Orvar Swenson Lectureship

Since 2008, we've brought distinguished surgeons to our hospital to speak in honor of Orvar Swenson, MD. Dr. Swenson was responsible for discovering the absence of the ganglion cells in the rectum of patients with Hirschsprung’s disease in 1947. He performed the first successful “pull through” procedure in 1948.

He brought this knowledge and experience to Children’s Memorial Hospital (now known as Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago) and served as Chief of Surgery from 1960-1973.

The list of featured lecturers is as follows:

• 2008 - Juda Jona, MD
• 2010 - Keith Georgeson, MD
• 2011 - Thomas Jaksic, MD
• 2012 - Edward Barksdale, MD
• 2013 - Henri Ford, MD, MHA
• 2014 - Daniel Von Allmen, MD
• 2015 - Richard Azizkhan, MD, Ph.D (Hon)
• 2016 - Timothy Kane, MD
• 2017 - Keith Oldham, MD
• 2018 - Mark Levitt, MD
• 2019 - Andrea Hayes-Jordan, MD
• 2020 - David Lanning, MD
• 2021 - Abdullah Selah, MD
• 2022 - Peter C. W. Kim, MD, PhD
• 2023 - Charles Jason Smithers, MD