Edgar F. Berman (August 6, 1915 - November 25, 1987) [1] was an American surgeon and author. He is most remembered for his 1970 assertion that women were unable to hold leadership positions due to their "raging hormonal imbalances". [2] He also implanted a plastic esophagus into a person and performed a heart transplant for a dog.
Berman was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended Baltimore City College, the University of Maryland and the University of Maryland School of Medicine. [3]
Berman was in the Marine Corps during World War II, serving in Iwo Jima and Guam. [3] In 1950, he implanted the first plastic esophagus into a person. In 1957, he performed a heart transplant for a dog. [4]
Berman was the president of Medico, an organization involved with health care in developing countries, from 1959 to 1965. [2] From 1964 to 1969 he was a confidant of, and personal physician to Vice President Hubert Humphrey, advising him on medical issues. [4]
In 1970, Berman controversially asserted that women were unable to hold leadership positions due to their "raging hormonal imbalances". [2] Following the comment he was forced to resign from his post on the Democratic National Committee's Committee on National Priorities. [4] His assertion was refuted by leaders of the women's movement, including endocrinologist Estelle Ramey. [5]
Berman self-identified as a male chauvinist and wrote the 1982 book The Compleat Chauvinist: A Survival Guide for the Bedeviled Male. He considered the book to be revenge against "militant feminists", who he referred to as "Steingreers" and "Steinzugs". In an interview with The New York Times that year, he said "The women all hate me, and the men all think I'm their leader." [4]
Berman served on the board of directors of the Public Welfare Foundation for 20 years. [2]
Berman retired to a 50-acre horse farm in Lutherville, Maryland. He wrote five books and columns for USA Today . Following a heart attack, he died on November 25, 1987, at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore. [3] [6]
One of Johns Hopkins' first endowed professorships, the Edgar Berman Professorship in International Health, is named after Berman. [7]
William Castle DeVries is an American cardiothoracic surgeon, mainly known for the first transplant of a TAH using the Jarvik-7 model.
An artificial heart is a device that replaces the heart. Artificial hearts are typically used to bridge the time to heart transplantation, or to permanently replace the heart in the case that a heart transplant is impossible. Although other similar inventions preceded it from the late 1940s, the first artificial heart to be successfully implanted in a human was the Jarvik-7 in 1982, designed by a team including Willem Johan Kolff, William DeVries and Robert Jarvik.
Carolyn Gold Heilbrun was an American academic at Columbia University, the first woman to receive tenure in the English department, and a prolific feminist author of academic studies. In addition, beginning in the 1960s, she published numerous popular mystery novels with a woman protagonist, under the pen name of Amanda Cross. These have been translated into numerous languages and in total sold nearly one million copies worldwide.
Walter Bradford Cannon was an American physiologist, professor and chairman of the Department of Physiology at Harvard Medical School. He coined the term "fight or flight response", and he developed the theory of homeostasis. He popularized his theories in his book The Wisdom of the Body, first published in 1932.
Breast augmentation and augmentation mammoplasty is a cosmetic surgery technique using breast-implants and fat-graft mammoplasty techniques to increase the size, change the shape, and alter the texture of the breasts of a woman. Augmentation mammoplasty is applied to correct congenital defects of the breasts and the chest wall. As an elective cosmetic surgery, primary augmentation changes the aesthetics – of size, shape, and texture – of healthy breasts.
Frank Gill Slaughter, pen-name Frank G. Slaughter, pseudonym C.V. Terry, was an American novelist and physician whose books sold more than 60 million copies. His novels drew on his own experience as a doctor and his interest in history and the Bible. Through his novels, he often introduced readers to new findings in medical research and new medical technologies.
A ventricular assist device (VAD) is an electromechanical device for assisting cardiac circulation, which is used either to partially or to completely replace the function of a failing heart. The function of a VAD differs from that of an artificial cardiac pacemaker in that a VAD pumps blood, whereas a pacemaker delivers electrical impulses to the heart muscle. Some VADs are for short-term use, typically for patients recovering from myocardial infarction and for patients recovering from cardiac surgery; some are for long-term use, typically for patients suffering from advanced heart failure.
In modern medicine, a surgeon is a physician who performs surgery. There are also surgeons in podiatry, dentistry, and veterinary medicine. It is estimated that surgeons perform over 300 million surgical procedures globally each year.
Transplantable organs and tissues may both refer to organs and tissues that are relatively often or routinely transplanted, as well as relatively seldom transplanted organs and tissues and ones on the experimental stage.
Morton M. Mower is an American cardiologist and the co-inventor of the automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator. He has served in several professional capacities at Sinai Hospital and Cardiac Pacemakers Inc. In 1996, he became the chairman and chief executive officer of Mower Research Associates. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2002 for the development of the automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator with Michel Mirowski in the 1970s. He now continues his research in the biomechanical engineering laboratories at Johns Hopkins University.
The Stronger is an opera in one act by composer Hugo Weisgall. The English language libretto by Richard Henry Hart is based on August Strindberg's 1889 play of the same name. It premiered at the White Barn Theatre in Westport, Connecticut on August 9, 1952 and was dedicated to that theatre's founder, the actress Lucille Lortel.
Estelle Rosemary Ramey was an American endocrinologist, physiologist and feminist who became internationally known for refuting surgeon and Democratic Party leader Edgar Berman, who stated that women were unfit to hold high public office because of "raging hormonal imbalances." Ramey's balanced approach to life was embodied in a later quote, "I have loved. And been loved. And all the rest is background music."
Stefan R. Bornstein is the director of the Centre for Internal Medicine and the Medical Clinic and Policlinic III at the University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus of the Technical University of Dresden as well as the medical faculty's vice dean of international affairs and development and a member of the supervisory board of the University Hospital of Dresden. Furthermore, he is chair and honorary consultant for diabetes and endocrinology at King's College London. Previously, Bornstein worked as assistant director and professor of endocrinology at the University Hospital of Düsseldorf, as unit chief at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland and held the Heisenberg-scholarship of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.
John Mark Redmond is an Irish cardiothoracic surgeon and businessperson. He is the brother of Professor Paul Redmond.
Christian Emile Cabrol was a French cardiac surgeon best known for performing Europe's first heart transplant at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in 1968.
Jack Greene Copeland is an American cardiothoracic surgeon, who has established procedures in heart transplantation including repeat heart transplantation, the implantation of total artificial hearts (TAH) to bridge the time to heart transplant, innovations in left ventricular assist devices (LVAD) and the technique of "piggybacking" a second heart in a person, while leaving them the original.
Timothy Danforth Baker was a professor of international health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He was also one of the founders of the study of international health.
Augusta Theodosia Lewis Chissell was an African-American suffragist and civic leader in Baltimore, Maryland. Chissell was a leader in multiple community organizations, including as a founding member of the Baltimore branch of the NAACP. In 2019 she was inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame for her work in promoting women's rights and racial equity.
Peter Szurman is a German ophthalmologist, scientist, and professor of ophthalmology in Sulzbach/Saar.
Eduardo De Jesus Rodriguez is a Cuban American plastic and reconstructive surgeon, and reconstructive transplant surgeon, who is known for his contribution to the field of facial transplantation and vascularized composite allotransplantation. Rodriguez practiced in Baltimore until 2013 when he was appointed the Helen L. Kimmel Professor of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery and Chair of the Hansjörg Wyss Department of Plastic Surgery at NYU Langone Health, where he serves as the director of the Face Transplant Program. Most recently, he led the team that performed the first simultaneous face and double hand transplantation, on August 12, 2020, on recipient Joe Dimeo, a 22-year-old man who suffered full-thickness burns to over 80% of his body after a high-speed car accident in 2018.