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Embodying a far-reaching amount of experience in army combat surgery is Colonel Craig D. Shriver, a Reading, Pa., native who will be speaking at Millersville University on March 30. Shriver’s lecture, “War and the Hippocratic Oath: Irreconcilable?: A Military Surgeon’s Look at 30 Years of Conflicts and Medicine,” will reflect on his heavy involvement on the front lines of combat. This event will be held at 2 p.m. at Stayer Hall in the Multipurpose Room.
Dr. Judith Wenrich, professor and director of field services in elementary and early childhood education, invited Shriver to speak in association with a course she is teaching this semester entitled “The Teaching of Social Studies.”
“Shriver’s lecture is significant to our students in that it will assist them in understanding the conflicts between cultures, and in recognizing the humanitarian work that has been a considerable focus of the military’s efforts throughout these conflicts, as well as the sacrifices made by individuals their age to preserve our society,” said Wenrich.
Shriver graduated cum laude from Albright College with a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and then proceeded to receive a medical degree from Temple University. He went on to complete his general surgery residency training at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and was selected for advanced fellowship training in surgical oncology at the prestigious Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
Shriver has published more than 200 academic papers in medical literature including the world’s most prestigious medical journal, the New England Journal of Medicine. His topics for these publications included the seminal article on sentinel lymph node biopsy in breast cancer in 1998 and a work describing the care of the casualties from Operation Iraqi Freedom returning to Walter Reed in 2004.
Shriver’s list of military achievements has swelled. Notably, he was praised by his command for his direct surgical support of the medical response to the terrorist attack against the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. As chief of general surgery at the nation’s largest military hospital, he has led his surgeons in the treatment of more than 5,500 patients from Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom since terrorist attacks more than one decade ago. Shriver completed his fourth combat tour, his second in Afghanistan, returning on February 20, 2011.
He was elected into the prestigious American Surgical Association in 2010, the oldest and premier of all surgical societies in the world, with only a few select members representing the top echelon of the surgical profession. To date, he has been awarded all possible high recognitions as a soldier physician by the U.S. Army.
For more information, contact Wenrich, at Judith.Wenrich@millersville.edu or 717-872-3395.
