Anthony F. DePalma
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Anthony F. DePalma | |
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Born | Anthony Federico DePalma October 12, 1904 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
Died | April 6, 2005 Pompano Beach, Florida, U.S. | (aged 100)
Education |
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Occupation | Surgeon, professor |
Spouse(s) | Vivienne Muti |
Children | 3, including Brian De Palma |
Anthony Federico DePalma (October 12, 1904 – April 6, 2005) was an orthopedic surgeon, humanitarian, and teacher at Thomas Jefferson University, as well as the founder of the orthopedic department at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
Biography[]
Anthony F. DePalma was born in Philadelphia on October 12, 1904, the son of Italian immigrants from Alberona in the province of Foggia. He attended the University of Maryland for his premedical education, then Jefferson Medical College, from which he graduated in 1929. He then served a two-year internship at Philadelphia General Hospital. In 1931 he obtained a position as assistant surgeon at the , in Coaldale, Pennsylvania, a mining town. He became attracted to orthopaedics and in the autumn of 1932, he was appointed as a preceptor at the , an extension of the . In 1939 he acquired Board certification and was appointed to the NJOH staff.
DePalma volunteered for military service in 1942, and served first at the Parris Island Naval Hospital in South Carolina, then on USS Rixey, a hospital ship. In addition to evacuating casualties to New Zealand, his ship was involved in the Guam, Leyte, and Okinawa).
In 1945, DePalma was assigned to the Naval Hospital in Philadelphia. After he was discharged from the service, he joined the staff of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Jefferson, where he remained the rest of his career. He succeeded James Martin as Chair in 1950, a position he held until 1970 when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 65. He closed his practice and moved briefly to Pompano Beach, Florida, but the lure of academia proved too powerful, and in January, 1971, he accepted the offer to develop a Division of Orthopaedics at the New Jersey College of Medicine and became their Chair. He committed to a five-year period, and then again moved to Pompano Beach, only to take the Florida State Boards and open a private practice in 1977. He continued that practice until 1983 at the age of nearly 79.
DePalma was the first Editor-in-Chief of Clinical Orthopaedics & Related Research,[1] a major orthopaedic journal, from 1953 to 1966. He wrote several medical textbooks that are considered standards. Jefferson has an auditorium named after him and a painting of him in a lecture hall. He was the father of movie director Brian De Palma.
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- 1904 births
- 2005 deaths
- American orthopedic surgeons
- American centenarians
- Men centenarians
- Physicians from Philadelphia
- American people of Italian descent
- University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey faculty
- University of Maryland, College Park alumni
- Jefferson Medical College alumni
- Thomas Jefferson University faculty
- United States Navy personnel of World War II
- United States Navy Medical Corps officers
- 20th-century surgeons