Surgery: Basic Science and Clinical Evidence

by Jeffrey A. Norton (Editor), R Randall Bollinger (Editor), Alfred E. Chang (Editor)

had a dream. My dream was to assemble the current and future leaders in surgery and ask them to develop an evidence-based surgical textbook that would provide the reader with the most up-to-date and relevant information on which to base decisions in modern surgical practice. In other words, the dream was to create the best, most comprehensive textbook of surgery. Fortunately, I met Laura Gillan of Springer-Verlag New York, who had a similar dream. As our editor, she has provided the foundation and structure for this dream. She has made this dream a reality. Because surgery is a highly specialized and diverse discipline with significant complexity, I also needed a commitment from outstanding sur­ geons to serve as coeditors. I was fortunate to have a diverse group of exceptional, young-in-spirit, en­ ergetic, cutting-edge, surgical investigators share in this project, and I wish to thank them for their in­ valuable contribution to this undertaking. The Editorial Board, including Randy Bollinger, Fred Chang, Steve Lowry, Sean Mulvihill, Harvey Pass, and Robert Thompson, met for the first time at the Ameri­ can College of Surgeons meeting in Chicago in October 1997 (Fig. 1). There, this book was conceived. Each of us developed the plan and content for his specific surgical discipline. The common thread is that all decisions and recommendations are based on the best available evidence and that the reader can clearly see the evidence in our "E-tables" (evidence-based tables) specifically marked for the reader's reference.

2170 pages, Paperback

First published August 17, 2000

About the author

Dr. Jeffrey Norton officially retired from Stanford Surgery on September 1, 2023. Norton was a surgeon scientist for more than 40 years.
Norton began is medical career at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY. He graduated in 1973 and went on to do his residency in general surgery at Duke University in North Carolina followed by a fellowship in surgical oncology at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, MD.
Norton joined Stanford in 2003. During his tenure, he served as Chief of the General Surgery from 2006 to 2019 and Chief of Surgical Oncology from 2003 to 2020.
Over his career, Norton published more than 400 articles in peer-reviewed journals and served on the editorial boards of several prestigious journals including Editor-in-Chief of Surgical Oncology from 1992-2006. He also won multiple awards for teaching.
A dinner was held the evening of Thursday, October 12 to honor Norton and included speeches by Drs. George Poultsides, Chief of the Surgical Oncology Section, and Dr. Mary T. Hawn, Chair of the Department, as well as Sir Murray F. Brennan. On Friday, October 13 a Festschrift was held to to celebrate the width and breadth of Norton's work throughout his career with presentations by his mentees and colleagues.
Norton has been recalled as a professor emeritus to continue his design and conduct experiments on Cancer Associated Fibroblasts (CAFs) to improve Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) treatment.