George F. Shiels

George Franklin Shiels was an American surgeon, born in San Francisco in 1863 and died in 1943, who served as an army surgeon and received the Medal of Honor for his conduct in the Philippine-American War. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, joined the United States Army volunteer medical corps in 1898 and on 25 March 1899 went forward under fire to rescue two wounded Filipinos, carrying one to safety. In the First World War he was recommissioned as a major and served with the 369th Infantry Regiment in France, earning the Silver Star and the French Croix de Guerre for caring for the wounded under shellfire. Between the wars he was professor of clinical surgery at Fordham University and at the University of California in San Francisco, wrote widely in medical journals and testified as a medical expert in two well known trials.