Editor’s note: Following is a tribute to Past-Chair of the Board of Regents Josef E. Fischer, MD, FACS, FRCSEd(Hon), who left his post in 2008 during a challenging period. Nonetheless, he significant contributions to the ACS and is fondly remembered by friend and colleague Michael S. Nussbaum, MD, FACS.
Josef E. Fischer, MD, FACS, FRCSEd(Hon), died June 14, 2021; he was 84 years old. The world lost one of the great surgical minds of the 20th and 21st centuries, and for those of us who had the privilege of training under Dr. Fischer and working alongside him, we lost a mentor, role model, leader, confidant, and friend. He was a renowned surgeon, scholar, trailblazer, and teacher who devoted his life to education, leadership, scientific discovery, and service to his patients and his community.
A native of Brooklyn, New York, Dr. Fischer graduated summa cum laude from Yeshiva University, New York, NY, in 1957 and magna cum laude from Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, in 1961. He began his surgical residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston, and from 1963 to 1965 he served as a research associate under Nobel laureate Julius Axelrod, PhD, at the National Institutes of Health. Upon completion of his residency in 1970, Dr. Fischer joined the faculty of the Harvard Medical School, rapidly rising to associate professor by 1972. He was an assistant surgeon and chief of the surgical physiology laboratory and the hyperalimentation unit at MGH; at that time, he advanced the standard for the provision of total parenteral nutrition in surgical patients during the advent of this new and revolutionary treatment regimen.
In 1978, at the age of 41, Dr. Fischer became the fifth Christian R. Holmes Professor and Chair, department of surgery, University of Cincinnati (UC), OH, and surgeon-in-chief of The University Hospital, where he served until 2001. Dr. Fischer was instrumental in many sweeping changes that occurred at the Medical Center and the College of Medicine in Cincinnati during his tenure. When he came to the university in 1978, you could count the number of full-time faculty in the department of surgery on one hand. When he left after 23 years, there were more than 60 full-time members of the surgical faculty. He was responsible for initiating or strengthening subspecialty areas, including burn, cardiothoracic, plastic, transplant, trauma/critical care, urologic, and vascular surgery. Dr. Fischer played a key role in transforming the Cincinnati General Hospital from a city-county hospital into The University Hospital, the premier tertiary hospital for the tristate region. In fact, he has the distinction of being the first faculty member to admit a private patient to Cincinnati General Hospital.
His input and insights were key to the expansion of the hospital with the building of the Barrett Cancer Center, a critical care tower, a medical office building, a new Shriners Burns Institute for Children, and new operating room and endoscopy suites. Dr. Fischer helped to establish the largest multispecialty physician group in Cincinnati, UC Physicians, and was instrumental in the strategic planning that resulted in the development of the 75-acre West Chester Hospital medical campus north of Cincinnati. Under his guidance and stewardship, the Medical Center Fund of Cincinnati became the financial underpinning for all the medical departments at UC. In addition to his responsibilities as chair of surgery, Dr. Fischer served as professor of molecular and cellular physiology and was associate dean for community affairs at the UC College of Medicine.
An exemplary educator
I was a senior medical student applying for a surgical residency in 1981. I knew I wanted to be an academic surgeon and was looking for a residency that would foster my ambition in this pursuit. The primary reason that I chose the University of Cincinnati was because of Dr. Fischer’s leadership. It was clear that this was a program on the rise and Dr. Fischer was both demanding and passionate about excellence in patient care, science, and, above all, resident education. Following in the tradition of his predecessors, George Heuer, MD; Mont R. Reid, MD; Max M. Zinninger, MD; B. Noland Carter, MD, FACS; and William A. Altemeier, MD, FACS, Dr. Fischer created a “school of surgery” of his own that produced a generation of surgical leaders. I was honored to be a resident and, subsequently, a faculty member in his department at UC and was the recipient of much technical surgical training and many years of mentorship from him. Between Cincinnati and then Boston, Dr. Fischer trained more than 150 surgical residents and fellows, many of whom went on to hold prominent positions in prestigious departments throughout the world (see photo, this page). When he left Cincinnati in 2001, the department was an exemplary top-level academic department of surgery, and he set the stage for continued growth and distinction under his successors.
