David Kline Fund
Fund Purpose: To be used for education and clinical, or basic, science research of peripheral nerves.
David Kline, MD, FAANS(L), was born in Philadelphia in 1934, the son of the late Lois Gellinger and David Kline. He received an AB from the University of Pennsylvania in 1956 and an MD in 1960. After a surgical internship and a year of general surgery at the University of Michigan, he spent two and a half years at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and Walter Reed General Hospital where, with the help of George Hayes, Ludwig Kempe, Wallie Nauta, David Rioch and Bob Hardaway, he began a peripheral nerve injury research laboratory. He then returned to Michigan to complete his training in neurosurgery under Edgar Kahn and Richard Schneider and to work in Elizabeth Crosby’s laboratory.
He was recruited in 1967 to come to Louisiana State University (LSU) School of Medicine to help begin a training program in neurosurgery. Dr. Kline became head of the division of neurosurgery in 1971, professor of surgery in 1975 and chairman of the department of neurosurgery in 1976.
In 1995, the University named him a Boyd professor, one of nine in the LSU Medical Center. He works mainly at Charity (now Medical Center of Louisiana at New Orleans), Ochsner and Touro Hospitals. The program has trained 35 neurosurgeons.
He has served in various capacities in numerous organizations including: secretary and president of the New Orleans Neurological Society; founder, secretary and president of the Louisiana State Neurosurgical Society; and secretary and president of the Southern Neurosurgical Society. He was secretary of the ABNS for five years and then its chairman; he helped to organize the 50th anniversary celebration of the Board with Dr. Steve Mahaley and worked for six and a half years on the Neurosurgery Residency Review Committee. In addition to terms as scientific and meeting chairman as well as on the Executive Committees of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS). In 2005, he received the Cushing Medal from the AANS and in 2008 the Founder’s Laurel from the CNS.
His research and clinical interests remain focused on nerve injuries and peripheral nerve tumors. Early clinical work included Dr. Frank E. Nulsen of Cleveland and in the last 30 years both clinical and laboratory work with Dr. Alan R. Hudson of Toronto. As a founding member of the Sunderland Society, an international group devoted to research, Dr. Kline served as its president in 1983. Sixty-five fellows from this and other countries and from other disciplines, as well as neurosurgery, have spent time at LSU as fellows working in the area of nerve. He is a corresponding or honorary member of the American Association of Hand Surgery, the Canadian Neurosurgical Society and the German Neurosurgical Society.
Dr. Kline is the author of 300 articles and chapters and three books with Dr. Hudson as co-author and is presently serving on the editorial board of Neurosurgery. He is married to the former Helen Colt Levey of New Orleans, who was a preschool teacher. He has three children from a former marriage, Susan, Robert and Nancy.
He and Nell are now retired and living in the middle of the Pisgah Forest below Blowing Rock, N.C.
To view a list of all donors to this fund, click here.
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