Robert B. Rutherford, MD

Dr. Robert B. Rutherford was the second President of the Western Vascular Society. He was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and received both his BA (1952) and MD (1956) degrees from the Johns Hopkins University. After an internship at Johns Hopkins, he completed his general surgery residency at the University of Colorado in 1963. He then served for two years in the military at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. His first academic appointment was in 1965 at Johns Hopkins, but he returned to the University of Colorado in 1970 where he spent the rest of his career as Professor of Surgery and Chief of the Vascular Surgery Section.

Dr. Rutherford edited the first major textbook on vascular surgery which was published in 1977. That textbook is now known as “Rutherford’s Vascular Surgery” and is in its ninth edition. His wide-ranging interests in vascular surgery resulted in over 400 scientific articles and book chapters. He was the editor of Seminars in Vascular Surgery from 1988 to 2012, and he served as Senior Editor for the Journal of Vascular Surgery from 1996 to 2003.

In addition to being a member of the original organizing committee and the second President of the Western Vascular Society, Dr. Rutherford served as the 43rd president of the International Society for Cardiovascular Surgery, North American chapter, which is now known as the Society for Vascular Surgery. Under his leadership, various Society for Vascular Surgery committees developed specific reporting standards for describing vascular diseases and vascular interventions, including outcomes and complications. In 2000 he co-chaired the first Transatlantic Consensus on Peripheral Arterial Occlusive Disease. He was honored by the Society for Vascular Surgery with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.

Dr. Rutherford died on November 22, 2013 at the age of 82.