Decades ago, surgeons and nurses came home after every long day in the operating room with headaches. Part of the territory, like sore feet, they assumed. Then, in the 1970s, Stanford physician Ellis Cohen did studies that found that serious occupational risk—notably increased risk of miscarriage—resulted from breathing traces of anesthesia present in the room during surgery. Operating rooms soon were redesigned to include "scavenging systems" to capture the gases and better ventilate the workplaces.
Cohen, an emeritus professor of anesthesia, died June 8 in Calabasas, Calif. He was 91.
Born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1919, Cohen was the son of a rabbi and remained active in Judaism throughout his life. He graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1941 and received his medical degree there in 1943. He entered the U.S. Army Medical Corps and headed for the South Pacific, where he won a Bronze Star, a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts.
Cohen worked as director of the department of anesthesiology at a hospital in Minnesota before he moved to Stanford in 1960. He published more than 100 papers looking at how anesthesia gases are metabolized in the body.
In a Stanford news release about the risk to personnel in operating rooms, Cohen said, "Total elimination of all waste anesthetic gas is the goal, and should be attainable." Stanford acted fast and became the first hospital to install systems to collect and remove errant anesthetic gas.
"He was always calm, always knowledgeable, always expected he needed to do his best," says Jay Brodsky, a professor of anesthesia who shared an office with Cohen for many years. Cohen, he adds, was the doctor his colleagues chose to provide anesthesia for them and their family members when they needed surgery.
Cohen retired in 1984 and moved to a farm near Morro Bay, Calif., where he and a cousin grew avocados. He spent a decade caring for his wife, Sylvia, who had Alzheimer's disease and died in 2008.
He is survived by his three children, Susan Rodriguez, '70, Karen Fiester, '72, and Mark Cohen, '79; four grandsons; a step-granddaughter; and his sister Miriam Miller.
—Christine Foster
