History of the J. Bradley Aust Surgical Society

About J. Bradley Aust, MD, MS, PhD:

Dr. Aust, Professor Emeritus of the UT Health Science Center San Antonio Department of Surgery (ret. 1998) was appointed as the first chair of the Department of Surgery in 1966 at the age of 40. He earned his MD from the University of Buffalo in 1949, interned and trained in surgery, both general and thoracic, at the University of Minnesota under the tutelage of Dr. Owen H. Wangensteen. Dr. Wangensteen was noted for his training of academic surgeons as skilled in the research laboratory as in the operating room, and trained over 30 chairs of surgery. Dr. Aust was one of the last trained by Dr. Wangensteen before Dr. Wangensteen's retirement in 1967.

On his acceptance of the position of Chair of the Department of Surgery in 1966, Dr. Aust enticed a cadre of Minnesota surgeons (Drs. Root, McFee, Rogers, Cruz, Story and Pestana[Mayo Clinic]) to join him in the enterprise of developing a Department of Surgery with teaching responsibilities for both undergraduate and graduate students.

Dr. Aust was the first chair of the Medical School Curriculum Committee. He and his colleagues accepted the commitment to maintain and develop graduate-training programs in general surgery and all major surgical specialties including neurosurgery, urology, orthopaedics, ophthalmology, ENT, plastic surgery, oral and maxillofacial surgery, and the surgical subspecialties of pediatric cardiac, transplant, vascular, trauma and surgical oncology.

Dr. Aust's research interests range from technical innovations, cancer chemotherapy, coronary artery bypass, and vascular reconstruction to hemicorporectomy.

Dr. Aust accomplished an impressive and history-changing list of surgical 'firsts':

• 1st use of radioactive iodine 131 albumin for total blood volume determination (1950)
• 1st conceived of coronary artery bypass using internal mammary artery anastomosis to ligated left main coronary artery in the dog (1955)
• Femoral popliteal bypass with reversed saphenous vein in US (1956)
• 1st to use flow-limited molecules D2O and antipyrine to estimate tissue blood flow (1956)
• 1st to produce tolerance to allergenic skin in adult mice using parabiosis of tolerant to non-tolerant mice (1957)
• Pioneered isolated perfusion cancer chemotherapy with first head and neck and first isolated liver perfusion (1959-60)
• 1st hemicorporectomy in the world (1961)
• 1st cadaver kidney transplant in Minnesota (1962)
• Proposed foreign antigen persistence as the requisite mechanism for acquired tolerance (1964)
• 1st described utero-siqmoidostomy as a cancer provoking technique for developing colon cancer at the site of the anastomosis (1966)

Since 1975, the Aust Society has appointed presidents to manage and support the organization. Past presidents of the Aust Society include:

2024-2025 to 1974-1975:

• 2024-2025 Lillian Liao
• 2023-2024 John Sullivan
• 2022-2023 Sabrina Lahiri
• 2021-2022 Wm. Cannon Lewis
• 2020-2021 John Calhoon
• 2019-2020 John Calhoon
• 2018-2019 Michael Corneille
• 2017-2018 Petar Turcinovic
• 2016-2017 Juliane Bingener Casey
• 2015-2016 Joseph Miller
• 2014-2015 Jason Felger
• 2013-2014 David Dyslin
• 2012-2013 Thomas Pollard
• 2011-2012 James Field
• 2010-2011 Mario Rossbach
• 2009-2010 Craig O. Daniel
• 2008-2009 Martha P. Wills
• 2007-2008 Bruce Conway
• 2006-2007 Jeffrey Martinez
• 2005-2006 Barry Oswalt
• 2004-2005 Reginald Baptiste
• 2003-2004 George Mimari
• 2002-2003 Henry E. Bohne
• 2001-2002 Russell Woodard
• 2000-2001 Robert K. Thompson
• 1999-2000 Ronald M. Stewart
• 1998-1999 O. LaWayne Miller
• 1997-1998 Donald Crockett
• 1996-1997 Nathan L. Brightwell
• 1995-1996 Peter W. Hollimon
• 1994-1995 Elbert A. Thames
• 1993-1994 Raul Ramos
• 1992-1993 John S. White
• 1991-1992 Mellick T. Sykes
• 1990-1991 Phillip Sutton
• 1989-1990 Michael Tilly
• 1988-1989 Douglas Robinson
• 1987-1988 H. Lamar Jones
• 1986-1987 S. Edwin Duncan
• 1985-1986 Rupert C. Anderson
• 1984-1985 Jose E. Molina
• 1983-1984 Jerry L. Franz
• 1982-1983 Kenneth L. Farrimond
• 1981-1982 Leopoldo Zorrilla
• 1980-1981 Boyce B. Oliver
• 1979-1980 Richard A. Hohm
• 1978-1979 Ernest Charles Andrews
• 1977-1978 Allen C. Eichler
• 1976-1977 Stewart M. Johnson
• 1975-1976 Arvin D. Short
• 1974-1975 Morris E. Franklin, Jr.

In its annual meetings, members of the Aust Society have had the opportunity to attend talks from distinguished members of the medical community. Previous speakers at Aust Society annual meetings include:

Distinguished Speakers (1976-2023):

• Dr. Robert Sparkman, 1976
• Dr. Jesse E. Thompson, 1977
• Dr. Robb H. Rutledge, 1978
• Dr. Gilbert Campbell, 1979
• Dr. Mark Ravitch, 1980
• Dr. Ward Griffen, 1981
• Dr. Stanley Dudrick, 1982
• Dr. Hiram C. Polk, Jr., 1983
• Dr. Alexander Walt, 1984
• Dr. Lloyd D. MacLean, 1985
• Dr. George Jordan, 1986
• Dr. Andrew Dale, 1987
• Dr. Robert E. Condon, 1988
• Dr. Robert Zeppa, 1989
• Dr. John L. Sawyers, 1990
• Dr. John C. McDonald, 1991
• Dr. J. David Richardson, 1992
• Dr. Arthur J. Donovan, 1993
• Dr. Stanley Goldberg, 1994
• Dr. Jack Pickleman, 1995
• Dr. J. Bradley Aust, 1996
• Dr. William E. Strodel, III, 1997
• Dr. Lazar J. Greenfield, 1998
• Dr. Frederick Grover, 1999
• Dr. Timothy Fabian, 2000
• Dr. C. James Carrico, 2001
• Dr. Tom R. DeMeester, 2002
• Dr. J. Patrick O'Leary, 2003
• Dr. Wallace P. Ritchie, 2004
• Dr. Kenneth Mattox, 2005
• Dr. Stephen Cohn, 2006
• Dr. Joseph L. R. Mills, 2007
• Dr. Jeffrey Ponsky, 2008
• Dr. V. Suzanne Klimberg, 2009
• Dr. John L. Tarpley, 2010
• Dr. Samuel A. Wells, Jr., 2011
• Dr. Donald D. Trunkey, 2012
• Dr. J. David Richardson, 2013
• Dr. Erik B. Wilson, 2014
• Dr. Tomas D. Martin, 2015
• Dr. Charles D. Mabry, 2016
• Dr. Karen J. Brasel, 2017
• Dr. J. Patrick Walker, 2018
• Dr. Clay Cothren Burlew, 2019
• Dr. Hazim J. Safi, 2021
• Dr. Harry T. Papaconstantinou, 2022
• Dr. Deirdre Marshall, 2023