Ernst Bertner: A Surgeon with Prescient Vision for the Largest Medical Center in the World

More than 75 years ago, surgeon Ernst Bertner envisioned the Texas Medical Center (TMC) as “breathtaking in the scope and breadth of its conception,” that would be “one of the largest in the world”; a gigantic medical enterprise that would “attract the greatest scientists of the world” and would combine patient care, research, and education, on a scale that was “second to none.” During the next 3 years, Bertner accomplished important pieces of the Herculean task to bring onto the campus 11 major buildings, including the University of Texas MD Anderson Hospital for Cancer Research, for which he was the interim director. This was an extraordinary accomplishment because at the outset he had only a strategic plan, the deed to 134 acres of forest, and financial support from the MD Anderson Foundation! Bertner further forecasted world-class clinical and educational programs in the TMC, stating: “We envision the time when the Medical Center will become a great magnet, drawing leaders in education, medicine, and dental professions. It will provide the physical facilities and the environment in which research will flourish and bring forth for all of us new discoveries in the field of medicine.” So how did his bold vision and passionate leadership culminate in the TMC today? By any criteria of scale and program excellence, the TMC today can be regarded as the largest medical center in the world. Occupying a contiguous campus of 1345 acres (2.1 square miles), it comprises 162 buildings, 60+ member institutions, 21 hospitals (> 9200 beds), 21 academic institutions, 4 medical schools, 7 nursing schools, 3 public health schools, 2 pharmacy schools, and a dental school. More than 106,000 patients and visitors come daily to the TMC, which has more than 120,000 employees, including 5000 physicians, 5700 researchers, and 11,000 registered nurses. Ernst Bertner is credited for transforming the original vision of the TMC into a workable program, and whose dynamic devotion to the idea captured the devotion of others to accomplish this extraordinary feat. Thus, during this short interval from 1946 to 1950, Bertner transitioned the leadership of the MD Anderson Cancer Hospital to Dr. R. Lee Clark, conducted a busy general surgery and gynecologic practice, facilitated the monumental transfer of the Baylor Medical School from Dallas to Houston, helped to recruit Dr. Michael DeBakey from New Orleans, and fought a heroic battle against rhabdomyosarcoma, a very rare and aggressive cancer.