Yale Medicine Summer 2002: Alumni

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Notes

1950s

Louis R.M. Del Guercio, M.D. ’53, of Larchmont, N.Y., was appointed Emeritus Professor of Surgery at New York Medical College. Del Guercio retired at the end of 2000 after 25 years as professor and chair of surgery. He is also a retired colonel from the Army Reserve Medical Corps.

Donald P. Feeney, M.D., HS ’57, of LaGrange, Ill., has retired from the practice of urology and as assistant professor of urology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. Feeney is now assistant medical director at the Unicre Division of WellPoint Health Corporation in suburban Chicago.

2002-2003

Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine

Marcia Kraft Goin, M.D. ’58, clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, was elected president of the American Psychiatric Association in February. She will serve a one-year term as president-elect that began in May, followed by a one-year term as president starting in May 2003. As president, Goin will head the governing board of the organization and help guide policy and financial decision making. Her goals include decreasing the stigma associated with mental illness, increasing public education and research funding for mental health, getting businesses to offer greater mental health insurance benefits and improving government mental health services.

Harry O. Kendall, M.D. ’55, retired in 1995 after a long career as an internist and later as a pulmonologist. His wife, a registered nurse and operating room supervisor, has also retired. They are traveling, gardening and studying languages, genealogy and western U.S. history. They are also involved in social causes, through the ACLU, Amnesty International and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Jerome O. Klein, M.D. ’56, professor of pediatrics and vice chair for academic affairs at Boston Medical Center, received the 2002 Maxwell Finland Award for Scientific Achievement from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases at a dinner in March at the Capital Hilton Hotel in Washington. Klein is a leader in research on otitis media and has helped define the treatment standards and protocols for ear infections in children. He has been active in studies of vaccines and antibiotic efficacy and infections of the fetus and newborn infant. Only two awards were presented at the event, the other going to Bill and Melinda Gates. Honorary co-chairs for the dinner were former Presidents and First Ladies Clinton, Carter and Ford.

1960s

Leon G. Smith Sr., M.D., FW ’60, HS ’62, chair of medicine at Saint Michael’s Medical Center in Newark, N.J., was awarded a Mastership from the American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine in recognition of his career accomplishments and service to the college. He is also co-chair of the bioterrorism task force for the Medical Society of New Jersey. Smith has received a grant to build a bioterrorism lab to isolate potential pathogens, which he says will be run by his son, Stephen M. Smith, M.D. ’89. Four of his children are physicians; two graduated from Yale School of Medicine. Smith also established the Infectious Disease Hall of Fame at Saint Michael’s.

Augustus A. White III, M.D., HS ’66, professor of orthopaedics at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, master of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Society and an orthopaedic spine surgeon, was named the Ellen and Melvin Gordon Professor of Medical Education in 2001 at Harvard Medical School. White is also director of the Daniel E. Hogan Spine Fellowship Program. His research focuses on the clinical biomechanics of the spine.

1970s

Robert A. Brodner, M.D., FW ’76, a neurosurgeon in private practice in Palm Beach, Fla., co-authored a play entitled Hand-shake, about a patient who undergoes a surgical pallidotomy for Parkinson’s disease and the interrelationships between the patient, his family and the surgeon. The play had several readings in New York and Palm Beach, as well as a workshop production at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York and an Off-Broadway world premiere last year at the Miranda Theater, where it enjoyed a successful six-week run.

Bruce D. Cummings, M.P.H. ’77, writes to say that he spent “11 eventful years as the CEO at Blue Hill Memorial Hospital, Maine’s first integrated primary care system (a nonprofit medical group practice with five rural health clinics, a Medicare-certified home health agency and Hospice provider, New England’s first critical access hospital and Parker Ridge, a retirement community). Now I am leaving ‘Downeast’ Maine to become president and CEO of the Olean General Hospital in Olean, N.Y.” He began his new duties April 1.

Donald L. Kent, M.D. ’72, HS ’78, reports that he has moved to Palm Harbor, Fla. “My closest friends and family convinced me not to totally retire at age 55, and accordingly, a position ‘fell in my lap’ through a Yale Med connection. As of May 20 I am to become chief of otolaryngology at Bay Pines VA Hospital in St. Petersburg, Fla.”

1980s

David A. Cottrell, D.M.D., HS ’88, director of the oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMS) residency program and director of OMS resident research at Boston University School of Dental Medicine, became chair of the department of OMS in January. He has been on the faculty since 1993. Cottrell specializes in orthognathic surgery, temporomandibular joint reconstruction, and bone grafting for implants and has authored numerous textbook chapters and scientific publications.

David Fassler, M.D. ’82, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont College of Medicine, received the 2002 Braceland Award for Public Service from the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in May during the APA annual meeting in Philadelphia. Fassler, also clinical director of Otter Creek Associates, a psychiatric and substance abuse treatment practice, was honored for his contributions as an author, spokesperson and publicist in the service of the mentally ill, the disabled and the art and science of helping.

Blackford Middleton, M.P.H. ’81, writes, “I have returned to the world of academic medicine after leaving MedicaLogic/ Medscape (now owned by GE Medical Systems). In early 2001, I joined the faculty in general medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, and I am also serving as director for clinical information systems research and development at Partners HealthCare System. Having fun with students and research, and still building clinical systems. Daughters Julia, 9, and Lillian, 5, are wondering ‘Where is the snow?’ Wife Ursula King is making our new home and considering work … eventually.”

Rock G. Positano, D.P.M., M.SC., M.P.H. ’89, co-director of The Foot Center of the Combined Orthopaedic Trauma and Fracture Service, New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Medical College of Cornell University, received a letter of commendation in January from the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for his assistance in their efforts to locate and identify the dead from the World Trade Center attack of September 11.

David S. Weiss, M.D. ’81, was inaugurated as president of the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science (IADMS) following the organization’s 11th annual meeting in Madrid last November. Weiss is clinical assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery at New York University School of Medicine and senior orthopaedic consultant to the Harkness Center for Dance Injuries of the Hospital for Joint Diseases. IADMS was founded in 1990 by an international group of dancers and dance medicine practitioners, educators and scientists.

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


			Originally published in Yale Medicine, Summer 2002. Copyright © 2002 Yale University School of Medicine. All rights reserved.