The Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery got its start in medicine and at Johns Hopkins much like the specialties of urology, orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, and radiology. The specialty was a creation of the perceptive vision of William Stewart Halsted, one of the four founding physicians of The Johns Hopkins Hospital.
In each instance, the pattern was the same and followed a simple formula, which- born of the Hopkins environment, it seems- was brought to perfection by Halsted, the Forefather of Hopkins' surgery.
First, Halsted encouraged a promising young house officer to interest himself in a special field of surgery and then quickly gave him major and clear-cut responsibility for its development. Thus in the early days of the Hospital, selections were made which brought distinction to Hopkins for four decades: Baer in Orthopedics, Baetjer in Radiology, Cushing and then Dandy in Neurosurgery, and Young in Urology.
