Ronald Elmer Batt, MD, PHD

Ronald Elmer Batt, MD, PHD is Professor of Gynecology at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. He earned a BS in Natural Sciences from Niagara University and his MD from the University of Buffalo. After completing eight years of post-doctoral training, he became a Diplomate of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology and a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (Canada). He earned his MA and PhD in history from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Dr. Batt was recruited to the full-time faculty of the University at Buffalo in 1993.

A recipient of the 2004 ACOG-Ortho/McNeil Fellowship in the History of American Obstetrics and Gynecology, Dr. Batt served as co-chair of the Sesquicentennial Committee of the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, 1846-1996. In 2011, he published A History of Endometriosis, London: Springer- Verlag, the first scholarly history of endometriosis in 150 years.

For nearly 30 years, Dr. Batt focused his private practice on endometriosis-associated infertility and conservative surgery for endometriosis in the infertile couple. During these years, he studied pelvic peritoneal pockets. In 1985, he observed bilateral peritoneal pockets with endometriotic brim nodules and postulated they were congenital endometriosis. Dr. Batt presented lectures at international meetings based on this research, which included, “Congenital and Acquired Endometriosis,” “Congenital Endometriosis,” and “Müllerianosis.” 

Following years of research, Dr. Batt and colleagues published the theory of Müllerianosis in 2007. In 2009, guided by Müllerianosis theory, Signorile et al. discovered endometriosis and adenomyosis in human female fetuses between 15 and 25 weeks gestation, and published, “Ectopic endometrium in human fetuses is a common event and sustains the theory of müllerianosis in the pathogenesis of endometriosis, a disease that predisposes to cancer”. In 2013, Drs. Batt and Yeh published “Müllerianosis: Four Developmental (Embryonic) Müllerian Diseases.”