Dr. Ira M. Rutkow, a renowned general surgeon, educator and medical historian, passed away last Friday, Jan. 16, at the Gilchrist Center in Towson after a brief illness.
A resident of New York City and the Hudson Valley region in New York, he was 77.
Rutkow, who was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Al and Bea (Goldberg) Rutkow, graduated from Union College in New York in 1970 and earned his medical degree from St. Louis University. He trained as a general surgeon at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
Rutkow went on to receive a master of public health degree in 1978 and a doctorate in 1981 from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, “setting the stage for a remarkable career that blended clinical expertise with a passion for historical scholarship,” his family wrote on the website of Sol Levinson & Bros.
“Ira dedicated his life to the practice of surgery and the study of medical and surgical history. … His passion for history and medicine will live on through his writings and the many lives he touched throughout his career.”
Rutkow authored eight highly influential books about medicine and surgery, including “Empire of the Scalpel: The History of Surgery” (2022), which was an “Editor’s Choice” selection in the New York Times Book Review.
His other books include “Seeking the Cure: A History of Medicine in America” (2010); “James A. Garfield” (2006), part of the Times Books series on American Presidents edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr; “Bleeding Blue and Gray: Civil War Surgery and the Evolution of American Medicine” (2005); “American Surgery: An Illustrated History” (1998); “Surgery: An Illustrated History” (1993), which was named a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year”; and the two-volume bibliography “The History of Surgery in the United States” (1992 and 1988).
Rutkow also served as an editor for multiple surgical textbooks and contributed numerous articles to professional journals.
In addition, Rutkow was an entrepreneur and inventor. In the mid-1980s, he established the Hernia Center, a free-standing medical complex in New York City that served as a model for many practitioners. While running the Hernia Center, he developed and patented a mesh plug that became a standard approach for modern hernia repair.
Among the awards received by Rutkow over the course of his career were the American Medical Writers Association Medical Book Award in 1998 and the Fletcher Pratt Literary Award of the Civil War Roundtable of New York in 2005.
He was inducted into the Johns Hopkins University Society of Scholars in 2003 and awarded Union College’s Founders’ Medal in 2007, as well as the St. Louis University School of Medicine’s Alumni Merit Award in 2015.
In his spare time, Rutkow was a collector of rare and unique surgical and hernia texts, as well as 19th-century surgical instrument sets.
Rutkow is survived by his wife of 54 years, Beth; his children, Lainie and Eric; his son-in-law, Adam Spira; his daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Herman; and his grandsons, Alex Spira and Benjamin Rutkow.
Contributions in in his memory may be sent to ther Gilchrist Center Towson, Philanthropy Department, 11311 McCormick Road, Suite 350, Hunt Valley, Maryland 21031; or a charity of your choice.
“Ira’s warmth, humor, and wisdom will be remembered by his friends, colleagues, and his cherished family,” wrote his family. “He will be dearly missed by all who knew him.”
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