The history of neurosurgery at Tufts Medical Center

Tufts Medical Center grew from the Boston Dispensary, which was initially founded in 1796 by public-spirited Bostonians including Samuel Adams and Paul Revere. The union with Floating Hospital for Children, Pratt Diagnostic Center, and Tufts College Medical School transformed the Dispensary into the New England Medical Center in 1929. Though neurosurgical procedures were performed as early as the 1920s, the division was not established until 1948, and the residency program received Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education accreditation in 1950. Tufts-New England Medical Center was formed in 1968 after a merger with the newly renamed Tufts University School of Medicine and was again renamed Tufts Medical Center in 2008. The department has been led by Drs. Bertram Selverstone, Bennet Stein, William Shucart, Carl Heilman, and Ron Riesenburger. The residency program has produced neurosurgeons who have gone on to shape the field.