"If you go into medicine with stardust in your eyes you will be quickly disillusioned. But, if you are crazy enough to be determined to do it. . . the rewards are enormous."
Virginia Kneeland Frantz (1896–1967)
Surgical Pathologist
MD 1922
Faculty 1924-62
In her long career, Virginia Kneeland Frantz won renown as an instructor, author, and researcher in surgery and disease. Along with A.P. Stout, W.C. Clarke and, later, Raffaele Lattes, she led the field of surgical pathology. Frantz did notable early work in cancer and cystic disease of the breast and made an important discovery in the diagnosis and treatment of thyroid cancer. With A.O. Whipple, she made pioneering studies of the surgical pathology of insulin-secreting pancreatic tumors. During World War II, Frantz and Lattes developed oxidized cellulose, a hemostatic absorbable gauze that aided wound healing, for which she won an Army-Navy Certificate of Appreciation for Civilian Service.
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