Head of Surgeons Group Resigns Over Article Viewed as Offensive to Women

In a statement sent by e-mail to The New York Times, the surgeon, Dr. Lazar Greenfield, said his many apologies had been ignored. “Therefore, rather than have this remain a disruptive issue, I resigned as president-elect,” he said. “I only hope that those who choose to judge me will read the article in the spirit in which it was intended.”

Dr. Greenfield, 78, was the editor in chief of Surgery News when the editorial was published but resigned that position in the wake of the controversy; the entire issue of the newspaper was withdrawn. He is an emeritus professor of surgery at the University of Michigan School of Medicine.

The editorial cited research that found that female college students who had had unprotected sex were less depressed than those whose partners used condoms. It speculated that compounds in semen have antidepressant effects.

“So there’s a deeper bond between men and women than St. Valentine would have suspected, and now we know there’s a better gift for that day than chocolates,” it concluded.

The editorial outraged many women in the field, some of whom said that it reflected a macho culture in surgery that needed to change.

Dr. Barbara Bass, chairwoman of the department of surgery at Methodist Hospital in Houston and a former regent of the surgery group, the largest professional association for surgeons, said in a telephone interview Sunday that she was glad Dr. Greenfield had resigned, despite his long history of supporting women in the profession.

“Some things you can’t recover from if you’re in a leadership role,” Dr. Bass said.

She said the resignation demonstrated that the surgery association’s leadership “does understand the continued challenges women face as they join and mature in the surgical profession.”

Others said the resignation would not end the controversy.

Dr. Colleen Brophy, a professor of surgery at Vanderbilt University, submitted a letter of resignation from the surgery association during the controversy and said Sunday that she had no intention of reversing herself now that Dr. Greenfield has resigned.

“The editorial was just a symptom of a much larger problem,” Dr. Brophy said. “The way the college is set up right now is for the sake of the leadership instead of patients.”

Dr. David B. Hoyt, executive director of the American College of Surgery, said in an e-mail on Sunday that the college would have an official statement regarding Dr. Greenfield on Monday. On Thursday, Dr. Hoyt sent a statement to The Times that the college’s board of regents “is aware of the issue and has taken the matter under advisement.” On Friday, the college put a comment on The Times’s Web site stating that it “deeply regrets the offense taken to Dr. Greenfield’s editorial about Valentine’s Day.”

Dr. Marie L. Crandall, an associate professor of surgery at Northwestern University, said women were advancing slowly in the field of surgery. “It’s better than it was 20 or even 10 years ago,” she said, adding, “I think we’re making progress.”