April 18, 2011 — Lazar Greenfield, MD, is a textbook author, prolific researcher, educator, inventor of the Greenfield vena cava filter for the prevention of pulmonary embolism, and, until yesterday, the president-elect of the American College of Surgeons (ACS).
On Sunday, the 76-year-old Dr. Greenfield resigned from his post as president-elect amid a furor over a Valentine's Day editorial in an ACS newsletter in which he wrote that semen brightens a woman's mood.
"So there's a deeper bond between men and women than St. Valentine would have suspected, and now we know there's a better gift for that day than chocolates," he wrote in the February issue of Surgery News. At the time, Dr. Greenfield was the publication's editor-in-chief. He announced his resignation from the post in the April issue.
Many physicians took offense at the editorial, which they considered indicative of a male chauvinism that is perceived as prevalent in the specialty of surgery.
In an interview with Medscape Medical News, Dr. Greenfield said he considered the piece "a light-hearted attempt to highlight some of the new findings that nature provides to promote stronger bonding between men and women."
"It's unfortunate," Dr. Greenfield said about the controversy. "I think it's an overreaction, but of course, I'm biased."
'Deep Regret'
In a press release issued today, the ACS stated that its Board of Regents met Sunday to discuss Dr. Greenfield's status as an officer of the group in response to "numerous communications" from surgeons about the editorial.
Dr. Greenfield addressed the board, expressed his "deep regret that individuals had been offended," reaffirmed his long-standing support for women in surgery, and tendered his resignation.
The ACS said it wished to honor Dr. Greenfield for "his inestimable contributions to the College and the surgical community" but that it could not be "distracted by any issues that would diminish its focus on improving care of the surgical patient."
Patricia Numann, MD, the current first vice-president-elect of the ACS, was named the society's new president-elect.
Dr. Greenfield said that the Board of Regents had asked him to resign.
"I initially refused and then changed my mind," he said. "I decided that it [the editorial] should no longer be a divisive issue in the College."
Mood Enhancer?
When Dr. Greenfield was editor-in-chief of Surgery News, he wrote a monthly editorial titled The Cutting Edge. In February, he turned his attention to the role that physiology plays in sexual attraction.
The piece touched briefly on reproduction in a variety of life forms, including fruit flies, the bacterium Lactobacillus plantarum, rotifers, and finally Homo sapiens. Dr. Greenfield cited research purporting to show that human semen contained mood enhancers, such as estrone and serotonin, with "major salutary effects for the recipient."
The editorial also suggested that semen may be one reason why lesbians who live together do not have synchronized menstrual cycles, a phenomenon common among heterosexual women.
After some ACS members complained, the editorial was pulled from the online edition of Surgery News posted on the ACS Web site.
Dr. Greenfield said that the majority of the feedback he received from fellow surgeons to the editorial was supportive. "They didn't find it offensive," said Dr. Greenfield, who holds the rank of professor emeritus in surgery at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
However, Dr. Greenfield acknowledged there were also physicians who considered the editorial sexist. He told Medscape Medical News that he apologized to these doctors — over the phone and in writing.
"I apologized for the way they had been hurt, and had interpreted [the editorial]," he said. "I expressed...that I wanted to make amends and work with them. If they wanted to make this a learning experience for others, if [the editorial] had been some form of unconscious bias, I thought it would be a valuable teaching experience."
No 'Old Boy's Network'
Dr. Greenfield said his editorial is not an indication that the ACS is dominated by an old-boy's network.
"I've always been a strong advocate for women in surgery," he said. "That's why half the people in the Department of Surgery at the University of Michigan are women."
Several female surgeons interviewed by the New York Times for a story about Dr. Greenfield's editorial described him as a role model for promoting gender equality.
In 2004, as a member of a blue-ribbon committee formed by several medical societies, he coauthored a position paper on surgical education that called for making the field — in residency training and beyond — more attractive to women.
Before he wrote the Valentine's Day editorial, Dr. Greenfield was perhaps best known for inventing the Greenfield vena cava filter in 1973 for patients at risk for pulmonary embolism. The device is still in use.
He also has left his mark on the surgical field as the editor of 2 major textbooks and several hundred peer-reviewed articles. From 1987 to 2002, he chaired the surgery department at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He is now retired from active teaching and research.
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