Virginia Kneeland Frantz

Virginia Kneeland Frantz (November 13, 1896 – August 23, 1967) was a pathologist and educator credited with a series of discoveries in the study of thyroid, breast and pancreatic tumors.

She was born in New York City, the daughter of Yale and Anna Ilsley Ball Kneeland.^[1] Frantz graduated from the Brearley School (1914) and Bryn Mawr College (1918). She then pursued medical studies at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, graduating in 1922.^[2][3] In 1920, she married fellow student Angus Macdonald Frantz. They had three children.^[1]

In 1922, New York Presbyterian Hospital, she became the first woman surgery intern. From 1924 to 1962 she taught surgery at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, becoming a full professor in 1951. In 1935, she and Allen O. Whipple described the insulin secretion of pancreatic tumors. In 1959, she wrote a study on tumors of the pancreas which became the standard text in the field^[4] In 1961 she became the first female president of the American Thyroid Association.

• Army-Navy Certificate of Appreciation for Civilian Service, 1948
• Janeway Medal, 1962
• Columbia University, Bicentennial Silver Medal, 1967
• Student of Arthur Purdy Stout, noted alumnae of Brearley School, Columbia named award after her and presented to Rita Charon
• Virginia Kneeland Frantz Society

• Franz, V. K., Forsythe, R., Hanford, J. M., & Rogers, W. M. (1942). Lateral aberrant thyroid. Ann. Surg, 115, 161–183.
• Franz, M.D., Virginia Kneeland & Harvey, M.D., Harold Doric. (1946). Introduction to Surgery. New York and London: Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press.
• Franz, V. (1959). Papillary tumors of the pancreas: benign or malignant. Frantz VK. Atlas of tumor pathology. Washington DC: US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, 32–3.

• Biography