History of the J. Bradley Aust Surgical Society

About J. Bradley Aust, MD, MS, PhD: Dr. Aust, Professor Emeritus of the UT Health Science Center San Antonio Department of Surgery (ret. 1998) was appointed as the first chair of the Department of Surgery in 1966 at the age of 40. He earned his MD from the University of Buffalo in 1949, interned and trained in surgery, both general and thoracic, at the University of Minnesota under the tutelage of Dr. Owen H. Wangensteen. Dr. Wangensteen was noted for his training of academic surgeons as skilled in the research laboratory as in the operating room, and trained over 30 chairs of surgery. Dr. Aust was one of the last trained by Dr. Wangensteen before Dr. Wangensteen's retirement in 1967.

On his acceptance of the position of Chair of the Department of Surgery in 1966, Dr. Aust enticed a cadre of Minnesota surgeons (Drs. Root, McFee, Rogers, Cruz, Story and Pestana[Mayo Clinic]) to join him in the enterprise of developing a Department of Surgery with teaching responsibilities for both undergraduate and graduate students.

Dr. Aust was the first chair of the Medical School Curriculum Committee. He and his colleagues accepted the commitment to maintain and develop graduate-training programs in general surgery and all major surgical specialties including neurosurgery, urology, orthopaedics, ophthalmology, ENT, plastic surgery, oral and maxillofacial surgery, and the surgical subspecialties of pediatric cardiac, transplant, vascular, trauma and surgical oncology.

Dr. Aust's research interests range from technical innovations, cancer chemotherapy, coronary artery bypass, and vascular reconstruction to hemicorporectomy.

Dr. Aust accomplished an impressive and history-changing list of surgical 'firsts':

  • 1st use of radioactive iodine 131 albumin for total blood volume determination (1950)
  • 1st conceived of coronary artery bypass using internal mammary artery anastomosis to ligated left main coronary artery in the dog (1955)
  • Femoral popliteal bypass with reversed saphenous vein in US (1956)
  • 1st to use flow-limited molecules D2O and antipyrine to estimate tissue blood flow (1956)
  • 1st to produce tolerance to allergenic skin in adult mice using parabiosis of tolerant to non-tolerant mice (1957)
  • Pioneered isolated perfusion cancer chemotherapy with first head and neck and first isolated liver perfusion (1959-60)
  • 1st hemicorporectomy in the world (1961)
  • 1st cadaver kidney transplant in Minnesota (1962)
  • Proposed foreign antigen persistence as the requisite mechanism for acquired tolerance (1964)
  • 1st described utero-siqmoidostomy as a cancer provoking technique for developing colon cancer at the site of the anastomosis (1966)


Since 1975, the Aust Society has appointed presidents to manage and support the organization. Past presidents of the Aust Society include:


      2024-2025 Lillian Liao
2023-2024 John Sullivan
2022-2023 Sabrina Lahiri
2021-2022 Wm. Cannon Lewis
2020-2021 John Calhoon
2019-2020 John Calhoon
2018-2019 Michael Corneille
2017-2018 Petar Turcinovic
2016-2017 Juliane Bingener Casey
2015-2016 Joseph Miller
2014-2015 Jason Felger
2013-2014 David Dyslin
2012-2013 Thomas Pollard
2011-2012 James Field
2010-2011 Mario Rossbach
2009-2010 Craig O. Daniel
2008-2009 Martha P. Wills
2007-2008 Bruce Conway
2006-2007 Jeffrey Martinez
2005-2006 Barry Oswalt
2004-2005 Reginald Baptiste
2003-2004 George Mimari
2002-2003 Henry E. Bohne
2001-2002 Russell Woodard
2000-2001 Robert K. Thompson
1999-2000 Ronald M. Stewart
1998-1999 O. LaWayne Miller
1997-1998 Donald Crockett
1996-1997 Nathan L. Brightwell
1995-1996 Peter W. Hollimon
1994-1995 Elbert A. Thames
1993-1994 Raul Ramos
1992-1993 John S. White
1991-1992 Mellick T. Sykes
1990-1991 Phillip Sutton
1989-1990 Michael Tilly
1988-1989 Douglas Robinson
1987-1988 H. Lamar Jones
1986-1987 S. Edwin Duncan
1985-1986 Rupert C. Anderson
1984-1985 Jose E. Molina
1983-1984 Jerry L. Franz
1982-1983 Kenneth L. Farrimond
1981-1982 Leopoldo Zorrilla
1980-1981 Boyce B. Oliver
1979-1980 Richard A. Hohm
1978-1979 Ernest Charles Andrews
1977-1978 Allen C. Eichler
1976-1977 Stewart M. Johnson
1975-1976 Arvin D. Short
1974-1975 Morris E. Franklin, Jr.


In its annual meetings, members of the Aust Society have had the opportunity to attend talks from distinguished members of the medical community. Previous speakers at Aust Society annual meetings include:


   Dr. Robert Sparkman, 1976
Dr. Jesse E. Thompson, 1977
Dr. Robb H. Rutledge, 1978
Dr. Gilbert Campbell, 1979
Dr. Mark Ravitch, 1980
Dr. Ward Griffen, 1981
Dr. Stanley Dudrick, 1982
Dr. Hiram C. Polk, Jr., 1983
Dr. Alexander Walt, 1984
Dr. Lloyd D. MacLean, 1985
Dr. George Jordan, 1986
Dr. Andrew Dale, 1987
Dr. Robert E. Condon, 1988
Dr. Robert Zeppa, 1989
Dr. John L. Sawyers, 1990
Dr. John C. McDonald, 1991
   Dr. J. David Richardson, 1992
Dr. Arthur J. Donovan, 1993
Dr. Stanley Goldberg, 1994
Dr. Jack Pickleman, 1995
Dr. J. Bradley Aust, 1996
Dr. William E. Strodel, III, 1997
Dr. Lazar J. Greenfield, 1998
Dr. Frederick Grover, 1999
Dr. Timothy Fabian, 2000
Dr. C. James Carrico, 2001
Dr. Tom R. DeMeester, 2002
Dr. J. Patrick O'Leary, 2003
Dr. Wallace P. Ritchie, 2004
Dr. Kenneth Mattox, 2005
Dr. Stephen Cohn, 2006
Dr. Joseph L. R. Mills, 2007
   Dr. Jeffrey Ponsky, 2008
Dr. V. Suzanne Klimberg, 2009
Dr. John L. Tarpley, 2010
Dr. Samuel A. Wells, Jr., 2011
Dr. Donald D. Trunkey, 2012
Dr. J. David Richardson, 2013
Dr. Erik B. Wilson, 2014
Dr. Tomas D. Martin, 2015
Dr. Charles D. Mabry, 2016
Dr. Karen J. Brasel, 2017
Dr. J. Patrick Walker, 2018
Dr. Clay Cothren Burlew, 2019
Dr. Hazim J. Safi, 2021
Dr. Harry T. Papaconstantinou, 2022
Dr. Deirdre Marshall, 2023