Dedication

We, the editors of this leading textbook of surgery, Schwartz's Principles of Surgery are pleased to dedicate the 11th edition to Dr. Frank Gordon Moody. While most academic surgeons recognize Dr. Moody, as a top echelon surgical leader of the last half century, we choose to dedicate this edition to him because of the profound influence he had on the careers of many of the editors of this textbook. To some of us, Dr Moody was our surgical chair and academic inspiration. To others he was a research collaborator. For those of us who are not direct descendants, academically speaking, Frank Moody had the ability to recognize and provide the gift of mentorship to talented academic surgeons, irrespective of their academic pedigree.

Dr. Moody was born in Franklin, New Hampshire, attended Dartmouth College and Dartmouth Medical School (when it was a two-year school) then received his MD from Cornell. He stayed at Cornell throughout his surgical training, enticed into upper GI surgery by Dr. Frank Glenn. His academic career started at the University of California, San Francisco, under the legendary leadership of Dr. Bert Dunphy. He was subsequently recruited to the University of Alabama, Birmingham, where he rose to the rank of professor. In 1971, he became the Chair of Surgery at the University of Utah, coupling his love for skiing and hiking with an intense desire to bring scientific inquiry to the Wasatch Front. There, his passion for mentorship was uncovered. Eight of his trainees became department chairs, and many more visited Utah where the academic ‘bug' was inoculated. In 1982, Dr. Moody took his talents to the University of Texas, Houston, where he served as the Denton Cooley Chair of Surgery. While he stepped down as Chair 12 years later, Dr. Moody remained in Texas for the rest of his career. Dr. Moody's influence was truly global; he was active in the International Surgical Society and was a founder of the International Surgical Group. It was often said that there was never a meeting that Dr. Moody missed–and at every meeting he truly “showed up”, contributing to the program, asking challenging questions, and spurring new lines of investigation for the many GI surgeons lucky enough to have Dr. Moody engage with their line of discovery. Nearly continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from 1967 to 2008, Dr. Moody was a force for surgical science, encouraging active participation by surgeons in the NIH study sections.

Reprinted with permission of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, © 2008.

To many of the editors, the connection to Dr. Moody was even more personal. Attracted to training in Utah by the combination of skiing, science, and great surgical training, I first met Dr. Moody in the pages of the 3rd edition of this textbook, in which he authored the chapter on gallbladder disease. After many years of learning in the operating room and the laboratory, it is an honor to follow in his footsteps as the author of this chapter in this and the prior three editions of this classic surgical book. Dr. Moody, we will miss you, and hope to carry your many gifts forward, the greatest of which were your support and mentorship of the many who have been lucky enough to follow in your footsteps.