Harold E. Kleinert

Harold E. Kleinert (1921 to 2013) was an American hand surgeon born near Sunburst, Montana. He graduated from Temple University Medical School in 1946 and completed his postgraduate training at Grace Hospital in Detroit, Michigan. As one of the hand surgeons at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, he and fellow surgeon Mort Kasdan performed the first revascularization of a partial digital amputation on November 12, 1962. Kleinert founded the University of Louisville Hand Clinic in 1953 for comprehensive care of hand patients, and the Christine M. Kleinert Fellowship in Hand Surgery, established in 1960, grew into the largest training program for hand surgeons in the United States. He was President of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand in 1976, received the American Medical Association Scientific Achievement Award in 1980, and wrote more than 200 scientific publications.