Norman R. Hertzer, MD
#10: 1986-1987
Dr. Hertzer was elected President of the Midwestern Vascular Surgical Society after serving as its Secretary for the previous three years. He is a native Hoosier and received his undergraduate (1964) and medical (1967) degrees from Indiana University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha. He trained in general surgery at the Cleveland Clinic from 1967 to 1972 and then entered the U. S. Army Medical Corps for two years of duty at Fort Hood, Texas, before returning to the Clinic for a fellowship in vascular surgery. He was appointed to the Clinic staff in 1976 and was Chairman of the Department of Vascular Surgery from 1989 to 1999.
Dr. Hertzer is the author or co-author of 200 original articles and book chapters. He recently cochaired a writing committee charged by the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association with drafting guidelines for the management of peripheral arterial disease, and he currently is completing a series of manuscripts reporting the early results and late outcome for nearly 5,000 open aortic aneurysm repairs, carotid endarterectomies and lower extremity bypass procedures that he performed at the Cleveland Clinic before his retirement from active practice in January 2005.
He was selected as a traveling scholar by the James IV Association in 1984 and presently is a member of the American Surgical Association and an honorary member of the New England Society for Vascular Surgery, the Southern Association for Vascular Surgery, and the vascular section of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. He was on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Vascular Surgery from 1987 to 2002 and twice was an Associate Editor (1989-1991, 1999-2002). Following a term as its Secretary from 1988 to 1992, Dr. Hertzer was elected President of the Society for Vascular Surgery and took this opportunity to persuade the Health Care Financing Administration to implement a Medicare demonstration project to study provider outcomes for carotid endarterectomy. This project subsequently was conducted in 10 states in an effort to document and improve the results of this important operation. He also has been privileged to receive the Indiana University Distinguished Alumni Award (2000), the Cleveland Clinic Master Clinician Award (2001), and the Cleveland Clinic Distinguished Alumnus Award (2003).
Dr. Hertzer and his wife Maryanne were married in 1965. They have three children – Lisa, an appellate lawyer at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C.; John, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Case-Western Reserve University School of Medicine; and Brooke, a lawyer with the firm of Ballard Spahr in Philadelphia.
