HOC - Senior Medical Director

Short Biography  William S. Maxfield,  M.D., F.A.C.N.M. Dr. Maxfield comes from a pioneering medical family. He was born in Waco, Texas and grew up in Dallas, Texas, receiving a BA in psychology from Southern Methodist University. He was the fourth member of his family to receive an M.D. degree from Baylor University College of Medicine, Houston, Texas.

His grandfather George Dallas Streeter M.D. was a graduate of Hannaman Medical School in Philadelphia, PA. Dr. Streeter practiced initially in Pennsylvania but later moved his practice to Waco, Texas. Dr. Maxfield’s father James R. Maxfield Sr. M.D., in 1903, had the first x-ray unit in Texas for his practice of family and industrial medicine in Grand Saline, Texas. This was only seven years after Roentgen discovered the x-ray. His brothers, James R. Maxfield Jr., M.D. and Jack G.S. Maxfield M.D., were pioneers in the fields of nuclear medicine, radiation oncology, and clinical hyperbaric medicine.

The Maxfield Clinic-Hospital in Dallas, Texas was one of the first institutions licensed by the Atomic Energy Commission to use radioactive isotopes in clinical medicine and research. In 1955,  the Maxfield Clinic-Hospital installed the third cobalt treatment unit in the USA. Dr. Maxfield and his brothers developed the techniques of treating bone metastasis with radioactive Phosphorus (P32) plus testosterone. They were also co-developers of the technique of implanting radioactive seeds encased in nylon tubes, a technique which is used increasingly today to treat various types of cancer. In 1978 a clinical hyperbaric oxygen therapy program was started at the Maxfield Clinic-Hospital.

Dr. Maxfield and his brothers were founders of the American College of Hyperbaric Medicine and the American Board of Hyperbaric Medicine. Previously they founded the American College of Nuclear Medicine and were charter members and co-founders of the Southwestern Chapter of the Society of Nuclear Medicine. After serving as President of the American College of Nuclear Medicine, Dr. Maxfield was elected a Fellow of the American College of Nuclear Medicine.

Dr. Maxfield started his medical career as a nuclear medicine technician at the Maxfield Clinic-Hospital in Dallas, Texas after completing training at the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies in 1948 (5^th year of the slow neutron). After graduating from Baylor University College of Medicine in 1954, he completed  his internship in San Francisco, California, at the Southern Pacific Clinical Hospital in 1955. Dr. Maxfield then returned to Dallas to work with his brothers and father at the Maxfield Clinic-Hospital. When he entered active duty with the US Navy in August 1956, he was assigned to the US Navy Hospital, Chelsea, Massachusetts to establish the hospital’s nuclear medicine laboratory because of his experience in nuclear medicine and radiology. He was then transferred to the US Navy Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland where he was chief of the Nuclear Medicine Section of the Department of Radiology and Instructor in Nuclear Medicine at the US Navy Medical School. While at Bethesda Navy Hospital, Dr. Maxfield was part of the USA delegation to the Second International Atoms for Peace Conference in Geneva, Switzerland. At the meeting, the Navy team demonstrated the production and utilization of short half-life radioactive isotopes

During his service with the navy, Dr. Maxfield worked on the development of many nuclear medicine procedures that are routine today, including more than 1,000 positron brain scans. As a member of the Plutonium Decontamination Team, Dr. Maxfield was introduced to hyperbaric chambers and the field of hyperbaric medicine.

Upon completion of his active duty with the U.S. Navy in 1959, he went to The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore Maryland, to finish his radiology residency. During the last year of his residency, he was a National Institute of Health Fellow in Cancer which included several months at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in radiological pathology. When his residency was completed, Dr. Maxfield joined the staff of The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Medical School as Instructor in the Radiation Therapy Section of the Department of Radiology. He then became Chief of the Radiation Therapy Section. Upon becoming board certified by the American Board of Radiology in December 1961 with a medallion in Nuclear Medicine, he was promoted to Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins.

In 1964 Dr. Maxfield moved to the Ochsner Clinic and Ochsner Foundation Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana where he was Chief of the Radiation Therapy Department and co-chairman of the Nuclear Medicine Laboratory. During his time at Ochsner he was also Clinical Professor in Radiology at Tulane University School of Medicine.

Dr. Maxfield returned to academic medicine in 1968 when he became Professor and Chairman of the Department of Radiology at Louisiana State School of Medicine in New Orleans. After four years in academic medicine, Dr. Maxfield moved to Tampa Bay, Florida where he has practiced radiation oncology, radiology, nuclear medicine, preventative medicine and hyperbaric medicine. When the American Board of Nuclear Medicine was established in the early 1970’s, the board determined that Dr. Maxfield was board eligible. He became board Certified in Nuclear Medicine in 1973.

Dr. Maxfield is the author of 38 scientific publications, 2 short publications, 12 abstracts,  9 scientific exhibits and a video tape. His 45 years of clinical practice and research including 19 years of clinical hyperbaric medicine provide him a broad base of knowledge. His interest in clinical hyperbaric medicine resurfaced in the mid-1970’s when he searched for assistance for his father-in-law who had developed speech and balance problems. When four top neurological centers could provide no specific diagnosis or treatment, he took his father-in-law to Dr. Richard Neubauer’s center in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Florida, for hyperbaric oxygen treatment. The HBOT gave his father-in-law more than four years of independent life.

In ensuing years, Dr. Maxfield has had an ongoing relationship with Dr. Neubauer and has a special interest in the use of HBOT for central nervous system disease.  Dr. Maxfield is a member of a task force that has developed an international protocol for use of HBOT in acute stroke. He also initiated the use of HBOT for ataxia-telangectasia. Recently, Dr. Maxfield was also a member of the ethics task force in hyperbaric medicine.

For complete CV of Dr Maxfield, please click here for acrobat version. MAXFIELD CV