User talk:Ann Seymour

Dr. Robert Seymour was an important twentieth century pioneerr in neurosurgery. He graduated from Stanford Medical School in 1960, spent two years training in general surgery under Owen Wagenstein, MD, at the University of Minnesota; then did a neuroosurgery residency under John Adams at the University of California, San Francisco. While still in residency, Dr. Seymour experimented in stereotactic surgery, then a new procedure. In 1964, he was the North America representative at the prestigeous International Neurosurgery conference in Munich. His topic had to do with stereotactic surgery: cryohypophysectomy for acromegaly. He also did pioneer work in hypothermia, especially for the pituitary. In 1972, he and a team at San Francisco's Franklin Hospital, now called Davies Medical Center, established the first microsurgery lab in the country. Dr. Seymour, his partner, Norman Chater, MD, and a plastic surgeon, Harry Buncke, did the first reattach in the world. Harry Buncke had developed a way of attaching a needle to thread without an eye, which made the microsurgical techniques possible. The first reattach, a big toe that replaced a thumb, became world famous, especially as the years went by, and the toe looked more and more like a thumb. Bunke sewed the soft tissue while the neurosurgeons sewed the nerves. Most important, Dr. Seymour was a caring doctor who gave his patients his heart as well as his hands. Though retired, he still helps people with good advice and referrals. Reference: A History of Neurosurgery at the University of California San Francisco by Harold Rosegay, PhD, MD.