Each year, a John R. Caulk Visiting Professor joins the graduating chiefs at their end-of-the-year dinner.
Previous Caulk Professors:
- 2017: Herbert Lepor, MD, Professor at NYU School of Medicine and Ellen Shapiro, MD, Professor at NYU School of Medicine
- 2018: Chandru Sundaram, MD, Professor and Program Director, Indiana University School of Medicine
- 2019: Adam Kibel, MD, Professor and Chief of Urology, Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
- 2020: Peggy Pearle, MD, PhD, Professor and Vice Chair of Urology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
- 2021: J. Stuart Wolf, Jr, MD, FACS University of Texas at Austin
- 2022: Gerald L. Andriole, Jr, MD, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, MD
- 2023: Jeffrey M. Holzbeierlein, MD, FACS and Casey G. Kowalik, MD, FACS, University of Kansas Medical Center
- 2024: Kathleen Kobashi, MD, Chair and Professor of Urology, Academic Institute and Weill Cornell Medicine at Houston Methodist Hospital
About Dr. John R. Caulk
John R. Caulk, MD, urological surgeon of St. Louis, was born at McDaniel, Talbot County, Maryland, October 30, 1882, a son of Frank E. and Sarah D. (Wrightson) Caulk. His father was a member of a prominent Maryland family of Scotch and English lineage and engaged in business as a successful wholesale tobacconist. He died in 1894 at the age of 41 years, and his wife passed away in 1912 at the age of 52. She was also a member of one of the old Maryland families of English lineage founded in the new world prior to the Revolutionary War.
Dr. Caulk, the eldest of the family, was educated in the primary and high schools of Easton, Talbot County, Maryland, and in St. John’s College at Annapolis, a military school. In his senior year, he was commanding officer, holding the rank of major of the battalion. There he was graduated with the degree of A. B. in 1901, and in 1912 his alma mater conferred upon him the Master of Arts degree. He received his medical education at The Johns Hopkins University, graduating in 1906; he then served as an intern in the Union Protestant Infirmary for 18 months . He was an assistant resident surgeon in the same institution under Dr. John M. T. Finney and, from 1907 until the middle of 1910, was assistant resident surgeon and resident urological surgeon at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he continued for three-and-a-half years.
Dr. Caulk came to St. Louis in June 1910 and entered into private practice while serving as chief of staff of the genito-urinary clinic at Washington University, assistant surgeon of the Barnes Hospital, urologist at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and urologist at St. Luke’s Hospital. The training of urologic surgeons began in 1910, when the medical school appointed Dr. Caulk as professor of clinical genitourinary surgery. A pioneer in the development of transurethral prostatic resection, Caulk served in this capacity until his death in 1938.
He was associate editor of Surgery, Gynecology and Obstetrics and contributed many articles to leading medical journals. He was also corresponding editor of the American Journal on Syphilis and associate editor of the American Journal of Urology. He was a member of the American Urological Society, American Association of Genito-Urinary Surgeons, American Society of Clinical Genito Surgery, American College of Surgeons, and Southern Medical Association, which he served as chairman of its surgical section and the International Association of Urology. He was a member of the St. Louis Medical, Missouri State, and American Medical Associations; also of the St. Louis Association of Surgeons and the St. Louis Surgical Society, which he was president. During World War I, he served on the medical advisory board and taught urology to medical officers in the Army School of Urology at St. Louis for a period of eight months.
At Baltimore, Maryland, on June 1, 1910, Dr. Caulk married Miss Bessie Jenifer Harrison. Dr. and Mrs. Caulk were parents of two children: John R., born February 12, 1913, in St. Louis; and Marian Elizabeth, born September 30, 1914.