Walter J. Pories, MD

1930 -

Walter J. Pories, MD
Walter J. Pories, MD. Image Source: ECU Department of Surgery

Any of Dr. Walter J. Pories’ achievements – his recognition of the metabolic benefits of zinc for animals and humans, his leadership as founding-chair of the ECU School of Medicine’s Department of Surgery, or his discovery that bariatric surgery provides long-term control if not a cure for adult-onset (type 2) diabetes – would secure his recognition as one of ECU’s most important physician-scholars. When his medical contributions are combined with his willingness to share with local audiences his personal memories of the genocidal horrors of the Holocaust, Pories, himself a survivor, emerges as a most remarkable faculty and community leader. And when his 12 years as an officer in the U.S. Air Force Medical Corps and an additional 12 in the Army Reserves Medical Corps are factored in, Pories merits recognition as a superlative exemplar of East Carolina’s ethic of service. At age 92, Pories, though a retired practicing surgeon, continues to serve the university as professor of surgery, biochemistry, and kinesiology and director of the ECU-based Metabolic Surgery Research Group pursuing the identification of the molecule that causes type 2 diabetes. Not only does he stand as the oldest active faculty on campus, but his distinguished, multifaceted career remains without parallel in ECU history. And it must be added that Pories is a prolific, well-published cartoonist, one who typically parodies the foibles of physicians, their patients, researchers, religion, and even the human predicament.

Pories was born in Munich in 1930 into a middle-class, mixed Jewish and Catholic family with grandparents who were rabbis, two aunts who were nuns, and a first cousin who is a priest. He was the second child and only son of Theodor (1897-1989) and Franziska Pories (1902-1996). His father was a decorated officer during WWI and then later a successful businessman, while his uncle and aunt, Josef and Johanna Seidl, were physicians serving a nearby Catholic monastery. With the Nazi rise to power in the 1930s, his family was classified simply as Jewish, forced to wear a gold star identifying them as such, and subjected to repeated discrimination and then later, persecution. As a result, Pories was sent to live with his aunt and uncle in the countryside outside Munich in the summers but still had to attend compulsory grade school in the Munich synagogue even after it was partly burned during Kristallnacht, or the “Night of Broken Glass,” an infamous, wholesale Nazi attack on German Jews in November 1938. Less than five months later, Pories, age nine, along with his mother and sister were seized by Hitler’s SS guards and transported to Dachau. Upon learning this, Pories’ father, who had been away on business, made a direct personal plea on their behalf to the deputy commander of Nazi headquarters in Munich, who, by good fortune, had served with him earlier during the years after WWI. As a result, the elder Pories was able to free his family and then lead their flight first to Lisbon and then to Rio de Janeiro before finally being allowed entry to the United States in November 1940. After navigating the immigration process at Ellis Island, the Pories family moved to Milwaukee for permanent residence.

There, Pories successfully assimilated himself to American life, attending Riverside High School where he was active in student life as a member of the swimming team, a cartoonist and features editor for a student publication, the Mercury Monthly, president of the Music Club, and a member of the Cue Club, the Orient Club, the Cavalier Club, and the National Honor Society. After graduating in 1948, he received a scholarship to attend Wesleyan College in Middletown, Connecticut, where he majored in art and minored in music. Despite his initial disinterest in pursuing medicine (there were already physicians in his family (now 13) and he, reportedly, “did not want to be one of them”), Pories, frustrated as a musician, decided after all to pursue medicine, something he felt he could do, at the University of Rochester, one of the few medical schools that did not require a major in science. He graduated with honors in 1955. The following year he began a residency in surgery and obstetrics at the University of Rochester’s Strong Memorial Hospital and then joined the U.S. Air Force Medical Corps, serving from 1957-1958 as chief of surgery and deputy commander at the Toul-Rosières 50th Tactical Air Command Hospital in France. During that time, he was a part-time fellow in head and neck cancer at the Centre du Cancer, Nancy-Université. In 1958, Captain Pories was awarded the Air Force Commendation Medal for his selfless efforts in establishing surgery and obstetrics services at the 50th TAC Hospital.

In 1958-1959, Pories worked as a research fellow in biochemistry with the Atomic Energy Commission’s Manhattan Project at the University of Rochester examining the thermal effects of the atomic bomb while concurrently doing a residency in general and cardio-thoracic surgery at Strong Memorial Hospital. In 1962, then Major Pories was named chief of surgery at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, a position he held until for five years. While there, he extended findings initiated as a medical student at Rochester, working under Dr. William H. Strain. In a study of wound healing, they observed that rats on one diet healed faster than on another, prompting them, after substantial detective work, to conclude that a zinc (Zn) impurity in the diet of the rapid-healing rats was the decisive factor. That led to the conclusion that zinc was an essential element for growth and healing, a discovery that became part of the “Green Revolution.” The rapid recognition of the role of this previously ignored element soon led to increasing feed efficiency by 20%, i.e., producing five pigs instead of four, bringing broilers to market in six vs. ten weeks, and accelerating first egg production by hens by 45 days. At Wright-Patterson, Pories – faced with Vietnam War casualties – further explored the role of zinc in wound healing and found that it indeed quickened recovery. He thus recommended zinc therapy for soldiers prior to combat to accelerate healing in the event of traumatic injury. Pories’ continued work on zinc brought wide professional notice, including an article in Time magazine explaining the discovery and its relevance for military and civilian patients.

In 1967, Pories stepped down from Air Force Medical Corps service, transitioning toward work as an academic surgeon, first as an assistant professor of surgery and oncology at the University of Rochester. Then, from 1969-1977, he worked as a professor and associate director in the Department of Surgery, Case Western Reserve University, and as chief of surgery at Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital and the Cuyahoga County Hospital System. While at the University of Rochester, he founded and directed the school’s cancer center, and later did the same at Case Western University.

In 1977, Pories accepted an offer to become founding chair of the newly established four-year ECU School of Medicine’s (later, Brody School of Medicine) Department of Surgery. The following year, at the prompting of the medical school dean, Dr. William Laupus (1922-2005), Pories resumed, in addition to his duties as chair of the Department of Surgery, military service, this time in the Army Reserves, first as surgeon and chief of surgery and then as commander of the 3247th U.S. Army Hospital in Durham. He also commanded an Army Reserve unit consisting of faculty from ECU, UNC, and Duke, and served as commander of Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Bragg during the Grenada and Panama operations in the 1980s. He continued work in the Army Reserves until his retirement in 2002. Among other honors and awards, Pories received a Presidential Citation for his unit’s exceptional service during the first Gulf War.

When Pories arrived at ECU, his focus was on oncology and cardiothoracic surgery with an addition of pediatric surgery due to the need for the latter. While he hoped to continue work on the role of trace elements such as zinc in human and animal nutrition, funding issues forced his move to obesity studies, an appropriate field given that eastern North Carolina had the highest prevalence of obesity in the country. Rather than simply perform bariatric surgery and be done with it, Pories and his team, building on the work of the founder of the field of bariatric surgery, Dr. Edward Mason (1920-2020), modified Mason’s procedure and named it the Greenville Gastric Bypass (aka, Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass), and then followed up on their patients closely, achieving a 95% follow up on 831 patients between 1980 and 1998. Expanding this approach, Pories helped establish the Centers for Excellence Program of certification for physicians, nursing staff, and hospitals engaging in bariatric surgery, leading to a major reduction in mortality for patients undergoing gastric bypass.

Although the author or coauthor of five books and hundreds of academic papers, Pories’ most famous piece is “Who Would Have Thought It? An Operation Proves to Be the Most Effective Therapy for Adult-Onset Diabetes Mellitus,” published in 1995 in the Annals of Surgery. One surgeon, Dr. Henry Buchwald, has called the article “a milestone in the entire history of surgical contributions to knowledge.” In modifying the Mason procedure, Pories’ intent had not been to discover a cure for diabetes but nevertheless he soon noticed that diabetic patients who underwent the modified gastric bypass procedure emerged apparently cured of diabetes. Initially there were doubters who thought it “frankly, bizarre” that intestinal surgery could cure type 2 diabetes, but as successive researchers produced data essentially duplicating that of Pories’ team, disbelief transformed into awe over the discovery.

In 2001, the University of North Carolina Board of Governors conferred its O. Max Gardner Award, its highest faculty honor, on Pories, recognizing his work on zinc, his development of a new bariatric surgery procedure, and his discovery of the relevance of the latter for treating adult-onset diabetes. Pories is also the recipient of the Goldwater Award in Nutrition, the John P. McGovern Complete Physician Award, the Distinguished Leader in Obesity Medicine Award, and the 2012-2013 ECU Lifetime Research Achievement Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Activity. He is past president of the North Carolina Chapter of the American College of Surgeons, the Society for Environmental Health and Geochemistry, the Association of Program Directors in Surgery, and the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, and editor-in-chief and/or associate editor of several professional journals. Although retired as a practicing surgeon, Pories remains an active research physician exploring the metabolic connections between a cluster of diseases once thought to be discrete and separate, seeking to uncover their biochemical roots so as to facilitate metabolic treatment rather than the surgical alternative.

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Related Materials

Watler J. Pories. Image Source: 1947 Riverside High School Yearbook. Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Watler J. Pories. Image Source: 1948 Riverside High School Yearbook. Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Walter J. Pories, MD. Image Source: Time Magazine, p. 103A. Photo by Bob Doty.

Theodor Pories, Walter J. Pories' father. Image Source: Theodor Pories' immigration card. Mr. Pories was issued this card in Munich, Germany in preparation for his entry into Brazil. The card was issued on March 14, 1939 and Mr. Pories arrived in Brazil on May 24, 1939. He was permitted to stay through November 24, 1939.

?Citation Information

Title: Walter J. Pories, MD

Author: John A. Tucker, PhD

Date of Publication: 1/19/2022

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