Oliver Cope papers

Oliver Cope (1902-1994), B.A., 1923, Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts; M.D., 1928, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, was Professor of Surgery Emeritus at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Senior Surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and the first Chief of Staff of the Shriners Burns Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital. Cope’s research focused on thyroid disorders, burn and trauma therapy, breast cancer treatment, and medical education.

Oliver Cope was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on August 15, 1902 to Walter Cope (1860-1902) and Eliza M. Cope (b. 1864). He attended Haverford College for one year before transferring to Harvard College, where he graduated in 1923. He entered Harvard Medical School the following fall and graduated in 1928, after spending a year in China as a newspaper correspondent for the Peking Leader. After completing his surgical internship and residency at Massachusetts General Hospital (1928-1933), Cope was awarded the Moseley Travelling Fellowship from Harvard Medical School to study in London at the National Institute of Medicine under Sir Henry Dale (1875-1968). He returned to the surgical staff at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1934, and was simultaneously appointed Instructor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. He was subsequently appointed Associate of Surgery (1937-1939), Assistant Professor of Surgery (1939-1949), Associate Professor of Surgery (1949-1963), and Professor of Surgery (1963-1969), earning Emeritus status in 1969. During this period, he served three terms as Acting Chief of Surgical Services at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) , and was appointed Senior Surgeon in 1976. He was also appointed the first Chief of Staff of the Shriners Burns Institute at MGH in 1967, and was named Chief of Staff Emeritus in 1971.

With Edward D. Churchill (1895-1972), Fuller Albright (1900-1969), and Joseph Aub (1890-1973), Cope is credited with assisting in the first identification and removal of a parathyroid adenoma, identifying the Delphian Node, and describing the primary hyperplasia of the parathyroid gland. He was also known for his original treatments for burn victims of Boston’s Cocoanut Grove fire in 1942, which occurred during his research with Bradford Cannon (1907-2005) on early supportive therapy with fluids and plasma for severe burn patients. Their systems of treating burns with petroleum jelly and intravenous fluids instead of tannic acid became the standard procedure during World War II. This early work was a critical factor in the selection of MGH as the interim location for the Shriners Burns Institute in 1964. Later in his career, he advocated against radical mastectomy in the treatment of breast cancer, arguing instead for partial mastectomy in conjunction with radiation therapy. Cope also worked throughout his career to improve medical and surgical education standards. His books, Medical Education Reconsidered (1966) with Jerrold Zacharias (1905-1986), and Man, Mind and Medicine, The Doctor’s Education (1968), were published as products of his service as Chair of two large medical education conferences: the Endicott House Summer Study on Medical Education, and the Swampscott Study on Behavioral Science in Medicine, respectively. In 1972 he also served as chair to the University of Maine’s committee to plan and determine the feasibility of a medical education program in Maine. In 1962 he was appointed President of the American Surgical Association, and also served as President of the Boston Surgical Society. His publications include: Management of the Cocoanut Grove Burns at the Massachusetts General Hospital (1943) with Joseph Aub; The Breast: Its Problems, Benign and Malignant (1977); and over 170 scientific publications, including “Breast Cancer: has the time come for a less mutilating treatment?,” which appeared in the Radcliffe Alumni Quarterly and was reprinted in Vogue, Woman’s Day, and various other magazines and scientific journals.

Oliver Cope married Alice DeNormandie (1910-1994) in 1932. They had two children Robert DeNormandie Cope (born 1935) and Eliza Middleton Cope Harrison (born 1937). Cope died on April 30, 1994 in Woodsville, New Hampshire.