For 41 years, Mark Orringer, M.D., the Cameron Haight Distinguished University Professor of Thoracic Surgery, has carried a light blue index card in his shirt pocket — a schedule that reminds him how he will spend each hour of his workdays. As Orringer prepares to retire later this year and transition to his role as an active emeritus faculty member, his days will be less scheduled. His plans will be less defined. But the lasting contributions he has made to the field of thoracic surgery will serve as an enduring reminder of how he spent his days at the U-M.
“It’s been a privilege to serve in this capacity and carry on the Michigan tradition as great as it is,” Orringer says. “The university is a phenomenal institution, and the people I’ve worked with have been tremendous colleagues.”
Orringer knew early on he wanted to be a surgeon. Born in Pittsburgh into a “family of medicine” — his father and uncle were accomplished physicians — he enjoyed working with his hands, building models, and making hospital rounds with his father. When asked to draw a picture of what he would be when he grew up, an 8-year-old Orringer used his crayons to sketch surgeons standing around an operating table.
Orringer married his high school sweetheart, Susan, in 1964, and after graduating from the University of Pittsburgh Medical School in 1967, he completed his general and thoracic surgery residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. During residency he spent six months at the Frenchay Hospital in England studying under the renowned esophageal surgeon, Ronald Belsey. In 1973, Orringer joined the U-M faculty, bringing Susan, their 5-year-old son, Jeff, and 3-year-old daughter, Lisa, to Ann Arbor.
Orringer became a professor of surgery in 1980 and Head of the Section of Thoracic Surgery in 1985, remaining in that role until 2011. For 21 years he served as the Thoracic Surgery Residency Program Director. He became an advocate and pioneer for transforming resident education not just at the U-M, but nationally through his work as president of the Thoracic Surgery Directors Association (1997-1999), director of the American Board of Thoracic Surgery (1988-1995), and member of the Residency Review Committee for Thoracic Surgery.
“These multiple positions affecting residency education gave me a unique perspective on our profession,” Orringer says. “Part of the early work of developing the thoracic surgery curriculum involved teaching surgeons how to be educators and how to effectively impart principles of our discipline to residents — who we previously expected to learn just by watching us. We now have a much more structured and steadily evolving framework to tell us what we want to teach, how we are going to teach it, and how we will measure that we have taught it successfully.”
Orringer has served in multiple leadership positions both nationally and at the UMHS. He was President of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons in 2001. Orringer’s clinical work has been equally influential to the profession. He developed two leading esophageal operations: the transhiatal esophagectomy, a less-invasive technique for removing the esophagus that has fewer complications than traditional esophagectomy operations, and the combined Collis-Nissen hiatal hernia repair, an innovate anti-reflux operation. He is a recognized authority on esophageal surgery.
“It’s big surgery, and it’s extraordinarily rewarding,” he says. “I feel very privileged that patients have entrusted their bodies to me for corrective surgery and that I have had the opportunity to experience the gratitude that comes from receiving an email from a grateful patient which says, ‘This is the 22nd anniversary of my esophagectomy, and I want you to know I just watched my grandkids graduate from college. Thank you.’”
Orringer says he is proud of the personal friendships he’s developed with his patients over the years and is humbled by those who have made gifts in support of U-M thoracic surgery research, education, and the residency program.
When reflecting on what he is most proud of, however, Orringer, without hesitation, points to his family, particularly his wife, Susan. Jeff is now a professor and service chief of U-M cosmetic dermatology, and Lisa is a speech and language pathologist who has also remained in the Ann Arbor area. Jeff’s wife, Kelly, is a U-M pediatrician, and his nephew, Dan, is a U-M neurosurgeon.
The oldest of Orringer’s five grandchildren, Matthew, a nationally ranked swimmer, recently left for his first semester at Brown University. He brought the Glen Arbor flag and Petoskey stones from the Orringers’ summer home near Sleeping Bear Dunes to place in his room at school.
“Like all of his family, he cherishes his home,” Orringer says. His other four grandchildren, Jason, Katie, Adam and Lindsay, are also great students and athletes. “My family has a lot of wonderful memories from the time we’ve had here together. We have had the same U-M football tickets since 1973, and we all sit together at the games. We visit the apple orchards nearby. And our household is especially enhanced by Susan’s mother, Pauline Michaels, who lives with us, was a prolific painter, and still enjoys painting at age 98. We enjoy a pretty rich life!”
In retirement, Orringer is looking forward to making more memories with his family, watching Matthew “win swim meets in the Ivy League,” taking walks with Susan and their two black labs, reading, attending community events, and perhaps enrolling in a few courses at the U-M. He will continue to see patients in the clinic, mentor faculty and teach residents and students. He is also developing a simulation model he has created in collaboration with researchers in biomedical engineering. This model will allow residents and faculty to practice and improve their skills joining the remaining esophagus and stomach together in the neck after removal of the rest of the esophagus. Orringer plans to test and refine the model with colleagues in thoracic surgery, and he hopes to see it incorporated into residency education nationally within the next year.
“I don’t see life being devoid of medicine,” Orringer says. “The operating room is what I’ll miss the most, but I will still love what I do. Looking back, I wouldn’t have spent my time on earth any other way. I would do it all again in a flash.”
