James Tait Goodrich (April 16, 1946 – March 30, 2020) was an American

neurosurgeon Neurosurgery or neurological surgery, known in common parlance as brain surgery, is the medical specialty concerned with the surgical treatment of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spinal cord and peri ...

. He was the director of the Division of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Montefiore Health System and Professor of Clinical Neurological Surgery, Pediatrics, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the

Albert Einstein College of Medicine Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a research-intensive medical school located in the Morris Park neighborhood of the Bronx in New York City. Founded in 1953, Einstein operates as an independent degree-granting institution as part of t ...

, and gained worldwide recognition for performing multiple successful separations of

conjoined twins Conjoined twins – sometimes popularly referred to as Siamese twins – are twins joined ''in utero''. A very rare phenomenon, the occurrence is estimated to range from 1 in 49,000 births to 1 in 189,000 births, with a somewhat higher incidence ...

. He assisted in two craniopagus separations with Dr. Alferayan A in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with the first one done May 5, 2014 (Rana and Raneem) and the second one done February 14, 2016 (Tuga and Yageen). Both pairs were successfully separated and are doing well.

Background

Goodrich was born in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

, the son of Gail (Josselyn), an artist and designer, and Richard Goodrich, who worked in advertising. He received his undergraduate degree from the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...

in 1974. He received his master's degree in 1978 and PhD in 1980 from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. He later returned to

to earn an MD. He did his medical residency at

New York–Presbyterian Hospital The NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is a nonprofit academic medical center in New York City affiliated with two Ivy League medical schools, Cornell University and Columbia University. The hospital comprises seven distinct campuses located in the New Y ...

. He served in the

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

Career

Goodrich was a professor of medicine at the

from 1998 until the time of his death. Goodrich was best known for his 2004 and 2016 separations of craniopagus conjoined twins, those that share brain tissue and who are at a high risk of death unless separated before the age of 2. Goodrich developed a multi-stage approach to separate such twins, of which he did seven times during his tenure and of which 59 total had been performed in the world as of March 2020. Goodrich stated that such surgery does come with a cost as it is generally impossible to avoid some damage to one of the twin's brains, depending on how much brain material his shared, but had tried to minimize this impact through his process. Goodrich's first such operation was in 2004 on

Carl and Clarence Aguirre Clarence and Carl Aguirre (born April 21, 2002) are former conjoined twins born in Manila. They were conjoined at the top of the head and shared 8 centimeters of brain. More than 1—2 centimeters will affect brain functionality in one or bot ...

. After months of planning, Goodrich led a team of 16 doctors during a 17-hour surgery to separate the twins in 2004. Both twins survived though undertook rehabilitation throughout their youth. Both twins were healthy as of March 2020, but Carl remains mentally underdeveloped behind Clarence. Goodrich led a similar 27-hour surgery with a team of 40 doctors on Jadon and Anias McDonald when they were 13 months old in 2016, and as of January 2019, both twins were still in rehabilitation, with Anias considered a few months behind Jadon, but recovering. Goodrich was also an historian of medicine, and distinguished collector of antiquarian medical and scientific books. In 1982, he was elected a member of the American Osler Society, an organization of physicians and historians devoted to the celebration of the extraordinary humanistic, scientific, and bibliophilic achievements of

Sir William Osler Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet, (; July 12, 1849 – December 29, 1919) was a Canadian physician and one of the "Big Four" founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Osler created the first residency program for specialty training of phys ...

, one of the founding members of

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

Awards and recognition

Goodrich was named to Best Doctors in America and was listed in the Guide to America's Top Surgeons by the Consumers Council of America and ''

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

'' magazine. He received the New York City Mayors Award in Science and Technology. He also received the Bronze Medal from the Alumni Association of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. He has also received awards including the Mead-Johnson Award, the Roche Laboratories Award in Neuroscience and the Sir William Osler Medal from the American Association for the History of Medicine in 1978. In 2018, he was awarded a

Marquis Who's Who Marquis Who's Who ( or ) is an American publisher of a number of directories containing short biographies. The books usually are entitled ''Who's Who in...'' followed by some subject, such as ''Who's Who in America'', ''Who's Who of American Wome ...

Lifetime Achievement Award.

Death

Goodrich died in New York on March 30, 2020, of complications from

coronavirus disease 2019 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

(COVID-19). He is survived by his wife, Judy Loudin, and three sisters.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goodrich, James T. 1946 births 2020 deaths 20th-century American physicians 21st-century American physicians American neurosurgeons Albert Einstein College of Medicine faculty Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons alumni NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital physicians University of California, Irvine alumni Military personnel from Oregon Physicians from New York City Physicians from Portland, Oregon Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in New York (state) 20th-century surgeons