Innovative Surgeon, Relentless Teacher and Legendary Leader

As recently as the 1970s, one in every four patients with pancreatic cancer died during or after undergoing a Whipple procedure to remove their tumor. Thanks to the dedicated efforts of pancreatic surgeon John Cameron, today the mortality rate for this procedure is less than 2 percent at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Over the course of his legendary career, Cameron performed more Whipples than any surgeon in the world, and this past September, he made the momentous decision to complete his final Whipple operation.

Also known as a pancreaticoduodenectomy, the Whipple, named after Allen Whipple, the Columbia University surgeon who devised the operation in the mid-1930s, treats tumors in the pancreas, duodendem (small intestine) and adjacent digestive structures.

Over the years, Cameron extensively refined and perfected this complex procedure and would go on to perform more than 2,000 Whipples. As a believer in the idea that operating and teaching go hand in hand, Cameron has shared his expertise with students and colleagues alike, and trained a team of pancreatic surgeons at Johns Hopkins to carry on his legacy. Together, surgeons at The Johns Hopkins Hospital have performed more than 5,000 Whipples since 1980.

Many of Cameron’s trainees are surgeons at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, and 15 of his trainees are chairs of surgery programs across the country. He also has inspired numerous Johns Hopkins specialists to study pancreatic cancer. As a result, they have achieved significant scientific breakthroughs in the field. They include pathologist Ralph Hruban, geneticist Scott Kern, surgical oncologist Chris Wolfgang and the late oncologist Connie Griffin.

Following his graduation from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1962 and subsequent completion of his surgical training at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Cameron modeled himself after the first director of the Johns Hopkins Department of Surgery, William Stewart Halsted. Halsted devised and performed the first radical mastectomy to successfully treat breast cancer in 1894. Like Halsted, Cameron is an innovative surgeon, relentless teacher and legendary leader.

His reputation has attracted patients with pancreatic cancer to The Johns Hopkins Hospital from around the world. For 19 years, Cameron was the director of the Department of Surgery and, most recently, served as the Alfred Blalock Professor of Surgery.

Robert Higgins, current director of the Department of Surgery, says: “Cameron has made enormous contributions not only to Johns Hopkins Medicine and its students, but to people with pancreatic cancer around the world. Even though he may have completed his last surgery, his legacy continues at Johns Hopkins.”

Cameron will continue running his clinics, seeing old and new patients, attending conferences, and carrying out clinical research.