H. BRYAN NEEL III, MD, PHD

Paul Allen Ebert graduated from Ohio State University in 1954 and earned his medical degree at the same institution in 1958. Following internship and 1 year of residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital, he spent 2 years as a Senior Assistant Surgeon at the National Heart Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. Subsequently, he was an Assistant Professor of Surgery at Duke University Medical Center and then Associate Professor of Surgery. He was Professor and Chairman of the Department of Surgery at Cornell University Medical College from 1971 to 1975 and Surgeon-in-Chief of the New York Hospital. From 1975 through June 1986, Dr Ebert was Professor and Chairman of the Department of Surgery at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center. A Fellow of the American College of Surgeons since 1968, Dr Ebert assumed the directorship of the College in November 1986. He will retire as director this year.

Dr Ebert holds regular and honorary memberships in many domestic and international professional associations and is an accomplished writer on thoracic, cardiovascular, and socioeconomic topics. He has served on the editorial boards of several scientific journals. He has been the President of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, the American College of Cardiology, the Society of University Surgeons, and the Western Thoracic Surgical Association.

In addition to a number of awards for service and scholarship, Dr Ebert received the Theodore Roosevelt Award from the National Collegiate Athletic Association in 1989.

Dr Ebert has been married to Louise Joyce Parks since 1954, and they have 3 children. He is a stalwart patron of education and research and an articulate spokesman for surgery and surgeons, especially during this period of "reorganization" of American medicine. His service and leadership at the American College of Surgeons is unparalleled.

I cannot capture my immense respect for him in a few words, but I will say that he is highly ethical, decisive, strong-willed yet homespun, candid, wise, full of common sense, creative, independent, and humorous.