American surgeons

Samuel Rodman "Rod" Irvine (5 December 1906, Salt Lake City, Utah – 27 February 1999, Laguna Beach, California) was an American ophthalmologist and ophthalmic surgeon, known for the Irvine-Gass syndrome.Irvine received his bachelor's degree in 1928 from Stanford University and his M.D. in 1932 from Harvard Medical School. In 1936 he completed his ophthalmology residency at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.
After residency, he joined his father's practice in Los Angeles, Calif, but soon went to India, where he gained a great deal of practical experience working with Colonel Wright at the British Government Hospital in Madras from 1936 to 1937. He visited the major eye clinics in Europe on his way home and then settled back into practice in Los Angeles. He and his father (and later his brother, Sandy) joined the faculty at the University of Southern California. Through the beneficence of one of his patients, Estelle Doheny, they established the Doheny Eye Foundation at University of Southern California. As the University of California, Los Angeles, developed, he focused his attention there to build the eye service as its clinical chair. When the ophthalmology department developed to the point of a full-time teaching institution, he decided to remain in private practice, but did continue to serve as a clinical professor while handing over the reins of the department to Bradley Straatsma.From 1942 to 1946 Irvine was a major in the United States Army Air Forces. For the academic year 1950–1951 he was a visiting professor at the Wilmer Eye Institute, where he performed experiments on rabbits to study the effects of steroids on corneal scarring and also taught optics and refraction to the residents. In September 1952 he reported on a newly defined syndrome (cystoid macular edema aka Irvine-Gass syndrome) following cataract surgery, based upon a clinical study of 2000 patients. In the late 1950s he studied surgical diathermy for retinal detachments and its effects on the vitreous and other ocular tissues.At age 63 he retired from surgical practice and moved to Laguna Beach, where he became a consulting ophthalmologist and a member of U.C. Irvine's clinical faculty.
Upon his death he was survived by three sons. S. Rodman Irvine's younger brother Alexander "Sandy" Ray Irvine Jr. died in 1996.

Stanley H. Biber (May 4, 1923 – January 16, 2006) was an American physician who was a pioneer in sex reassignment surgery, performing thousands of procedures during his long career.

Jonathan Evans Rhoads (May 9, 1907 – January 2, 2002) was an American surgeon, responsible for the development of total parenteral nutrition (TPN).

Donald Lauren Custis (July 23, 1917 – March 18, 2021) was an American vice admiral in the United States Navy who served as Surgeon General of the United States Navy from 1973 to 1977.

George Thomas Shires (November 22, 1925 – October 18, 2007) was an American trauma surgeon. He is known for his research on shock, which initiated the current practice of giving saline to trauma and surgical patients. He operated on John Connally and Lee Harvey Oswald after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Mildred Fay Jefferson (April 6, 1927 – October 15, 2010) was an American physician and anti-abortion political activist. The first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, the first woman to graduate in surgery from Harvard Medical School and the first woman to become a member of the Boston Surgical Society, she is known for her opposition to the legalization of abortion and her work as president of the National Right to Life Committee.

James Henry "Red" Duke, Jr. (November 16, 1928 – August 25, 2015) was a trauma surgeon and professor at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, where he worked on-site since 1972. He was instrumental in introducing Memorial Hermann's Life Flight program and bringing a level I trauma center to Houston.
Duke had a nationally syndicated television spot called Texas Health Reports or Dr. Red Duke's Health Reports, which aired on local television stations in the United States for fifteen years.

Abijah Cheever (May 23, 1760 – April 21, 1843) was an American surgeon and politician from Saugus, Massachusetts.