Illinois Medicine

residency at the COM, he studied as a research fellow at the University of Goteborg in Sweden, where he received his medical degree. Galante returned to Chicago in 1968, working at the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System until he was appointed the first chairman of orthopaedics at Rush in 1972. A pioneer in understanding the importance of the connection between bone and prosthesis in hip and knee replacements, Galante worked on the design of these devices. The Miller- Galante knee and the Harris-Galante hip became among the most popular in the world. His orthopaedic skills even impacted the animal world. In 1986, Galante, a veterinarian and others donated their services to perform hip replacements on Beta, a 25-year-old female gorilla at the Brookfield Zoo. Galante retired as chairman at Rush in 1994 but continued operating for several years. Among his hobbies, he enjoyed horseback riding as well as breeding and showing Peruvian Paso horses. He once had as many as 40 horses on his 600-acre farm in Clinton, Wis. Galante, and his wife, Sofija, had one son and four grandchildren. Thomas L. Finnegan, MD '70, died on Feb. 4. As a flight surgeon during the final years of the Vietnam War, Finnegan found his lifelong passion for distance running, eventually completing more than 50 marathons and 10 ultra-marathons. Finnegan interned at Valley Medical Center in Fresno, Calif., where he met his future wife, Dianne. He completed his residency in orthopaedic surgery at Loyola University Medical Center. He married Dianne in 1975 and shortly after, the couple moved to Manitowoc, Wis., where they raised their family and he served the community for nearly 40 years. In addition to running, Finnegan also enjoyed cycling, logging nearly 2,000 miles per summer for many years. While a superior athlete, he also had a passion for the arts and loved the Manitowoc Symphony Orchestra. Finnegan enjoyed his daughters' marathon dance recitals and watching his son play ice hockey. A prolific reader, he possessed a wealth of knowledge in many areas, especially World War II history and philosophy. Finnegan and his wife had three children and five grandchildren. Wesley Yapor, MD '82, Res '88, died on Jan. 17. Yapor was the beloved father of Myles, Lance, Danielle, and Austin; son of the late bone. Born in Buenos Aires, Galante was educated through medical school in Argentina before coming to Chicago in 1958 to intern at Michael Reese Hospital. After completing his Jorge Galante, MD, Res '64, died Feb. 9 in Florida. The first chairman of orthopaedic surgery at what is now Rush University Medical Center, Galante helped revolutionize the science of joint replacement. One of the first surgeons in the Chicago area to perform total hip replacements, he developed a porous metal fiber coating for prosthetic devices that allowed natural bone growth to fix the device in the patient's 50 | S U M M E R 2 0 1 7 'FATHER OF CORONARY ARTERY BYPASS SURGERY' In 1968, Dudley Johnson '53, MD '55, performed a surgery that involved sewing segments from multiple arteries into a coronary artery. That same year, he performed a heart transplant surgery after which the patient went on to live another nine years, which was believed to be a record at the time. These operations helped pave the way for heart bypass surgeries that became increasingly common in the surgical field over the years. Johnson became a pioneer in the field and completed more than 8,500 heart bypass operations in his career. He would often perform two or three surgeries a day where he was based, at St. Luke's Hospital in Milwaukee. Johnson became known as the "father of coronary artery bypass surgery," and he was frequently a doctor of last resort for patients who had nowhere else to go. Johnson's career as a doctor also reflected a wide range of other accomplishments. One involved assisting surgical intervention by stopping a patient's heart (and slowing their metabolism) by cooling and circulating blood through a heart-lung machine. He also prescribed the medication allopurinol — which was usually prescribed to inhibit uric acid production — to increase the exercise capacity of cardiac patients. In 1992, Johnson won the World Health Day award for his contribution to preventing heart disease. In 2008, he was profiled in the book, "Pioneers of Cardiac Surgery." He also delivered lectures in more than 40 countries and was the first American heart surgeon to perform a surgery in Cuba. Before he even started high school, Johnson learned key skills that he later used as a surgeon. He learned crocheting skills from his mother (a home economics teacher) and later learned needlecraft in a seventh-grade sewing class. In eighth grade, he said, he decided to become a physician because he admired a doctor who was a family friend. Ironically, in the early years of his career, Johnson didn't think he wanted to become a surgeon at all. That changed when, after graduating from medical school, he interned at Cook County Hospital in Chicago and met a senior resident he admired. In a 1994 television interview, Johnson spoke about the potential impact physicians can have. "As physicians, we can't cure everybody," he said. "But we can do more to change both symptoms of life and length of life by treating coronary disease than we can do by treating any other common chronic disease." Johnson passed away in October of 2016 in Milwaukee at age 86. — Dan Baron Dudley Johnson Thomas L. Finnegan Jorge Galante '70 '82 '64

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