Neer’s path from St. Louis to Springfield, Missouri, and then to Vinita; he
had publications in the Journal of the American Medical Association in
1907 while a resident, then in 1908 while employed in Springfield, and
then in 1909 after setting up shop in Vinita. Charlie was born in 1917 when
his physician father was thirty-eight years old, and grew up an
accomplished horseman and natural-born Oklahoma lad. Expecting his son
to become a physician, Dr. Neer and his wife made the decision to place
young Charlie on a train and enrolled him at the Shattuck Military
Academy in Faribault, Minnesota (today known as a major incubator of
National Hockey League talent), where he would spend his prep school
days as a tennis and football standout. The superior education at Shattuck
prepared him for Dartmouth College, from which he matriculated in 1939,
and then medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in
1942.
After an internship in 1943 in Philadelphia, Charlie’s surgical training
was interrupted by World War II. Like so many physicians during the
second great war, life was placed on hold, and Dr. Neer served in both
major theaters of war, in field hospitals in Europe (under General George
S. Patton) and the Philippines (under General Douglas MacArthur), and at
a general hospital in Japan.
Dr. Neer returned to the United States, and for the first time in his life
moved to New York City in 1945. For the next half century, the country-
born Dr. Neer lived in the busiest city in the world, establishing himself as
one of the most influential surgeons who has ever lived. His arrival in New
York coincided with waning European medical leadership, and he is one of
the pioneers who planted the flag on American soil. His papers are the
most quoted in all of orthopedic surgery, and his shoulder surgery trainees
became the most influential thought leaders around the world. The manner
in which shoulder arthritis, rotator cuff tears, shoulder instability, stiff
shoulders, and painful shoulders are treated are all deeply influenced by
his original works. And it all started with his truth-telling about our
incompetence in dealing with severe shoulder fractures.
In the late 1940s, Dr. Neer completed his orthopedic residency at the
New York Orthopedic Hospital (which would join Columbia Presbyterian
on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in the early 1950s), and his mentors
were the physicians who led the fracture service: William Darrach, Clay
Ray Murray, and Harrison McLaughlin. In today’s orthopedic departments,
marcin
(Marcin)
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