Robert H. Hux, M.D. Professorship of Surgery

Robert Hux and his plane pictured above an aerial shot of the UF campus

The Robert H. Hux M.D. Foundation established this fund in 1997 to support a professorship in the Department of Surgery in the College of Medicine. Robert Hux earned his bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary and his medical degree from the Medical College of Virginia. He was a recovery surgeon for NASA’s Project Mercury from 1959 to 1963 and was aboard awaiting Navy destroyers during the splashdowns of astronauts John Glenn and Alan Shepard. He left the U.S. Navy Medical Corps in 1963 as a lieutenant commander.

Hux had a private surgical practice, which he created in 1963, and also held top offices of the Florida Association of Surgeon Generals and the International College of Surgeons. He was an avid pilot who owned a six-seater plane and flew up to the University of Florida each Thursday to teach and perform surgery with his residents. He was also a huge Gator fan and flew up to the games. Hux had three children from his first marriage and he and his wife, Patricia, have two daughters and one son. He passed away from leukemia in 2003 at age 71.