DR. John H. Moe Exhibit

The youngest of six children, John Howard Moe was born on August 14, 1905, on a farm located a short distance from the town of Grafton, North Dakota. The child of Norwegian immigrants, his first exposure to English was the single room schoolhouse that he entered at the age of six. One of his sisters was his teacher, and most of his classmates were his cousins. He attended the country school until the eighth grade when he transferred to the public school in Grafton. [2]

IN 1923, UNIMPRESSED WITH FARMING, AND URGED BY HIS MOTHER AND SISTER WHO WAS A NURSE, HE ENTERED THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA AT GRAND FORKS with no particular plan, goal, or career in mind. Reflecting on his education, he later wrote, “I am not certain why, but in my second year as a university student, I decided to take the remaining necessary requirements for what was known as ‘pre-medicine.’” [3]

IN 1927, HE GRADUATED FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA WITH A BACHELOR OF SCIENCE DEGREE. That same year, he entered medical school at Northwestern University in Chicago, where he then received his bachelor of medicine degree in 1929 and his doctor of medicine degree in 1930, after completing an internship and orthopaedic residency at the Illinois Research and Educational Hospital. [3–4] Dr. Moe later recollected, “Upon finishing my internship, I was in a quandary as to what to do…my roommate, Dr. Claude N. Lambert, who was in his final year of general surgery residency there, wanted to change into orthopaedic surgery under Dr. Henry Bascom Thomas, chief and head of orthopaedic surgery at the University of Illinois. He persuaded Dr. Thomas to let me fill in several months in order to hold the place open for him when he returned; it is this position as personal assistant to Dr. Thomas which led me into the field of orthopaedic surgery.” [3]

In 1931, Dr. Moe traveled to Minnesota for further orthopaedic training in residence at the Gillette State Hospital for Crippled Children in St. Paul (the Minnesota State Legislature later changed the name to Gillette Children’s Hospital in 1971). In 1934, he was named clinical assistant professor in the Division of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Minnesota and carried staff appointments at Gillette and Fairview Hospitals. In 1936, Dr. Moe was made head of orthopaedics at Minneapolis General Hospital (now Hennepin County Medical Center). In 1957, he was appointed as clinical professor and director of the Division of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Minnesota (under his leadership, the division received departmental status in 1964), and the following year as chief of staff at Gillette. [2]