History

James E. Eckenhoff, MD

Founder of Northwestern University's Department of Anesthesiology

Dr. Eckenhoff attended Transylvania College and the University of Kentucky before entering the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, from which he graduated in 1941. Following an internship at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, he entered military service as a battalion surgeon and, fortuitously for anesthesia, was later assigned as an anesthetist to the 107th Evacuation Hospital in the European Theatre of Operations. He did not seek this assignment, and he did not receive any special training prior to assuming the post! Displayed in the Dripps Anesthesia Library at the University of Pennsylvania is the spring 1945 correspondence between Dr. Eckenhoff and Robert D. Dripps, MD, that led to Dr. Eckenhoff's return to Philadelphia to serve his residency under Dr. Dripps. This was the beginning of one of the best-known and most productive partnerships in academic anesthesiology.

In 1966, Dr. Eckenhoff moved to Chicago to become professor and chair of the Department of Anesthesia at Northwestern University Medical School, a position he held until 1970, when he was appointed dean of the University's medical school. He held that position until retirement in 1983. In addition, Dr. Eckenhoff served as president of the Northwestern University McGaw Medical Center (1980-85); director (1965-73) and president (1972-73) of the American Board of Anesthesiology; and president of the Association of University Anesthetists (1962).

In addition to serving ASA as editor-in-chief of the journal Anesthesiology from 1958-62, Dr. Eckenhoff was president of the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology from 1968-70 and was the 1980 recipient of the ASA Distinguished Service Award. In his professional career, Dr. Eckenhoff made considerable contributions to the specialty of anesthesia in particular and to medicine in general.

Numerous honors have been bestowed on him through the years, including the Hunterian Professorship of the Royal College of Surgeons, England, in 1965; an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Transylvania University in 1970; the Ralph M. Waters Award of the Illinois Society of Anesthesiologists in 1984; and the creation of the James E. Eckenhoff Chair in Anesthesiology at Northwestern University in 1987, a title which the current department chair, M. Christine Stock, MD, was bestowed in 2001. The Department of Veterans Affairs awarded Dr. Eckenhoff its Distinguished Service Award in 1989.

Dr. Eckenhoff passed away on November 25, 1996. He was 81.

Note: The American Society of Anesthesiologists and Dr. Norig Ellison, grant Northwestern University's Department of Anesthesiology permission to use portions of the above text in the history section of its Web site. The full article can be viewed in the ASA Newsletter, dated January 1997.