Dr. Michael J. Attkiss
Following graduation from Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan as class valedictorian, Dr. Attkiss attended Harvard College. At Harvard he was awarded the Harvard Detur Prize for Scholarship each year and was chosen as a Junior-Elect to the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and was awarded the Palfrey Exhibition Award for being "the most distinguished scholar in the senior class."
Dr. Attkiss went on to receive his medical school education at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He graduated second in his class and was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society.
Following medical school, his formal surgical training began with an internship in surgery at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (along with Massachusetts General Hospital) is the core and major teaching facility of the Harvard Medical School. Acceptance into this surgical training program at this world-famous hospital center was a major personal event. More than 2,000 applicants from all over the United States graduating at the top of their respective medical school classes competed for the honor of being chosen to fill only six available positions.
Following a year of internship, Dr. Attkiss was awarded the Elizabeth and Arthur Brooks Surgical Fellowship at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and went on to complete six more years of surgical training. This consisted of general surgical residency and vascular surgery fellowship at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and finally at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
After this extensive surgical training, Dr. Attkiss served for two years as a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy at Chelsea Naval Hospital in Boston. This was the major Naval teaching and referral hospital center in the Northeast. Dr. Attkiss functioned as an Attending on the teaching faculty and was Director of the Division of Vascular Surgery.
Dr. Attkiss began his surgical practice on Long Island in 1974. He had completed the process of board certification in surgery in 1972 and became a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons in 1976. For the past 15 years he has been on the attending surgical staffs of North Shore University Hospital, Long Island Jewish Medical Center, Queens Hospital Medical Center and Saint Francis Hospital. He has three medical school faculty appointments as Clinical Professor of Surgery at the State of New York Health Sciences campus at Stony Brook, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Cornell University Medical College.
