Surgeon-in-Chief, Emeritus, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Moseley Professor of Surgery, Emeritus, Harvard Medical School
Francis Daniels Moore, MD, former surgeon-in-chief at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and the Moseley Professor of Surgery, Emeritus at Harvard Medical School (HMS), died on November 24. He was 88.
Hailed as one of the greatest surgeons of the 20th Century, Moore was a pioneer and leader in the development of new surgical methods for operative surgery, organ transplantation, and perioperative care.
“Dr. Moore was a champion of innovation throughout the medical profession,” said Anthony Whittemore, MD, BWH’s chief medical officer. “A myriad of medical advances can be attributed to his active encouragement of collaboration between surgical and medical physicians.”
Moore was born in Evanston, Illinois in 1913. He graduated from Harvard College in 1935, received his medical training at Harvard Medical School, and completed his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). During his residency, Moore was awarded a National Research Council Fellowship that enabled him to
work at Huntington Memorial Hospital and began what would become a lifelong interest – research of radioactive isotopes in the study of physiology and clinical care in acute illness, injury and convalescencence.
After brief stints as an attending surgeon at both MGH and the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (PBBH), Moore was appointed surgeon-in-chief at PBBH and Moseley Professor of Surgery at HMS in 1948. He held these dual appointments for 28 years, and remained professor of surgery at HMS until 1981.
As surgeon-in-chief at the Brigham, Moore defined the field of surgical metabolism and guided the hospital though epochal advances in organ transplantation and open-heart surgery. In 1954, underMoore’s leadership, physicians performed the word’s first successful human organ transplant – a kidney between identical twins.
Focusing much of his research interest on body composition and surgical metabolism, Moore pioneered a new method for determining the volume of water and the weight of dissolved salts, sodium, and potassium, in the body. His work in metabolism progressed to improve nutrition and the care of surgical patients after extensive operation and multiple injury. His book The Metabolic Care of the Surgical Patient, published in 1959, was long a standard in the field.
Moore published several hundred scientific papers and six books, and was a member of many surgical and scientific societies including holding the presidency of the Society of University Surgeons in 1958, of the Boston Surgical Society in 1969, and of the American Surgical Association in 1971. He was chairman of the Surgery Study Section of the National Institutes of Health (1956-59), and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1981 and the American Philosophical Society in 1998. Moore was a founder of the Surgical Biology Club and a member of the Medical Exchange Club. In addition, he was long a consultant on the care of the severely wounded for the Surgeon General of the United States Army.
Moore was instrumental in restructuring the hospital and its merger to form BWH in 1980. Moore was appointed an honorary life member of the hospital’s board of trustees in 1985. In 1990, an endowment for the Francis D. Moore Professorship of Surgery at HMS was established. “When Dr. Moore turned his attention to improving patient care by reengineering the clinical services of the hospital, he created an environment which allowed such revolutionary procedures as kidney transplantation,” said BWH President Jeffrey Otten. “Modern medicine and modern hospitals owe a great debt of gratitude to him.”
Moore is survived by his wife, Katharyn, by a sister, Harriet Moore Gelfan of Brattleboro, Vermont, and by his children: Nancy Moore Hill of Exeter, NH, Professor Peter B. Moore of New Haven, CT, Sarah Moore Warren of Grafton, VT, Caroline Moore Tripp of New York City, NY, and Dr. Francis D. Moore, Jr. of Medfield, MA. Moore is also survived by 17 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. A memorial service will be held at The Memorial Church in Harvard Yard on December 21, 2001 at 11 a.m.
Contributions may be made to the Francis D. and Laura B. Moore Fund for Surgical Research, c/o Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Development Office, 116 Huntington Avenue, 5th Floor, Boston, MA 02116.