Dr. Gary E. Friedlaender, chair of the department of orthopaedics and rehabilitation at the School of Medicine, has been named the first Wayne O. Southwick Professor of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation, an endowed professorship established last year in honor of one of his mentors. Dr. Friedlaender will hold the professorship for the duration of his time as chair of the department of orthopaedics and rehabilitation.
The Wayne O. Southwick Professorship is the first endowed chair in the department of orthopaedics and rehabilitation. It was established through the contributions of former trainees, colleagues, friends and patients of Dr. Southwick, professor emeritus of orthopaedics and rehabilitation, who retired several years ago. Earlier in his career, Dr. Friedlaender trained under Dr. Southwick.
Dr. Friedlaender, who is also chief of the Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation Service at Yale-New Haven Hospital --YNHH-- is a specialist in oncology reconstruction. He and his Yale colleagues pioneered a bone transplant procedure that has helped spare the limbs of hundreds of individuals who have had cancer, other diseases or injuries. He is also an expert on the influence of chemotherapy and radiation therapy on intact bone, fracture repair and bone grafts, immune responses to bone transplants and the safe and efficient banking of bone for transplantation. The founder of the Yale Bone Bank (and its director 1979-88), he has written extensively on tissue banking, fracture healing and bone allografts and coedited three textbooks on these subjects.
A graduate of the University of Michigan's School of Medicine in 1969, Dr. Friedlaender was an intern and surgical assistant resident at the University of Michigan Medical Center. He first came to Yale in 1972 as a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral research fellow in orthopaedic surgery, oncology and immunology. After completing his orthopaedic residency training at Newington Children's Hospital and YNHH in 1974, he became director of the Naval Medical Research Institute's Tissue Bank Division, a post he held until 1976.
Dr. Friedlaender became an instructor in surgery (orthopaedics) in 1974 and was promoted to assistant professor in 1976, associate professor in 1979 and professor of surgery in 1984. He became professor of orthopaedics and rehabilitation and the first chair of the department of orthopaedics and rehabilitation when it was established in 1986. He has been director of orthopaedic research at the medical school since 1981 and has directed the orthopaedic oncology and transplantation immunobiology research laboratory since 1976.
Dr. Friedlaender is a surgical consultant at several area hospitals and an adviser to a number of national and international organizations. He serves on the editorial boards of several professional journals and is a member or fellow of many professional societies and organizations. Last year he received a Distinguished Service Award from the American Association of Tissue Banks. He has also been awarded fellowships and grants from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health and the Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation, among others.