John Francis Burke
John Francis (“Jack”) Burke was born on July 22, 1922 in Chicago, the first of three children born to Francis A. Burke, a railroad man, and Mary Biaggi. He died November 2, 2011 of pancreatic cancer. He filled those 89 years with grace and wry humor through many phases, including chemical engineer, Army Air Corps pilot (he enlisted the day after Pearl Harbor), surgeon, educator, homespun philosopher, administrator, and one of the most remarkably innovative surgeon-scientists of the post-War era. By the rigorous standard proposed to the University by President Faust, paraphrased as “to perpetuate knowledge to posterity,” he stands tall. Consider but three of many examples of his life’s work. As long as Western Civilization survives, surgeons the world over will be guided by his sentinel work on the enlightened use of antibiotics in the perioperative period to reduce the risk of bacterial infection. Prior to his systematic investigations of the...