About The Author
Dr. Ira Williams
Author, Consultant, and Speaker
Surgical Career
Board certified oral & maxillofacial surgeon and anesthesiologist, state society president, 2 years, hospital department chairman and medical staff executive committee member 2 two-year terms. Experienced surgical malpractice expert witness. 1970 I organized the first 1-week major-surgical mini-residency in the nation, and surgeons from five states participated in advanced surgical procedures for the correction of jaw deformities. Soon after this form of post-graduate training for practicing surgeons was rapidly adopted by several surgical training programs across the nation including Parkland Hospital, Dallas, TX, and was the first major surgical mini-residency of any surgical specialty. 2003 in an American College of Ob/Gyn article in the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Safety, the author lamented, “if we only had mini-residencies”. I included that article, and highlighted that author’s lament in my 2004 book, First, Do No Harm. Mini-residencies became the most active tool in advancing the opportunity for practicing oral surgeons to broaden their personal scope of practice in order to begin to better serve patients with the newly developing methods for the surgical correction of jaw deformities, and I take pride in knowing that I, and I alone, organized the first such opportunity for advancement in Madison WI in 1970, and that those surgeons who joined in participating in that new adventure felt they had been richly rewarded. I retain all of the documents of that great adventure.
Military Career
US Air Force Reserve retired major – senior navigator and private pilot. Wing Headquarters Squadron Commander & Summary Court Martial Officer 1956-57, South Korea/Japan 1954-55, and upon our return we began flying at 50,000 feet in the precursor of the U-2. I was activated out of my Internship with my Reserve unit for the Cuban Crisis 1962, and recipient of the Presidential Unit Citation for that brief activation. I became combat-ready in 3 different types of combat aircraft during my 13 years on flight status. I retained all of my original orders, beginning with my enlistment into a USAF Reserve Unit in Memphis TN four days after my 18th birthday in 1951, and ending with my reaching retirement status after 24 years in 1976. All of my original orders are now in the Library of Congress/Veterans interviews.
