Robert L. Arnstein, M.D., of Hamden, Conn., whose career as a psychiatrist at Yale spanned almost 40 years, died on October 27 at the age of 84. For three decades, Arnstein was the chief psychiatrist at Yale University Health Services. Under his guidance, Yale became a national model for campus mental health programs. In 1971 he became a clinical professor of psychiatry at the School of Medicine. He retired in 1989.

Robert F. Bradley, M.D. ’43, former medical director and president of Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, died on October 12. He was 83. As president of Joslin from 1977 to 1987, he oversaw the center’s expansion and championed the use of oral agents for treating type 2 diabetes. A 1941 Yale College graduate, Bradley served in the Navy after graduating from the School of Medicine and trained at the Lahey Clinic, New England Deaconess Hospital and Joslin Clinic. He served as editor of Joslin’s Diabetes Mellitus and as an expert witness in the Claus von Bulow murder retrial in 1985.

Mary E. Ellis, M.P.H. ’48, of Decatur, Ga., died on September 27 at the age of 81. Ellis was a teacher at the McLendon Elementary School in DeKalb County, Georgia, for more than 20 years. She taught church school for more than 50 years and wrote a Christian education curriculum for the Presbyterian Church.

Knox H. Finley, M.D. ’30, of San Francisco, died on September 15 at the age of 99. After graduation from medical school Finley completed a fellowship in neurology at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Germany and was subsequently board-certified in neurology and psychiatry. He practiced medicine for 45 years at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco.

Julian Frieden, M.D. ’48, of White Plains, N.Y., a cardiologist associated with Montefiore and New Rochelle hospitals, died on September 29 of Parkinson’s disease. He was 78. Frieden published pioneering articles on peritoneal dialysis, the measurement of intracardiac pressure, the use of lidocaine to stabilize heart rhythm and the role of salt in hypertension.

Nancy G. Hildreth, M.P.H. ’78, M.Phil. ’79, Ph.D. ’81, of Rochester, N.Y., died on September 30 after an eight-year battle with amyloidosis. She was 54. Hildreth was an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Rochester.

Barry M. Kacinski, M.D. ’80, Ph.D. ’81, HS ’83, a professor in the departments of therapeutic radiology, dermatology, and obstetrics and gynecology, died on November 20 following a heart attack. He was 50. Kacinski led groundbreaking research to define the effects of growth factors and oncogenes in the development of malignancies. He had an international reputation for his contributions to the field of DNA repair and to the understanding of dermatologic and gynecologic malignancies.

Lawrence K. Pickett Sr., M.D. ’44, of Ithaca, N.Y., died on November 15 at the age of 84. Pickett was the first pediatric surgeon in the Syracuse area, where he practiced from 1950 to 1964. In 1964 he came to Yale-New Haven Hospital to establish a pediatric surgical department. At Yale he was named the William H. Carmalt Professor of Clinical Surgery and Pediatrics. He also served as associate dean of clinical affairs and chief of staff of the hospital. He retired in 1983.

Fredrick C. Redlich, M.D., former dean of the School of Medicine and a founding figure in the field of social psychiatry, died on January 1 of congestive heart failure. He was 93.

Redlich, who was born in Vienna, came to Yale in 1942 for the start of a career that lasted more than 30 years. He served 17 years as chair of the Department of Psychiatry and five years as dean of the medical school. While chair of psychiatry he was credited with transforming a foundering department into one that promoted psychiatry based on a mix of basic research, clinical work and behavioral science. As one of the earliest practitioners of social psychiatry, he studied links between mental illness and social milieu. He was co-author of nearly 100 scientific papers and six books, including one he called a “pathography” of Hitler’s mental state.

Robert H. Stevens, M.D. ’36, died on November 30 at Yale-New Haven Hospital. He was 96. During World War II Stevens served in the Army, in France and Germany, as a neurosurgeon. He practiced neurosurgery in Utica, N.Y., for 50 years.

Max Taffel, M.D. ’31, of Barre, Vt., died on September 19 at Yale-New Haven Hospital. He was 94. Taffel, a neurosurgeon, was on the Yale-New Haven Hospital staff for 46 years. During the Iwo Jima and Okinawa campaigns in World War II he was the only neurosurgeon on the island of Saipan, where he earned a Bronze Star Medal. His goals were to be “an honest surgeon and devoted father, to instill the love of learning into the hearts and minds of young people … and to do harm to no one.”

Joseph B. Warshaw, M.D., former deputy dean for clinical affairs and chair of pediatrics at the School of Medicine, died on December 29 from multiple myeloma. Warshaw was 67 and “an expert on fetal growth and neonatal medical care who advanced the understanding of the way organs mature in normal and diabetic pregnancies,” according to his obituary in The New York Times. For the past three years Warshaw had served as dean of the University of Vermont College of Medicine. Among his accomplishments there was the launching of an M.D./Ph.D. program. Warshaw was honored last March at the School of Medicine at the second “Joseph B. Warshaw Symposium on Developmental Biology.”


Send obituary notices to Claire M. Bessinger, Yale Medicine Publications, P.O. Box 7612, New Haven, CT 06519-0612, or via e-mail to claire.bessinger@yale.edu