Three former prominent neurosurgeons have recently died after illustrious careers in medicine.
Former professor of neurosurgery at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia Bruce Northrup, MD, died of complications from Lewy body dementia at Bryn Mawr (Pa.) Hospital. He practiced at Pennsylvania State University's Medical School in Hershey, the Neurological Institute in Fargo, N.D., and Philadelphia-based University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital during his career.
Retired Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Chief of Orthopedics Denis Drummond, MD, died of heart failure. The Scoliosis Research Society awarded Dr. Drummond its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 for his contributions to spinal deformity-related care.
Retired neurosurgeon Kenneth J. Murray, MD, PhD, died from respiratory failure at age 73 at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. He arrived in Baltimore after he became acting head of the division of neurosurgery at the Veterans Administration Hospital and was an assistant professor of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, also in Baltimore, from 1978 to 2000.