Hans Kraus - Career

Career

Kraus attended medical school in Vienna in the 1920s, against his fathers' wishes, becoming an orthopedic surgeon. Through his subsequent practice he developed a philosophy of treatment at odds with traditional medicine of the time. He would evolve this method, called "immediate mobilization", over his entire medical career. Passing his medical exams in New York, Kraus continued developing unique methods of fracture treatment, applying them to all kinds of athletes. He become especially well known in the skiing circles.

In the 1950s, Kraus was behind a push by the Appalachian Mountain Club to regulate climbing in the Shawangunks, and to install a safety code to prevent climbing accidents. This safety code led to conflicts with Lester Germer and The Vulgarians, and was later abandoned.

Kraus warned Americans that children were not getting enough exercise and were watching too much television. Along with Bonnie Prudden, he campaigned for better physical exercise programs for children, and authored several books on exercise, sports medicine, and physical therapy. Eisenhower championed Kraus and his campaign to get Americans to exercise. However, by 1957, it was clear that Kraus was unsuccessful. Kraus was broadly opposed by the AMA and gym teachers (who felt Kraus was disparaging to their leadership) and many Americans, as Sports Illustrated reported in 1957, who worried that mandatory exercise programs for children would "Hitlerize American youth."

Kraus also continued to develop a unique approach to treating back pain in collaboration with another doctor, Sonja Weber. They developed an understanding of the underlying causes of back pain and devised the K-W Test and exercises to alleviate it.

Kraus was an Associate Professor at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center College of Medicine. His studies on children led to President Dwight D. Eisenhower establishing the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. In October 1961, Kraus became President Kennedy’s secret White House back doctor. The story of Kennedy’s back had never prior been reported, although there was much speculation; but Kraus and Kennedy’s two other White House doctors had sworn confidentiality. In April 2006, over ten years after Kraus’s death, Kraus’s widow donated Kraus’s White House medical records on Kennedy to the Kennedy Library. They are now available to historians as well as the general public. Additionally, some of author Susan E.B. Schwartz’s book interview tapes of Hans Kraus are also archived in the Kennedy Library and available for research.

Kraus’s medical records show that by the time of Kennedy’s death in Dallas, using exercise, Kraus had virtually cured Kennedy of his lifelong back pain. Kraus’s White House medical records also contain several entries about Kennedy’s back corset, which Kennedy had worn since Harvard. As Kraus wrote in the medical records, Kraus had grown convinced that the corset was impeding Kennedy’s recovery and that Kennedy needed permanently to stop wearing it. Finally, in October 1963, Kennedy told Kraus that he would stop wearing his corset permanently in January 1964. Several leading presidential historians, including James Reston and Robert Dallek, have theorized that Kennedy might have survived Dallas if he had not been wearing his corset.

He has also treated other celebrities, including Arthur Godfrey and Katharine Hepburn.

Kraus maintained a multi-tiered, elastic billing system; for climbers and people he knew personally, or anyone who he thought would have trouble paying, he charged nothing; he charged partial payment for middle class patients, and regular rates for wealthy patients and celebrities.