John U. Bascom

John U. Bascom was an American surgeon and researcher who changed the understanding and treatment of pilonidal disease. Born in Richmond, Virginia, on 6 June 1925, the son of an anatomist who taught at the Medical College of Virginia, he served in the Pacific with the Merchant Marine, studied physics and biological science at Kansas State University, and graduated from Northwestern University School of Medicine in 1953. After an internship at Cook County Hospital and a surgical fellowship in Minneapolis, he earned a doctorate in surgery at the University of Minnesota in 1960. He then moved to Eugene, Oregon, where he proposed that the condition often called Jeep seat arises from infected hair follicles rather than congenital skin pits, and he refined less invasive operations, including the procedure known as the Bascom cleft lift. He also chaired the Oregon Board of Medical Examiners. He died in Eugene on 22 March 2013.