Hospital for Special Surgery cuts the ribbon on its new orthopedics center in Westport today.
They’ve come a long way since their days as the Hospital of the New York Society for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled.
The Orthopedics outpatient center at 276 Post Road West is the second HSS and Stamford Health collaboration in Westport. HSS Sports Rehabilitation opened in 2022 at the other end of town, on Post Road East in the small plaza near Layla’s Falafel.
HSS Orthopedics with Stamford Health, at 276 Post Road West.
But the local connection goes back to those early “Ruptured and Crippled” days.
The third surgeon-in-chief of that hospital (renamed Hospital for Special Surgery in 1940) was Dr. William Bradley Coley. He served from 1925-33.
If the Westport native’s name sounds familiar, it should. The Coleytown neighborhood is named for his family.
A world expert on malignant tumors, Dr. Coley was born in 1862. While attending Yale University, he continued working on his father and grandfather’s farm.
Dr. William Coley
After completing Harvard Medical School in 2 years, Dr. Coley became an expert on malignant tumors, as well as hernia repair.
Besides his work at the Ruptured and Crippled Hospital, he served as chief surgeon at New York Cancer Hospital (now Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center), and taught at Cornell University Medical School.
Coley’s daughter, Dr. Helen Coley Nauts, continued his work on inoperable malignancies. She died in 2000, at 93.
Dr. Coley — and even his daughter — would be amazed at what the Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled has become.
The new Westport orthopedic facility, for example, features 7 provider offices, 12 exam rooms, and 2 X-ray suites.
Physicians and staff offer care in hand and upper extremities, joint replacement physiatry, spine, and sports medicine. Foot and ankle service will be added soon.
The center will also become the second HSS location in Connecticut to provide patients 12 years and older with quicker access to orthopedic care for sudden injuries and pain.
Since opening its doors earlier this month, the Orthopedics outpatient center has helped many Westporters with all kinds of issues.
Just don’t call them “ruptured and crippled.”
(The Westport HSS Orthopedics with Stamford Health outpatient center at 276 Post Road West is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information and to schedule an appointment, click here or call 203-391-2270.
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Dr. William Bradley Coley was my great uncle (my grandfather’s brother) and I knew he was a doctor, but I didn’t know that he worked at what we now know as the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS). His work was mostly in cancer research, injecting patients with heat-killed bacteria and he became known as the “father of immunotherapy”. I have several pictures of Dr. William Coley, but one of the main stumbling blocks in my family history research has been the inability to find a picture of his father (my great grandfather) Horace Coley. I have three old family photo albums, and his picture could be in one of those, but most of the pictures are not labeled. If anyone knows where I could find his picture, please let me know.
Here’s a related story from Old Westport: I’ve never been ruptured and I owe it all to Coach Saul Pollack who was not only my elementary school gym teacher at Kings Highway Elementary but was later my wrestling coach at Staples. When we started 5th grade, Coach Pollack announced that henceforth we would be required to wear athletic supporters or, as we called them “Jock” straps. When I asked him why this was necessary he said that it was to protect us from getting ruptured. When I asked him what a rupture was he said “just wear it.” That was in 1962. I had to wait 62 more years to finally find out what he meant thanks to Dan and 06880. I have never been ruptured because I respected Coach Pollack so much I made sure to always wear a supporter even when I wasn’t in school. Such is the value of a Westport education. I’ve gone on to raise a healthy, happy family with no ruptures. I came close to having a ruptured appendix but I got to Norwalk Hospital in time.