J.M.T. Finney, Sr.

Artist: Isabella Hunner Parsons; Oil on canvas

John Miller Turpin Finney was born June 20, 1863, in Natchez, Mississippi during the Civil War. When he finished high school, he attended Princeton University. In 1884, he entered Harvard Medical School, which should have taken three years to graduation. Finney missed most of one year with typhoid fever, so it took him four years to graduate.

In 1889, after Finney had finished his rotations at the Massachusetts General Hospital, he came to Baltimore to start working in the Johns Hopkins Hospital’s Dispensary. He did not have admitting privileges, so started a private practice. During his early days, when he often operated in patients’ homes, he put together a trunk with all the supplies needed for home surgery. He married a Johns Hopkins Hospital nurse, Mary E. Gross, and they had four children, three boys and one girl—two of his sons went on to become surgeons.

In May of 1913, during an organizational meeting of the American College of Surgeons in Washington DC, he was elected the first president of the American College of Surgeons. He operated principally at the Union Protestant Infirmary (later Union Memorial Hospital). The hospital had been founded in 1854 and one of the early trustees was Mr. Johns Hopkins. Dr. Finney was the driving force behind the growth of the hospital and he was chiefly responsible for its excellent reputation.

In 1898, Finney joined the National Guard. In 1917, when America joined the World War I effort, he was placed in charge of the Johns Hopkins Hospital Unit, which was sent to France with the American Expeditionary Force. His unit included 32 Johns Hopkins University medical students, one of whom was his son. Finney was one of the Hopkins physicians who was with Revere Osler when he died at the Battle of Passchendaele. 

Because of his proximity to the White House and reputation as an outstanding clinician, Finney was often called to Washington to examine members of the White House staff who were ill. He remained on the staff of Union Memorial Hospital until his death in 1942.