| AANS Members Deceased in 2005 Laurence J. Adams, MD Robert C. Atkinson, MD Emile Berger, MSc MD Joseph E. Bogen, MD Maurice P. Carlin, MD Louis A. Finney, MD Melvyn M. Gelch, MD Martin Gibbs, MD, FACS Thomas W. Langfitt, MD Lyal G. Leibrock, MD J. Michael McWhorter, MD Paul G. Meyer, MD Samuel R. Neff, MD John C. O’Loughlin, MD Robert E. Parham, MD Dwight Parkinson, MD William Paxton Parker Jr., MD Don F. Rhinehart, MD John Morgan Thompson, MD Gerard A. Sava, MD John O. Sharrett, MD Donald T. Smith, MD Jess T. Schwidde, MD |
With foresight and tireless energy, Dr. Finney led neurosurgery’s first foray into federal politics. Within a decade of the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid in July 1965, the federal government became ever more deeply entrenched in funding and regulation of medical practice, training, and research. Even preceding 1965, federal involvement in healthcare had expanded substantially after World War II, with hospital construction (1946 Hill-Burton Act), NIH research funding, medical school expansion, and national health insurance proposals. The focus of federal policy shifted from expansion of medical services from 1945 to 1970 to cost containment and budgetary control during the Nixon administration.
Dr. Finney served as the first chair of the AANS/CNS Washington Committee. The committee was formed in 1975 in answer to recognition by the AANS and CNS that federal policies henceforth would substantially change the practice of medicine and neurosurgery. Together with a core group of political activists that included Donald Stewart, MD, Russell Patterson, MD, and Charles Fager, MD, Dr. Finney worked to establish representation and a federal lobbying capability in the nation’s capital.
Under Dr. Finney’s leadership, the Washington Committee contracted in 1976 with Charles Plante, a former U.S. Senate administrative assistant, for part-time lobbying services. After 10 years the committee expanded from the original six members to include the president and president-elect of the AANS and CNS to accommodate the high-level policy decisions that had to be made, and representation on the Washington Committee expanded in the 1990s to include liaisons from each AANS/CNS section and the CSNS. The business of the committee has grown steadily in importance in the years since Dr. Finney held its helm.
Dr. Finney’s reputation for work intensity and intellectual versatility on political issues was legendary. His leadership established a precedent for aggressive political action among neurosurgeons. He shall long be remembered as a pioneer who saw the necessity for neurosurgeons stepping outside familiar academic and hospital surroundings and entering the rough and tumble arena of public politics in order to preserve and advance the best of medical practice and solve socioeconomic problems through public policy change.
Biography
Contributed by Donald H. Stewart Jr., MD
Dr. Finney, born Aug. 14, 1931, in St. Louis, Mo., was raised in Chicago and graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1952 with a bachelor’s degree in biology. He received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1956. He then interned at the University of Minnesota and at Johns Hopkins Hospital and was a neurosurgical resident in at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Fla. He was a board-certified neurosurgeon and a member of the AANS and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons.
Dr. Finney had a private practice in Amarillo as a neurosurgeon from 1964 to 1987. After retiring from neurosurgery, he moved to England and received a master’s degree in clinical tropical medicine from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He was a captain in the U.S. Naval Reserve. While on active duty, he served at the Naval Hospital in Chelsea, Mass., and was a 5th Fleet Command Surgeon in Naples, Italy, for a brief time in 1988. Dr. Finney served as the chief medical officer of Amarillo Military Entrance program from 1988 until 1991, the Denver Military Entrance program from 1991 until 1995, at which time he became the deputy command surgeon, U.S. Medical Processing Command.
In the 1960s he worked with Project Hope in Tunisia and participated in a U.S. State Department sponsored medical tour in the Soviet Union. He later evaluated neurosurgical programs in India for the CNS.
In addition to being an active supporter of Texas Tech Medical School, he extended his sense of compassion and quiet generosity to provide anonymous support for several students at the Virginia Military Institute.
Dr. Finney had battled melanoma and a brain metastasis, which was surgically removed in 1993. He is survived by nine children and his wife, Cynthia Collum Finney.