A. EARL WALKER, M.D., earned his medical degree in 1930 from the University of Alberta, completed his internship at Toronto Western Hospital and his residency in neurology/neurosurgery at the University of Chicago. One year after moving to the University of Iowa in 1934 to become an instructor in neurological surgery, he was selected as a Rockefeller Fellow and studied at Yale University, Amsterdam, and Brussels.
Dr. Walker returned to the University of Chicago in 1937 as an instructor in neurological surgery and was promoted to professor during his ten-year stay. From 1945-1946, he was appointed as a major in the Medical Corps of the United States Army and held the position of chief of neurological section at Cushing General Hospital in Massachusetts.
Dr. Walker came to Johns Hopkins in 1947 where he was both neurological surgeon-in-charge and professor of neurological surgery. He established the first neurosurgery residency program and emphasized research training during residency. It was his vision of the academic neurosurgeon as a researcher that kept neurosurgery within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) programs. Dr. Walker remained at Johns Hopkins until 1972 when he moved to the University of New Mexico as a research and teaching professor in the departments of neurology and surgery.
Dr. Walker’s contributions in research, teaching, and patient care had a tremendous influence on the field of neurosurgery.
