Roger Brooke

Brigadier General Roger Brooke, M.D. (b. June 14, 1878, Sandy Springs, Maryland) was a surgeon and U.S. Army medical corps officer. Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas is named for him.

Biography

Brooke attended George School in Newton, Pennsylvania, and later entered the University of Maryland Medical School in Baltimore, where he graduated in 1900.

Brooke joined the Medical Corps, United States Army, June 29, 1901, as a First Lieutenant. After graduating from the Army Medical School in 1902, he was assigned to the Philippine Islands for a tour of duty.

Other tours of duty included Fort Bayard, New Mexico, Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and Attending Surgeon in Washington, D.C. He spent the period of the World War in instruction work, serving from September 1917 to December 1918, first as Senior Instructor and later as Commanding Officer of the Medical Officers' Training Camp, Camp Greenleaf, Georgia, where 10,000 officers and 70,000 enlisted men were prepared for service with the armed forces. For this he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal.

In 1929, BG Roger Brooke assumed command of the Station Hospital, Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas, a position he held until 1933. He is credited with instituting the first routine chest X-ray in military medicine. He was appointed brigadier general on January 29, 1938.

In 1942, the Station Hospital was renamed Brooke General Hospital in Brooke's honor.