Giving people the gift of clear vision; caring for women during high-risk pregnancies; operating on patients with brain tumors. In our most vulnerable moments, we put our trust in the hands of our doctors. In proclaiming National Doctors’ Day in 1991, President George H. W. Bush noted, “medicine is a special calling, and those who have chosen this vocation in order to serve their fellowman understand the tremendous responsibility it entails.”
Today, 26 years later on National Doctors’ Day, we thank all those physicians who make lives better for patients every day through their clinical work and research. We celebrate all doctors and are especially proud to feature three physicians in the Summus network for their remarkable achievements and the impact they have had on others throughout their careers.
Dr. Rafael Tamargo, Professor and Walter E. Dandy Endowed Chair in Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins
- Born in Havana, Cuba, and fled to escape Communism in 1961
- Director of the Division of Cerebrovascular Neurosurgery, Vice-Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery, and Co-Director of the Neurosciences Critical Care Unit
- Member of the American Academy of Neurological Surgery, the Neurosurgical Society of America, and the Society of Neurological Surgeons
- Published over 200 peer-reviewed articles and 30 chapters, co-editor of 3 books, and reviewed for more than 15 major medical journals
- Editor of the Cerebrovascular Section for Operative Neurosurgery, and served on the editorial board of Surgical Neurology from 2001 to 2009
- Clinical research focused on microsurgical techniques, epidemiological features, and outcomes of aneurysms, arteriovenous malformations, vestibular schwannomas, and skull base malignancies
Dr. Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman, Director of the Maternal-Fetal Medicine Fellowship Training Program and Associate Professor in Women’s Health at Columbia
- Director of the Maternal-Fetal Medicine Fellowship Training Program, one of the largest training programs in the country
- Medical Director of the Perinatal Clinics and Co-Director of the Columbia University Preterm Birth Prevention Center
- Member of the Board of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM), member of the SMFM Publications Committee, and founding member of the SMFM Research Committee
- NIH-funded researcher working on multiple clinical trials; as lead principal investigator, she recently completed a trial designed to improve neonatal outcomes in infants of women at risk for late preterm birth (now published in the New England Journal of Medicine)
- Also researches preterm birth, antenatal corticosteroids, preeclampsia, CMV, and genetic determinants of neonatal respiratory morbidity related to preterm birth
Dr. Alan Carlson, Professor of Ophthalmology at Duke
- Former Chief of Corneal and Refractive Surgery at Duke University Medical Center
- Performed over 52,500 successful surgical procedures, including 18,500 LASER vision correction procedures
- Delivered over 350 invited lectures and courses across four continents, and published over 135 articles, book chapters, and surgical teaching videos distributed internationally
- Two-time winner of the APPI Crystal Award in Japan for his clinical research and innovations in ophthalmic surgery
- Performed the first live televised LASIK surgery procedure in the Southeast
