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Welcome to the Division of Endocrine Surgery 


 



The 
University of Michigan Department of Surgery has a rich 150-year history, and 
endocrine surgery has played a major role in this history.  One of the 
department’s greatest chairmen (1930-1957) Frederick 
A. Coller, M.D., was a renowned thyroid surgeon.







Michigan 
is located in an iodine deficient geographical area known as the goiter belt.  
Before the routine iodination of salt, many residents of Michigan 
suffered from goiter (or enlarged thyroid) and came to University of Michigan 
Medical Center for treatment.  Dr. Coller helped to develop the field of thyroid 
surgery, in which he gained extensive expertise and technical supremacy.  
Working closely with Jerome Conn, M.D., a prominent University of Michigan 
endocrinologist (for whom Conn’s syndrome is named), he also developed early 
methods for measuring adrenal gland function.



Norman W. 
Thompson, M.D., who trained in general surgery under Coller at the University of 
Michigan, continued to make advances in thyroid surgery following Dr. Coller’s 
retirement.  He gained world-wide renown for surgery of the parathyroid, 
adrenal, and pancreas and is recognized as one of the founders of the specialty 
of endocrine surgery.  He was pivotal in the gaining recognition for endocrine 
surgery as a distinct discipline both in the USA and in the international 
surgical community.








The Division 
of Endocrine Surgery at the University of Michigan, established by Dr. Thompson 
in 1979, was the first of its kind in the United States.  Since then it has 
contributed to the training of many prominent general and endocrine surgeons.  Dr. 
Thompson was joined by Dr. Richard Burney in 1982, and by Dr. Paul Gauger in 
1999.



Dr. Thompson 
retired in 2002.  At that time a professorship in endocrine surgery was 
established in his name.  The first recipient of the Thompson professorship is 
Dr. Gerard Doherty, who joined the faculty at the University of Michigan as 
chief of the Division of Endocrine Surgery in 2002.  Together, Dr. Doherty and 
his colleagues, Drs. Gauger and Burney, manage nearly all of the endocrine 
surgical patients presenting to the University of Michigan Hospitals.