Isidor Schwaner Ravdin was a second-generation American and a fourth-generation physician who combined research with surgery and completely changed the fields of both. During his 40+ years at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Ravdin rose to become Chief of Surgery and Director of Research.
During World War II, he ran what Vinegar Joe Stillwell called “the best g**d*** hospital in the Army” during the China Burma India campaign. When President Eisenhower was struck with a bowel obstruction in 1956, Ravdin was summoned to Washington to perform the surgery. He even appeared as a heroic character in a popular cartoon strip of his time.
If you have visited the HUP campus, you have almost certainly walked through the Ravdin pavilion. It is his story I will tell you in this episode of Biographical Bytes from Bala #026 – The Surgeon Is a General.
ABC #035: Four Black Trailblazers
BBB #004: The Music Man - Theodore Presser
ABC #034: Tennis, Anyone? - Clarence Clark, Frederick Winslow Taylor, William Clothier Sr. and Jr., Howard Head
BBB #003: Becoming ”Commando Mary” - Aimee Ernesta Drinker Bullitt Beaux Barlow
ABC #033: Smile for the Birdie! Philadelphia‘s Photography Pioneers
BBB #002: Harold H. Knerr and ”The Katzenjammer Kids”
ABC #032: Teen Angels
BBB #001: Alan Calvert and the Science of Weightlifting
ABC #031: Play Ball!, Part 2
ABC #030: The Saturday Courier: Joseph Clay Neal, Louis Antoine Godey, and Morton McMichael
ABC #029: Olympiad II - Paris 1900
ABC #028: Bad Science: Dr. Samuel G. Morton, George R. Gliddon, and John Worrell Keely
ABC #027: Fathers (and Mothers) of American Medicine, Part 2
ABC #026: Encore! - William Wood, Mary Ann Lee, Frank Mayo and Wedgwood Nowell
ABC #025: Five Wister Men You May Not Know
ABC #024: Four Remarkable Women You Should Know
ABC #023: The Philadelphia Sound - Hy Lit, Billy Paul, Grover Washington Jr., Teddy Pendergrass
ABC #022: The Birds and the Bees - Ornithologists and Entomologists
ABC #021: Me and My Machine - Three Textile Barons of Laurel Hill Cemetery
ABC #020: Send the Marines!
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Irish Songs with Ken Murray
History Obscura
Historycal: Words that Shaped the World
The Rest Is History
Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra