A family being honored as the College of Medicine’s first “legacy family” has service ties to the College that date back more than a century, before the College was part of the University of Nebraska system.
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Members of the Davis family stand in front of a display detailing the Davis family and its service to the College of Medicine. From left are Emmy Lou “Petie” Hilsinger; Herb Davis; Nene Davis; her husband, John Byron Davis, M.D.; his grandson, D.J. Davis; and D.J.’s parents, Jay and Kim Davis. |
The Davis family — with three generations of physicians, including Byron Bennett Davis, M.D., Herbert Haywood Davis, M.D., and John Byron Davis, M.D. — is being honored as the College’s first “legacy family,” as part of the College’s 100th anniversary since becoming part of the University of Nebraska.
A display detailing the Davis family and its service to the College is located in the Linder Lounge, just off the elevators on the base floor of the Leon S. McGoogan Library of Medicine at UNMC.
“We are pleased to bestow the title of the first ‘legacy family’ on the Davis family,” said James O. Armitage, M.D., dean of the UNMC College of Medicine. “Few families boast of having three generations of physicians that contributed their time and talents to the College. I’m very happy that we’re able to recognize those efforts.”
More “legacy family” designations will be made in the next few months as part of the 100th anniversary celebration, Dr. Armitage said.
Family patriarch Byron Bennett Davis, M.D.
The Davis family patriarch, Byron Bennett Davis, M.D., was born in Wisconsin moved to Salem, Neb., as a young boy. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Nebraska in 1882, he taught in Salem and Plattsmouth before entering the Minnesota College of Medicine. After one year of training as a house surgeon and a six-month polyclinic in New York, he returned to his home state, where he married Sopha Myers on June 7, 1887, while practicing medicine in McCook.
After a year of studying abroad, he returned to Omaha and became professor of surgical pathology and clinical surgery at Omaha Medical College in the 1890s. The Medical College had been formed in 1881, and would become part of the University of Nebraska system in 1902. He was chairman of the department of surgery at the Medical School from 1930 until his death in 1933.
During his tenure at the Medical College, Dr. Byron Bennett Davis was the president of many surgical associations, including those of the region, state and county, was the surgeon-in-chief at Immanuel Hospital and a charter member of the American College of Surgeons. He served as secretary-treasurer of the Western Surgical Association in 1904-1905, as its president in 1914-1915 and as a member of its executive council from 1914 to 1917.
The author of 79 articles, he spent the last 10 years of his life studying the causes of cancers, their treatments and their prevention. He died of colon cancer on April 20, 1933.
Herbert Haywood Davis, M.D.
His son, Herbert Haywood Davis, M.D., was born on March 24, 1894. He also graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Cornell University, and graduated from Johns Hopkins Medical College in 1920. He married Olga Antonio Metz on June 29, 1921. Also during that year, he joined his father in private practice in Omaha. They shared an office with C.A. Hull, M.D., who was not a surgeon, but an internist.
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In 1922, he joined the College of Medicine as an instructor, and after further study in Europe, became the director of laboratory research at the College in 1927. He ascended through the ranks of professorship quickly, and in 1948, became the chairman of the department of surgery. From 1948 to 1962, he focused primarily on malignant tumors, especially of the breast. He founded the Omaha Mid-West Clinical Society and was a longtime member of the Board of Regents for Omaha University, now the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
His outside interests included golf, and Dr. Davis, built, owned and operated Miracle Hill Golf Course in Omaha from 1962 until his death in 1982. The golf course was built on the Frigsland Dairy Farm, which was bought by Dr. B.B. Davis in 1907.
John Byron Davis, M.D.
His son, John Byron Davis, M.D., was born on Aug. 8, 1922. He graduated in 1941 from Asheville School for Boys in Asheville, N.C., where he excelled in tennis. He enrolled at Yale University in 1941, but World War II interrupted his education. He served as a communications officer in the Mediterranean, and later was the commanding officer aboard the U.S.S. LST920 during the liberation of the Philippines, Guam and Saipan. He was on the first ship to make port on Hakaido, the most northern island in Japan, following that country’s surrender.
On July 27, 1946, he married Cornelia Alexander Cowan, whom he had met while at Asheville School. He graduated from Yale in 1947, then entered the University of Nebraska Medical College, from where he graduated in 1951. After a one-year internship at Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago, he studied for four years under Warren Cole, M.D., at the Illinois Research and Education Hospital, now the Illinois University Medical School.
He practiced from 1956 to 1961 with his father, then continued in his own practice until 1985. One of his best-known surgical cases came in 1958, when an Omaha man was pierced with a 28-inch homemade rocket. The rocket’s spiraling action caused the man’s small intestine to coil around the rocket, and its heat caused damage to his abdominal wall and organs. Dr. Davis removed seven feet of the man’s small intestine, one foot of his large intestine and his right kidney, and he repaired a large hole in the vena cava, a large vein. The man received 36 pints of blood before and during his surgery. Seven weeks after his admission, he was dismissed from the hospital, and he now owns one of the largest companies in Omaha.
Dr. Davis later became an associate professor of surgery at the UN Medical College, and was president of the medical staff at Immanuel Hospital in 1964. He also was on the staff at Bishop Clarkson Memorial Hospital, Children’s Memorial Hospital and Methodist Hospital.
In addition to his participation and membership in numerous medical societies, Dr. Davis has published 33 scientific articles, and was the liaison fellow for the state of Nebraska for the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons from 1966 to 1982.
He resides in Omaha from May until late in November and in Palm Desert, Calif., during the rest of the year.