Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

James H. Hendrix, Jr., M.D., 1920 to 2008

2009; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Volume: 123; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1097/prs.0b013e3181a3f3e8

1529-4242

George L. Burruss, Ronald J. Johnson,

Diversity and Career in Medicine

James H. (Jimmy) Hendrix, Jr., M.D., national leader and educator of plastic surgeons, passed away in Nashville on October 20, 2008. He was born January 20, 1920, in Newbern, Tennessee, living the life of Tom Sawyer in his early years. He rode his horse to school, where he excelled in academics and in baseball, serving as class president and as both pitcher and captain on the baseball team. When he was faced with the dilemma of pursuing baseball as a career, his mother fortunately prevailed and advised him to go to medical school. After undergraduate studies at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, he obtained his medical degree at the University of Tennessee, Memphis (Alpha Omega Alpha) in 1943. While interning at the John Gaston Hospital in Memphis, he met the love of his life, the former Barbara Corcoran, who was a nurse there. They were married for 58 years, until her death in 2002. With the war raging, casualties abounded, and he spent 1944 to 1946 in the U.S. Army, serving initially on the orthopedic service at Deshon General Hospital in Butler, Pennsylvania. After seeing a surgeon perform an ear reconstruction, his career path changed, and he finished his military service on Dr. Truman Blocker's plastic surgery service at Wakeman General Hospital, near Indianapolis. Dr. Hendrix had indeed found his home, and he followed Dr. Blocker to Galveston for his formal plastic surgery training. Initially returning to Memphis, Hendrix practiced with Drs. Milton and Lorenzo Adams, before relocating to Jackson in 1953, becoming the first plastic surgeon in the state of Mississippi. When Mississippi opened its 4-year medical school in Jackson in 1955, he became the chief of the Plastic Surgery Division, and began training residents in plastic surgery there in 1957. In 1972, he returned to Memphis to become head of the Plastic Surgery Division at the University of Tennessee, where he remained as professor and mentor to residents after relinquishing the chairmanship (in 1978) until his retirement from practice in 1991. Dr. Hendrix was committed to organized plastic surgery. In addition to having been president of the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons in 1974, he was a founding member of the Plastic Surgery Research Council (chairman, 1956) and the Southeastern Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons (president, 1969). He was twice president of the Clinical Society of University Plastic Surgeons (1962 and 1974) and served as historian of the American Association of Plastic Surgeons from 1966 to 1969. Serving as a director and examiner for the American Board of Plastic Surgery for many years, he also was chairman of the Residency Review Committee for a term. He was honored by the Southeastern Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons with the Pickrell Award in 1988, established to recognize outstanding teachers of plastic surgeons. The University of Mississippi established the Hendrix Lectureship in Surgery in 2002. Patient care was always his utmost priority, and despite his dedication to organized plastic surgery, he was perhaps proudest of his 45 years of service in the Tennessee and Mississippi Crippled Children's Services. He also spent 2 months in Vellore, India, working with Sir Paul Brand. Although he trained two generations of plastic surgeons (his first resident was only 6 years his junior), only one of the first generation of them ever called him “Jimmy.” When asked once by an early resident how he should be addressed, Dr. Hendrix answered, “Whatever you are comfortable with.” It was pretty much agreed that “Boss” and “Chief” were the titles with which we were comfortable. Universal agreement among his residents would be that he was the most influential person in their careers. His picture, taken in the operating room, hangs in my office as a daily reminder that I have an obligation to my patients and my profession to carry the high standard set by Dr. Hendrix throughout my working days. The final word should come from one of his later residents, who was also his last partner in practice: I first met Dr. Hendrix as a surgery resident at the city hospital in Memphis in 1982. I watched him do a lip switch on a patient from New England, all of whose surgery had been performed in Boston—but still she came to see “the Chief.” The lip switch flap, or Abbé flap, is done to revise the deformity of a cleft lip. When Dr. Hendrix divided that flap and the lip fell into perfect position, I knew immediately that I had to learn how to do the same thing. I have practiced plastic surgery for over 20 years; I have had the opportunity to fix many cleft lips and do quite a few Abbé flaps. But I have never matched that first lip I watched him do, and of course that is the one I wake up next to each morning. Thank you, Chief—for my training, my job, my profession—and that lip. —George L. Burruss, M.D.Figure: James H. Hendrix, Jr., M.D., 1920 to 2008.