J. Bentley Squier, MD, FACS

J. Bentley Squier, MD, FACS, (1873-1948) was the 16^th President of the American College of Surgeons, serving in that capacity from 1932 to 1933. He was a close colleague and friend of College founder Franklin H. Martin, MD, FACS. Dr. Squier was among the founders of the College in 1913, the year he also served in a leadership role in his specialty as president of the American Urologic Association. An active participant in the founding of the ACS Film Library as well as many other programs that helped define the College, Dr. Squier was a College leader from the organization’s beginning, also serving in the capacity of Governor and Regent.

Born in 1873 in New York City, Dr. Squier was educated and spent much of his professional life there. He attended Chapin Collegiate School and was an 1894 graduate of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University. He served internships at St. Luke’s and Sloane Maternity Hospitals, New York City, until 1898, after which he spent 12 years as attending surgeon in the city’s Department of Charities. Appointed as professor of genito-urinary surgery at the New York Post Graduate Medical School in 1909, he served as the genito-urinary surgery program director until 1924, during which time he attracted large numbers of medical students to the program. In 1917, he was appointed professor of urology at his alma mater, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia, and he came to be internationally renowned as a teacher of surgery. He served with Dr. Franklin Martin during World War I on the General Medical Board of the Council of National Defense, attaining the rank of Major in the Medical Reserve Corps, and conceived the plan for the Columbia War Hospital during the first World War, which later became US Army General Hospital Number I.

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