Bruce L. Gewertz, MD
#18: 1994-1995
Dr. Bruce L. Gewertz is Surgeon-in-Chief, Chair of Surgery and Vice-President for Interventional Services at Cedars-Sinai Health System in Los Angeles. Prior to his current position, he was the Dallas B. Phemister Professor and Chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of Chicago from 1992 until 2006.
Dr. Gewertz was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was educated at Pennsylvania State University and Jefferson Medical College in the combined BS-MD five year programs. Following his graduation from medical school in 1972, Dr. Gewertz trained in general and vascular surgery at the University of Michigan. From 1977 to 1981, he served on the faculty at Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, Texas. He moved to the University of Chicago in 1981.
From 1989-1992, Dr. Gewertz served as the first Faculty Dean of Medical Education at the University of Chicago, leading a revision of the undergraduate medical school curriculum funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In 1992, he was named Dallas B. Phemister Professor and Chairman, Department of Surgery. His recruitment of outstanding clinicians and surgical scientists to Chicago allowed the department to increase its basic and clinical research funding more than three-fold.
Dr. Gewertz is the author of more than 200 original articles, book chapters and books including The Atlas of Vascular Surgery (Churchill Livingstone, 1993; Elsevier, 2005) and Surgery of the Aorta and Its Branches (W.B. Saunders, 2000). His principal clinical and research interests include cerebrovascular disease (especially intraoperative neurophysiologic monitoring and outcome analysis), aortic aneurismal disease, and mesenteric ischemic syndromes. His basic research into ischemia/reperfusion injury and endothelial cell physiology has been funded by the National Institute of Health and the American Heart Association. Recent work has focused on the cellular mechanisms leading to changes in the microvascular permeability and studies of intracellular signaling by free radicals and cytokines.
Dr. Gewertz has received numerous awards for his basic investigations and teaching. These include the JOBST Award for Vascular Surgery Research, the Coller Award from the Michigan Chapter of the American College of Surgeons, and the Teaching Scholars Award from the American Heart Association. He was selected Outstanding Science Alumnus by Pennsylvania State University in 2003. Dr. Gewertz is Editor Emeritus of the Journal of Surgical Research (Editor from 1990-1998) and has served on the Editorial Board of Annals of Vascular Surgery (1985-2005) and the Journal of Vascular Surgery (1998-2004). A large number of invited and named lectureships throughout the years have addressed a broad range of topics in vascular disease and physiology as well as the challenges facing academic medicine. He is consistently included among Best Doctors in America (Castle-Connolly, 2001-2007), Who’s Who in America (1994-2007) and Who’s Who in the World (2000-2007).
Dr. Gewertz is a member of many national surgical organizations including the American Surgical Association, Society of Clinical Surgery, and the Central Surgical and Western Surgical Associations. Along with officer and executive committee positions in the aforementioned organizations, he has served as President of the Chicago Surgical Society. He is a director of the Vascular Surgery Board of the American Board of Surgery. Dr. Gewertz has participated nationally in the design and evaluation of resident and medical school activities through his leadership positions in the Association for Surgical Education and extensive involvement in the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) including the Advisory Panel on the Mission and Organization of Medical Schools (APMOMS) and the Forum on the Future of Academic Medicine. He chaired the recent AAMC Task Force on Integrating Teaching and Patient Care.
An enthusiastic participant in athletics, Dr. Gewertz enjoys mountain biking, skiing and golf. His other interests include modern fiction and business. In 1993, he served as script consultant and medical advisor for the film The Fugitive and was included in the film in a small part that inexplicably survived the editing process. Most viewers have agreed that recognition of his modest dramatic effort by friends and colleagues was wildly disproportionate to its length. He and his wife Diane most value time at home and on the road with their five children (Jodi, Samantha, Bart, Scott, and Lexi), grandchildren (Ellie and Lucy) and energetic Wheaton terrier.
