Harkins Surgical Society (University of Washington) Records, 1949-1990

Henry Nelson Harkins' birth occurred in Missoula, Montanta on July 13, 1905, providing Dr. William Draper Harkins and Anna Louise Hatheway their only son. The Harkins family moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1912. Dr. William Harkins became a distinguished Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Chicago. Henry Harkins' education was experienced in the chicago school system including his M.S.(1925-26) and Ph.D. (1926-28) in chemistry from the University of Chicago. He studied medicine at Rusch Medical College, University of Chicago, from 1924 to 1930. He served in the Army Reserve as a First Lieutenant in the Medical Corps from July 1931 to July 1936. On June 19, 1937, Dr. Henry Harkins married Miss Jean Hamilton Trester

As a John Guggenheim Memorial Fellow in Surgery, 1938-39, he work with four universities: University of Edinburgh, University of Ghent, University of Frankfurt-am-Main, and University of Uppsala, Sweden. The subject of his fellowship was "Surgical and traumatic Shock, particulary as seen in burns". Dr. Henry Harkins went from instructor and researcher at the University of Chicago to Henry Ford Hospital as surgeon in Detroit, Michigan, in 1939-43. He also served as Special Instructor in Surgery at Wayne University Medical School in Detroit, 1942-43. From there he moved to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, as Assistant Researcher in 1943. . The next move was to Baltimore, Maryland, as faculty for Johns Hopkins University, 1943-47. From study of shock and burns, Dr. Harkins turned to Peptic ulcer disease studies in 1945. In 1947, he arrived at the University of Washington and was made the first Executive Officer of the new Department of Surgery. He developed the first graduate programme for training surgeons in the Northwest. In 1962, He was appointed as Chairman of the Department.

He published over 360 articles on surgical subjects such as burns, freezing, shock, groin hernias, gastric physiology, peptic ulcer disease, Billroth I operation, selective vagatomy and surgical education. As a result of a second John Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in Surgery for 1965-66, he traveled around the world as visiting professor at the Universities of Melbourne, New South Wales, Sydney, Adelaide, Kuala Lumpur, Witwatersrand, and South Africa, Singapore, Auckland, Dunedin and Uppsala. He was honored as the Acrel Medalist by the Swedish Surgical Society.

Dr. Harkins collapsed after running the course in Denny Park during an annual August picnic for the Department of Surgery. He died August 12, 1967 at 3:04 am at the University Hospital.