New Haven’s first medical oncologist in community practice, David S. Fischer, MD was attending physician for 57 years at Yale New Haven hospitals and affiliated with the Yale School of Medicine for decades. He died on Dec. 8 at the age of 94.
A well-known figure in the halls of New Haven hospitals, Dr. Fischer served in many leadership roles, including the Cancer Committee, to which he was recruited in 1994 as a three-day-a-week volunteer. He had been either chair or co-chair of the committee since 1996. Over the years, other panels included the Transfusion Committee, membership on the Pharmacy & Therapeutics Committee and the Institutional Review Board, and Chair of the Membership Committee of Yale Cancer Center. In 2020, he received the Yale Cancer Center Lifetime Achievement Award.
Dr. Fischer’s Yale School of Medicine biography gives details of his long and distinguished career. He was emeritus attending physician at the Hospital of St. Raphael, where he was President of the Medical Staff in 1980 and received its Teaching and Leadership Award in 1995. At the Yale School of Medicine in the late 1960s and through the 70s, Dr. Fischer was assistant clinical professor and then associate clinical professor of medicine and then returned to private practice in New Haven area.
In 2024 alone, the publications portion of Dr. Fischer’s profile showed five studies in which he was listed as a contributing author. He was author or co-author of 80 scientific papers throughout his career and wrote Cancer Therapy (1982), The Cancer Chemotherapy Handbook (1980, 1983, 1989, 1993, 1997, and 2003), Follow-up of Cancer (1996) and The Clinical Cancer Program at Yale (2012), currently hosted online by the Cancer History Project web site.
Along with Tish Knobf, RN, Dr. Fischer edited the in-house manual for Yale New Haven Hospital house-staff and nurses on how to safely give cancer chemotherapy, with dosing guides and references. In 1981, this manual was revised, printed, and distributed by a medical publisher and went through six English editions, as well as others in Italian and Japanese, becoming a standard of therapy.
Earlier in his career, in 1972, Dr. Fischer was involved in the founding of Connecticut Hospice, the first such program in the country. In 1974, it began as a homecare service and he served on the medical board. That same year he received the Ben Harris award for house staff teaching at Yale.
Other awards over Dr. Fischer’s career included the Hospital of St. Raphael Award for Teaching, Service and Leadership in 1995 and the Leukemia-Lymphoma Society made him their First Physician Honoree in 2002. In 2013, he received the Richard Blumenthal Patient Advocate for Life recognition from Connecticut Hospice.
Dr. Fischer was born on May 13, 1930, in Brooklyn, NY to Simon and Charlotte (Ohlbaum) Fischer. He graduated in 1951 from Williams College and in 1955 from Harvard Medical School, where he was the first medical student to give the Commencement Address on behalf of all Harvard graduate schools. He served his country as a Captain in the US Army 1959-1961. In 1958, he married Iris Liquerman, an accomplished concert pianist, and their marriage continued until her death in 1999. He is survived by his children, Karen Fischer Factor (Stuart) of Durham, NC, Louise Fischer (Amy Meyers) of San Francisco, Francie Fischer Malina (Mark) of Dobbs Ferry, NY and Brookfield, CT and grandchildren, Stephen (Jen) and Jennie Malina and Josh and Hannah Factor. He is also survived by his longtime companion, Ina Furst.