The History of Neurological Surgery at Rush University Medical Center

Abstract The history of neurosurgery at Rush University is tightly linked to the emergence of neurological surgery in the city of Chicago. Rush Medical College (RMC) was chartered in 1837 and in 1898 began an affiliation with the newly founded University of Chicago (UC), which proceeded to full union in 1923 as the Rush Medical College of the University of Chicago (RMC/UC). Percival Bailey founded neurosurgery at the RMC/UC and started a neurosurgery training program at the South Side campus in 1928. In 1935, Adrien Ver Brugghen started the first neurosurgical training program at the West Side campus at the Presbyterian Hospital/RMC. The major alliances with RMC have involved the Cook County Hospital, the Presbyterian Hospital, the UC, the University of Illinois, and St. Luke's Hospital. Those affiliations significantly shaped Rush neurosurgery. The RMC/UC union was dissolved in 1941, and an affiliation was formed with the University of Illinois in Chicago (UI). In 1959, Eric Oldberg, the founder and Chairman of Neurosurgery at the UI, became the next chairman of neurosurgery at Presbyterian-St. Luke's Hospital, incorporating it into the UI program. He was succeeded in 1970 by Walter Whisler, who founded the first independent and board-approved neurosurgery residency program in 1972 at the newly reactivated Rush Medical College. Whisler was chairman until 1999, when Leonard Cerullo, founder of the Chicago Institute of Neurosurgery and Neuroresearch, became chairman at Rush. Richard Byrne, appointed in 2007, is the current chairman of the Rush University neurosurgery department.