Philip H. Sechzer

Philip H. Sechzer (September 13, 1914 – September 26, 2004) was a pioneer in anesthesiology and pain management. He was the inventor of patient-controlled analgesia (PCA), now commonly used post-operatively. Sechzer graduated from New York's Stuyvesant High School in 1930,^[1] and received his medical degree from New York University in 1938.^[1]

The son of Jewish immigrants, Sechzer grew up in the hardscrabble Lower East Side of the 1920s. He was a Major in the US Army Air Forces Medical Corps during World War II. While his wish was to be a flight surgeon, the Army found his skills too valuable to put him in harm's way, and kept him stationed in Texas, where he administered to the most acute cases returning stateside from battle.

Trained in general surgery, Sechzer was fascinated by the study of pain itself and worked tirelessly to take anesthesiology into the modern era. After the war, he was director of anesthesiology at Fordham Hospital from 1947 to 1955. From 1955 to 1963 he taught at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine. From 1964-1966 he practiced at Baylor University as part of Michael DeBakey's intra-oprative team, publishing much and helping to develop the heart and lung bypass machine.^[2]

By the 1970s, he had established the pain treatment center at Maimonides Medical Center in New York, furthering anaesthesiology as a standalone specialty.^[3] He was one of the first Western physicians to incorporate Eastern medicine, worked to legitimize acupuncture into standard palliative practices, and in 1985 lectured in China. After his formal retirement in 1986, he continued to work as a medical consultant and publish almost to the end of his life. He was survived by his wife of 56 years, author and psychologist , as well as his 3 children and 8 grandchildren.^[4] He was the grandfather of folksinger Mya Byrne.

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