar. Last year we provided guided tours to over 2,300 visitors, while many others ventured into the center on their own.The center is open to all: Sunday: 9:30am-8:00pm Monday-Friday: 8:00am-8:00pm Saturday: 10:00am-7:00pm If you don’t have a Yale ID you’ll need to show a picture ID at the library circulation desk to borrow a proxy ID. Tours are offered: Thursday: 2:00pm & Friday: 11:00am & 2:00pm. Guests meet in front of the library circulation desk. For tours beyond these hours, contact terry.dagradi@yale.edu The Cushing Center is located in the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library at 333 Cedar St. From the library entrance, walk straight down the hallway to the Information Room. Take the stairway on the right and walk down two flights. The center entrance is on the right.