Class News and Deaths
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Class News
1950s
John Collette 56M was honored as a Healthcare Pioneer by the Florida Hospital DeLand. He was one of the first physicians with the hospital when it opened in 1962.
William Waters III 58M wrote Two Days That Ruined Your Health Care— And How You Can Provide the Cure (2008). His fourth book offers a humorous, succinct, and practical look at what’s wrong with U.S. health care and offers a remedy. A fifth book, Ben’s Ailment, is in the works. Waters directs the internal medicine division at the Multiple Sclerosis Center of Atlanta.
1960s
Charles Harrison Jr. 60M joined the internal medicine department of the Multiple Sclerosis Center of Atlanta. He continues to serve on the Emory clinical faculty.
Albany Technical College dedicated the Charles B. Gillespie, M.D., Center for Emergency Responders, which houses the school’s fire science, EMT, paramedic, and law enforcement programs. The center is named for retired orthopaedist Charles Gillespie 61M, who established Albany Tech’s EMT training program in 1972. He also led formation of Georgia’s Emergency Medical Services.
Herbert DuPont 65M received the Laureate Award at the 2008 annual meeting of the Texas Academy of Internal Medicine. The annual award honors a physician for excellence in medical care, education, research, and community service.
Bruce Baumgartner 69M is a fellow of the American College of Radiology. He is professor, education vice chair, and director of the Emory residency program in radiology.
1970s
In his second novel, Slow Funeral (2008), Charles Gershon 74M spins a tale of corporate espionage around a 45-year-old surgeon named Jack. The author practiced urology in Atlanta before retiring to Asheville, N.C. His first novel, The Hydrangea People, debuted in 2002.
Richard Holm 75M was named governor of the South Dakota chapter of the American College of Physicians. He is a professor at the Sanford School of Medicine, University of South Dakota, and an internist at the Avera Brookings Medical Clinic. He is also chief of staff and chair of the ethics committee of the Brookings Health System.
Frederick Turton 77M is chair-elect of the American College of Physicians Board of Regents. He is an internist in private practice in Sarasota, Fla.
1980s
Camille Davis-Williams 81M was named co-physician of the year for 2008 by the Atlanta Medical Association. A gynecologist/obstetrician, she also received a 25-year service award from the association.
Carlton Clinkscales 89M was voted one of the top hand surgeons in Denver by 5280, the city’s magazine.
1990s
David Everman 93M is a clinical geneticist with the National Human Genome Research Institute.
Josh King 96M is chief of medicine at Newton Medical Center in Covington, Ga. He joined the center in 2003 as the first hospitalist sponsored by Newton Medical Associates.
2000s
Shealynn Harris 00M received the 2008 Distinguished Alumni Award from Kennesaw State University. As medical laboratory director of North America for Quintiles Global Central Laboratories, Harris led a major expansion for testing global clinical trial samples at the company’s facility in Marietta, Ga. She currently leads a project to enhance laboratory services for global oncology clinical trials in the United States, Europe, and China.
BORN: Edward Benicio (Beni) to Alison Sisitsky Curcio 01M and her husband, Edward Curcio, on Feb. 29, 2008. She is an emergency medicine physician in Massachusetts.
MARRIED: Sujoy Gulati 04M and Lindsay Goebel on Sept. 3, 2008, in Antigua. Gulati practices emergency medicine in Indianapolis.
Marcus Lehman 07M has survived “Survivor.” He was ousted last fall during the 17th TV episode in Gabon. “It was a great time to step back and look at the various options I’d like to pursue,” he says. “I’m interested in preventive medicine and how the media can be used as a vehicle for accomplishing that.” He will return to Emory in July to continue his residency in anesthesiology. He completed his first year at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla.
Residency Notes
J. Max Austin (gyn/ob) holds the Margaret Cameron Spain Endowed Chair at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He also received the R. Carl Chandler Award from the Oxford College Board of Counselors.
MARRIED: Shaun Brownlee (pediatrics) and Dana Pigford on Nov. 17, 2007, in Atlanta.
Naga Chalasani (gastroenterology) directs the gastroenterology and hematology division at the Indiana University School of Medicine and is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation.
Talmadge King Jr. (internal medicine) holds the Julius R. Krevans Distinguished Professorship in Internal Medicine and is chair of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. An expert in pulmonary disorders, King is a member of the Institute of Medicine, among other honors. In 2007, he received the Trudeau Medal, the highest honor given by the American Lung Association and the American Thoracic Society.
Daniel Russo (plastic surgery) is president of the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. He practices in Birmingham, Ala.
Ralph Wesley (ophthalmology) received the Orkan Stasior Leadership Award from the American Society of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. He is a clinical professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Deaths
1930s
Jack Bleich 31M of Atlanta on Nov. 9, 2008. He was 101. Motivated by the deaths of three sisters from childhood illnesses and his mother at a young age from rheumatic heart disease, Bleich entered medical school at Emory. He graduated with honors and went on to serve as a command surgeon in WWII. He retired from the military with 20 years of service. He retired from medical practice at age 80.
Rufus Pearson Jr. 38M of Southern Pines, N.C., on May 11, 2008, in Florida. A veteran of WWII and the Korean War, he rose to prominence in the Medical Corps, serving as chief of cardiology and later, medicine, at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. In 1966, he was appointed the attending physician to Congress. Only the second physician to hold this post, Pearson endeared himself to members of Congress and thus earned their praise in the Congressional Record on several occasions. He was chosen to accompany the Senate majority and minority leaders on their historic trip to China in 1972.
1940s
Charles Hooper Sr. 41M of Chattanooga, Tenn., on June 12, 2008, at age 94.
Myron McEachern 41M of Tampa, Fla., on Oct. 17, 2008. An old-fashioned general practitioner, McEachern made house calls up until his 80s.
Pierce Allgood 43M of Atlanta on July 24, 2008, from Alzheimer’s. A U.S. Army doctor during the Korean War, Allgood practiced orthopaedics at Piedmont and Kennestone hospitals.
Richard Felder 44M of Gainesville, Ga., on May 2, 2008, from lung cancer. He was 89. Felder practiced internal medicine in LaGrange, Ga., and Atlanta but returned to Emory in 1950 to train in psychotherapy. He spent much of his second career at the Atlanta Psychiatric Clinic, and in 1993, he joined the Link Counseling Center. He was a true Renaissance man with a passion for nurturing his own physical and mental health and that of others.
Thomas Reeve Jr. 44M of Carrollton, Ga., on June 12, 2008, at age 88. Until age 9, he lived in the Belgian Congo with his missionary parents. After completing his residency, he joined Tanner Medical Center in Carrollton as its first general surgeon and went on to serve as chief of staff. Reeve also was the go-to person for carving an apple, naming the constellations, and identifying leaves on trees in Carrollton.
Joseph Jacob 45M of Chelsea, Mich., on Feb. 15, 2008. An Army veteran of WWII, he practiced psychiatry in Ann Arbor for more than 40 years.
Clifford Walton Jr. 45M of Knoxville, Tenn., on March 18, 2008, at age 86. He served as chief of radiology at East Tennessee Children’s Hospital and founded the Knoxville Radiological Group.
Carl Arnold 46M of Cocoa, Fla., on June 15, 2008, at age 85. He served as a captain in the U.S. Medical Corps in Germany prior to starting his ob/gyn practice in 1955. He was president of the Wuesthoff Hospital medical staff and a member of its board of trustees. He taught Sunday school in Cocoa for 52 years.
Jerome Block 46M of Miami Beach, Fla, on Dec. 20, 2007.
John Hayes 46M of Kerrville, Texas, on Jan. 6, 2008, at age 85. He was preceded in death by his wife, Exa Parrish Hayes 45N. They were married the day after he graduated from medical school.
Bryon Harper 46M of Fayetteville, Ga., on April 12, 2008. He served Atlanta’s West End and East Point communities and helped found South Fulton Hospital. He co-founded Christian City in Union City, Ga., providing the community with a children’s home, retirement village, and assisted living and Alzheimer’s facilities. Harper also founded a hospice where he volunteered as its medical director for 20 years. Christian City and the hospice are on land donated by the Harper family.
Harvey Howell 47M of Cartersville, Ga., on May 5, 2008, at age 82. The Korean War veteran practiced general surgery in Cartersville for 53 years and served as the Bartow County medical examiner for 44 years.
Julian Suhrer 47M of Jacksonville, Fla., on June 21, 2008, at age 84. During the Korean War, he and his surgical team were flown into MASH units in the war zone. He returned to Jacksonville in 1956 to open a general surgery practice. Suhrer helped introduce the artifical kidney machine to the area. He later became one of the first surgeons on staff at Memorial Medical Center and served as chief of colon and rectal surgery until he retired in 1990.
1950s
George Mayfield 50M of Augusta, Ga., on April 24, 2008. He worked at the VA hospitals in Nashville, Tenn., and Augusta before entering private practice.
Charles Burke 52M of Jacksonville, Fla., on March 24, 2008, from Alzheimer’s at age 86. Burke studied medicine after serving with the medical corps during WWII. He established his surgical practice in Jacksonville and became chief of the medical and dental staff at St. Vincent’s Medical Center and helped establish the family residency program. He worked with the city and the Duval County Medical Society to establish a disaster program and served as disaster medical director of the local American Red Cross. He retired in 1989.
William Eubanks 52M of Atlanta on Sept. 14, 2008. He practiced ophthalmology in Atlanta for 34 years.
Daniel Plunkett 52M of Tulsa, Okla., on Feb. 24, 2008. For 20 years, he was a U.S. Army physician specializing in pediatric hematology and oncology. He became Tulsa’s first pediatric oncologist and founding chair of pediatrics at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine. He retired in 2000 after leading the department for 21 years.
Richard Margeson 53M of Atlanta on Sept. 2, 2008, of cancer. He practiced surgery in Atlanta throughout his career. Among his accomplishments, he served as the company doctor for the Ford auto plant in Hapeville, Ga., and on the clinical faculty at Emory.
Fanning Miles 53M of The Village, Okla., on July 10, 2008, at age 81. He practiced family medicine in Oklahoma City for 37 years and retired in 1992. He also served as a medical missionary in Romania, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Kenya.
Edwin McDowell 54M of Merritt Island, Fla., on Sept. 19, 2008. He was chief of urology services at DeKalb General Hospital for 18 years before returning to his native Florida in 1970. He served there as chief of urology at Orlando Regional Medical Center and retired in 1993.
John Leonardy 55M of Amelia Island, Fla., on April 6, 2008. He practiced internal medicine, specializing in allergies and immunology, in Atlanta for 40 years. He held several teaching appointments, including at Emory and Grady.
H. Quillian Jones Jr. 56M of Fort Myers, Fla., on Oct. 23, 2008, at age 79. Early in his career, Jones took a stand against segregation by refusing to transfer a gunshot victim he had operated on at the white hospital where he practiced to a black hospital—a stance that saved the patient’s life. He also brought the first trauma surgeons to the Fort Myers area and performed the first craniotomy and carotid artery surgery.
Robert Franklin Taylor 56M of Lakeland, Fla., on Sept. 10, 2008, at age 75. He was an anesthesiologist in Lakeland for 38 years and cheered the Florida Gators for more than 40 years.
Robert Davis 58M of St. Simons Island, Ga., on March 10, 2008.
Clarence Wilcox Jr. 58M of Rome, Ga, on Aug. 16, 2008.
Terrell B. Tanner 59M of Ellijay, Ga., on March 3, 2008, following a heart attack. He practiced family medicine in Oxford, Ga., for two decades. After retiring, he worked for the Medical College of Georgia’s prison health division.
1960s
John Austin 66M of Benton, La., on April 2, 2008, following a long illness. He first practiced surgery at Bossier General Hospital, where he eventually served as president of the medical staff. Austin moved his practice to W.K. Bossier Health Center when it opened in 1996 and served there as the first chief of surgery. Austin retired in 2001.
Frank Houser Jr. 66M of Atlanta on July 28, 2008, following a long illness. He was 67. Houser was a nationally recognized expert on measuring quality of care in hospitals and health care systems. Until he retired in 2006, he served as medical director and senior vice president of quality for Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) and created the patient safety framework now in place at HCA hospitals across the country.
He began his career at a pediatric clinic in Dalton, Ga., in 1971. Then Governor George Busby appointed him to the Georgia Council on Maternal and Infant Health, where he helped develop minimium standards of care. In 1979, Houser helped establish Mercer Medical School and later led Emory Clinic’s external operations. In 1991, Governor Zell Miller appointed him as Georgia’s director of public health.
For more than 20 years, Houser worked with Curamericas Global. The nonprofit provides primary health care in Bolivia, Haiti, and Guatemala.
Daniel Strickland 68M of Sarasota, Fla., on May 20, 2007.
1970s
Christian Ramsey Jr. 70M of Lexington, Ky., on June 21, 2008, from complications of Parkinson’s. He was 67. In 1982, he was named chair of family medicine at the University of Oklahoma School of Medicine. He held that post until 1994, when he was named associate dean for clinical affairs at the University of Kentucky School of Medicine. He retired from UK in 2000. An endowed chair in family medicine was named in his honor at Oklahoma.
1980s
Karl Sanders 83M of St. Simons Island, Ga., on Aug. 29, 2007.
Residency Deaths
Hewlett Aderholt (anesthesiology) of Monroe, Ga., on March 22, 2008, from rheumatoid arthritis, at age 80. Aderholt practiced medicine for 15 years in Tifton, Ga., where he also served as the physician for Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College. He then completed his anesthesiology residency at Emory. He practiced at Doctor’s Memorial and Piedmont hospitals in Atlanta, retiring in 1992.
Elizabeth Caldwell (internal medicine) of Marietta, Ga., on May 8, 2008, at age 54.
Paul Cooper (pediatrics and radiology) of Canton, Conn., on June 15, 2008.
Charles Cowan (cardiology) of Laguna Beach, Calif., on Oct. 20, 2008, at age 74. Cowan, his wife, Jeanien, and a friend died when their plane crashed off the runway on Catalina Island.
Burford Culpepper (internal medicine) of Dallas, Texas, on Dec. 6, 2007.
Joseph Duke (internal medicine) of Parrish, Fla., on June 19, 2007.
Forrest Garretson Jr. (hematology) of Lakeway, Texas, on Feb. 16, 2008, at age 77. He was an oncologist at the Springer Clinic in Tulsa, Okla., for 20 years after serving as a U.S. Army physician for 15 years. As a National Guardsman, he commanded a medical unit in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. After the war, he re-enlisted and was assigned to Fort Bragg, N.C., for five years. He retired as a full colonel with 20 years of service and numerous commendations.
Richard Johnson (medicine) of Scottsdale, Ariz., on Jan. 17, 2008.
Roderick McCrory (radiology) of Lilburn, Ga., on March 18, 2008, at age 66. He practiced at Crisp County Hospital in Cordele, Ga.
Fenwick Nichols (internal medicine) of Savannah, Ga., on Jan. 4, 2008, at age 88. During his 50-plus years in medicine, he served as chief of staff at Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah. He received the Georgia Medical Society’s life achievement award in 2005.
Samuel Schatten (rheumatology) of Atlanta on Sept. 27, 2008, of heart failure resulting from pulmonary artery sarcoma. A longtime leader in the Jewish community, Schatten also loved to dance. In 2005, he collapsed while dancing at a bar mitzvah, which ultimately led to his cancer diagnosis. The crisis led him to found the CLEAR (cardiac life extension and rescue) Coalition to educate people about CPR and placing portable defibrillators in schools, businesses, and public places.
Francis Shaw (medicine) of Camden, S.C., on June 26, 2008, at age 94. He practiced medicine at Kershaw County Memorial Hospital in Camden.
Reginald Stambaugh (internal medicine/ophthalmology) of Palm Beach, Fla., on Dec. 15, 2007, at age 77. Among other accomplishments, Stambaugh invented the triple needle for surgery. He served as the first president and board chairman for the Ophthalmic Mutual Insurance Company. He was past president of the Palm Beach Medical Society and founding chairman of Eye and Ear Alert.
Henry Thomas (family medicine) of Starkville, Miss., on April 2, 2008.
Jerald Turner (ophthalmology) of Clearwater, Fla., on March 15, 2008, of colon cancer. He was 90.
Avram Zackai (internal medicine) of Bala Cynwyd, Penn., on April 8, 2008.
Faculty Deaths
Roland Ingram Jr. (pulmonology) of Atlanta on July 7, 2008. He was 73. Ingram enjoyed a distinguished teaching and research career at Emory and Harvard. Before entering academia, he served in Japan with the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He first joined the Emory faculty in 1969 and went on to direct the pulmonary division. He left Emory to direct pulmonary critical care at Harvard, where he served as the Parker B. Francis Professor of Medicine and professor of physiology in public health.
Ingram returned to Emory in 1992 to serve as chief of internal medicine and the Martha West Looney Professor at Emory Crawford Long Hospital. He also directed the pulmonary division for Emory’s hospitals. Ingram received two Golden Apple Awards for teaching excellence, along with a host of other honors. After retiring, he continued teaching medical students and residents, including those at Grady, as a volunteer.
John Mills III (biochemistry) of Atlanta on July 12, 2008, at age 69. For 30 years, he taught at Emory and focused his research on human growth hormone. A consummate Southern gentleman, Mills loved to tell stories laced with humor.
Mark Silverman (cardiology) of Atlanta on Nov. 12, 2008, following a heart attack. Silverman was the founding cardiologist of the Fuqua Heart Center at Piedmont Hospital and put forward the idea that certain heart conditions manifested in abnormalities of the hands. In addition to his practice, he wrote numerous articles on medical history. After writing the book British Cardiology in the Twentieth Century, Silverman was named a fellow in the Royal College of Physicians in 2001. He was well known for donning 17th- century dress to lecture on blood circulation in the persona of British physician William Harvey. In all, he spent 38 years at Emory, where he mentored numerous cardiology fellows and residents.
William Whitaker 43M of Atlanta on April 6, 2008. In 1949, he began his general surgery practice at Crawford Long Hospital. The last 23 years of his practice were at Piedmont Hospital, where he began a surgical residency program in conjunction with Emory. The William Whitaker Surgical Chair was established there in his honor. He also was chief of inpatient surgery, chair of the surgery department, and a board member with the hospital and Piedmont Medical Center. He retired in 1996 at age 78.
