Alumnus receives Yale Medal

A typical Thursday morning usually finds Samuel D. Kushlan, M.D. ’35, HS ’37, attending morning report, reading journal articles in the library and going to internal medicine grand rounds. Retired since 1982, Kushlan, now 95, still drives almost every day to the hospital where he has worked for 70 years and continues to be a role model for younger colleagues.

Kushlan has received many honors throughout his distinguished career. In November he received the 2007 Yale Medal in recognition for his years of leadership. The medal, the highest award bestowed by the Association of Yale Alumni, is given annually to five alumni in honor of outstanding service to the medical school and the university.

Born in New Britain, Conn., in 1912, Kushlan was so inspired by his local doctor that by the age of 10 he knew he wanted to be a physician. After graduating from the School of Medicine, he completed his residency at what was then New Haven Hospital, earning a salary of $25 a month. “Medicine was very primitive 70 years ago,” he recalled. His main diagnostic tools were taking a medical history and doing a physical exam—X-rays were the only imaging technique available; and in those pre-penicillin days, the principal medications were aspirin, digitalis, phenobarbital, quinine and morphine. Today more than 4,000 medications are listed in the Physicians’ Desk Reference.

Except for a brief stint at Harvard in 1938, Kushlan spent his entire career at Yale. He established the first endoscopy clinic in Connecticut in 1942 and was the sole member of the gastroenterology section from 1938 until 1955.

From 1967 until his retirement, Kushlan served as the associate physician-in-chief at Yale-New Haven Hospital and as a clinical professor of medicine. When he retired, one of the hospital’s medical services was named for him, although he said he feels out of place among the other legendary physicians—Elisha Atkins, M.D.; John P. Peters, M.D.; Gerald Klatskin, M.D.; Allan Goodyer, M.D.; and Robert Donaldson, M.D.—with whom he shares this honor.

Although he says he does more learning than teaching these days, Kushlan still has some wisdom to impart from the days when the practice of medicine relied more on observation than on diagnostic tests. He advises colleagues to use such simple diagnostic methods as having a patient with back pain lie down to determine its source: if the pain goes away, it’s muscular; if it doesn’t, it’s internal. “I sort of toss in a pearl from time to time to pay my way,” he said.

In addition to his activities at the hospital and the lectures and concerts he regularly attends with Ethel, his wife of 73 years, Kushlan also remains an active member of the executive committee of the Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine. “I enjoy the opportunity to be busy,” he said.

Notes

1960s

Charles R. Rosenfeld, M.D., HS ’67, has stepped down after 30 years as director of the Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. He also stepped down as director of the fellowship training program. He will retain his position as the George L. MacGregor Professor of Pediatrics and continue his research on cardiovascular physiology during pregnancy. Rosenfeld is in the 32nd year of an NIH grant to study uroplacental blood flow. “My start in pediatrics and exposure to neonatal care and research at Yale influenced my career choices,” he writes.

1970s

Steven H. Moffic, M.D. ’71, has begun writing a column, “The Ethical Way,” for Clinical Psychiatry News, a monthly publication for psychiatry specialists. A professor of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, he has also written about psychiatric perspectives on global warming.

1980s

Mary Ann Evans, M.P.H. ’80, is working as a substitute teacher in Chicago and Washington, D.C. She has been an active member of the American Public Health Association, participating in the Each One Teach One membership drive.

Rock G. Positano, D.P.M., M.P.H. ’89, a specialist in foot and ankle health, is writing a health column for The Huffington Post. His first columns offered warnings about the dangers of flip-flops and heavy backpacks for schoolchildren. Positano, who directs the Non-surgical Foot and Ankle Service at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City, also writes a health column for the New York Post.

1990s

Cargill H. Alleyne Jr., M.D. ’91, associate professor and vice chair for education and research in the Medical College of Georgia (MCG) Department of Neurosurgery, was named the Marshall Allen Distinguished Chair of the department in September. Alleyne went to MCG in 2004 from the University of Rochester Medical Center, where he was chief of the Division of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Neurosurgery and associate residency program director for the Department of Neurological Surgery. At mcg he directs the Neurosurgery Vascular Service and the Neurosurgery Residency Training Program and co-directs the Cerebrovascular Research Laboratory.

Melissa T. Berhow, Ph.D. ’96, M.D. ’97, assistant professor of anesthesiology at Stanford University, and Rick Bentley welcomed the arrival of their son, Logan Alaric Bentley, on July 20. Logan weighed in at 9 lbs., 12 oz. Everyone is doing well.

Brian “Ari” Cole, M.D., M.P.H. ’95, was selected to join the Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus, one of the Holden Choral Ensembles at Harvard. Cole is currently a student at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where he recently had the chance to question U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael O. Leavitt on the use of steroids in the meat and poultry industry.

Linda G. Marc, M.P.H. ’92, was married on March 30 to Jean R. Clérismé, Ph.D. ’96, foreign minister for the Republic of Haiti. Marc is a researcher in the psychiatry department and in the Cornell HIV Clinical Trials Unit at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. Clérismé, formerly an ambassador from Haiti to international trade organizations, is an authority on economics, development and cultural anthropology.

2000s

Kee Chan, Ph.D. ’07, was selected by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as one of four research participants to attend the 57th Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates and Students in Lindau, Germany, in July. Chan conducted research at the NIH while completing her doctorate in public health at Yale. Since 1951, Nobel laureates in chemistry, physics and physiology or medicine have convened annually in Lindau to meet with students and young researchers from around the world. The gathering allows participants, most of whom are students, to benefit from informal interaction with the Nobel Prize winners.

Bridgid T. Curry, M.P.H. ’07, M.E.M. ’07, was married on June 2 to Amos H. Presler in Schuylkill Haven, Pa. In August Curry became a presidential management fellow and regulatory analyst at the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C. Presler attends law school at American University.

Andrea C. Humphrey, M.P.H. ’05, was married in July to Jonathan T. Schmidt, J.D. ’06, in Minnetonka Beach, Minn. She is a doctoral student in international health and development at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans and a management consultant in Philadelphia. Her husband is an associate at Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, a law firm in Philadelphia.

Dena J. Springer, M.D. ’04, was married to David E. Novick, J.D., on September 2 in West Hartford, Conn. Springer, who completed her residency at Children’s Hospital Boston in June, is a staff physician at Pediatrics of New York. Novick is an assistant district attorney in the trial division and the sex crimes unit of the New York County District Attorney’s Office.

Stephen Vindigni, M.P.H. ’04, has enrolled at Emory University School of Medicine to pursue an M.D. After receiving his public health degree, Vindigni worked for the National Center for Environmental Health of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, advancing environmental public health. He traveled frequently to Kenya to work on projects related to safe drinking water and to developing a database to track Kenya’s nursing workforce capacity.

Send alumni news items to Claire M. Bessinger, Yale Medicine Publications, 300 George Street, Suite 773, New Haven, CT 06511, or via e-mail to claire.bessinger@yale.edu.