Jonathan E. Rhoads graduated from Haverford College, Phi Beta Kappa, and was a track star, excelling in the pole-vault, an event in which he was undefeated in intercollegiate competition. He went on to Johns Hopkins Medical School and completed his surgical training at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (1934-39).
During Dr. Rhoads' surgical training (1934-39), Eldridge Eliason was the official department chairman but his mentor was another senior faculty member, I.S. Ravdin. Ravdin was head of the Harrison Department of Surgical Research and in addition had an independent clinical service with its own separate staff of residents one of which was Rhoads.
During World War II when Ravdin left HUP to command the 20th General Hospital in India he left Rhoads in charge of his large service with only a skeleton crew of residents (including C. Everett Koop) to help him. After the war I.S. Ravdin returned to HUP, as Department Chairman. Rhoads settled into a role as second in command. This gave him the opportunity to focus on research and also to serve as Provost of the University of Pennsylvania until in 1959 he succeeded Ravdin as Chairman.
From 1959-1972, Rhoads served as John Rhea Barton Professor and Chairman. In addition to departmental administration and his busy clinical practice, he was almost simultaneously President of the American College of Surgeons, President of the American Surgical Association, President of the American Cancer Society, Chairman of the Board of Managers of Haverford College, a member of the Residency Review Committee, the American Board of Surgery, the National Research Council and the Philadelphia School Board. In addition, he was the editor of the Annals of Surgery and co-author of the most widely read standard surgical textbook.
Rhoads' bibliography from its first entry in 1935 to the last of his nearly 400 papers written in 2001 virtually charts the evolution of modern surgery. His most important contributions were in the fields of nutrition and cancer. He wrote on pancreatic, gastric, colon and breast cancer and on a tumor marker for liver cancer. He was a pioneer in the study of coagulation and the use of vitamin K and Coumadin. During his early career he was a recognized expert on shock and burns. He was one of the first to use the sulfas for burns and peritonitis. Streptomycin became available just at the time he was diagnosed with advanced tuberculosis in 1946. Experience with damage to his own 8th nerve helped to define the toxicity of this drug. Although it cured his disease it unfortunately left his balance impaired, forcing him in his declining years to use a walker.