Distinguished Service Awards for three alumni

The Distinguished Alumni Service Award was presented to three alumni of the School of Medicine at this year’s reunion. The recipients were Harry Briggs, M.D. ’57, HS ’65; Jack Levin, M.D. ’57, HS ’65; and Robert J. Kerin, M.D. ’47, HS ’50.

Briggs grew up in Connecticut and Massachusetts areas, and worked on a farm after high school. After his graduation from Clark University, Briggs entered the School of Medicine, staying on for an internship and year of residency under Gustaf Lindskog, M.D. He then spent time with the Public Health Service in New Mexico before returning to Yale in 1961. At Yale he continued his training in surgery and went on to practice general surgery in Winsted, Conn. His other talents include woodworking and restoring antique cars. He has worked with the New England Surgical Society, served as a Rotarian, and with his wife, a graduate of the School of Nursing, has raised nine children. He has volunteered as an anatomy instructor for many years and has served as a class agent for the School of Medicine’s Alumni Annual Fund.

Levin graduated from Yale College in 1953 and moved across town to the medical school. Following an internship at Yale in medicine he also joined the Public Health Service, working at the National Cancer Institute at Bethesda. Then followed a residency in medicine at Yale, a hematology fellowship at Johns Hopkins, and a return to Yale as chief medical resident under Paul Beeson, M.D. From Yale Levin returned to Johns Hopkins, subsequently moving on to the University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco as professor of laboratory medicine and professor of medicine. He has served as class secretary since graduation, generating a class newsletter and encouraging classmates to return to reunions. He also helped establish the Class of 1957 Scholarship Fund with a first-year total of more than $100,000.

Kerin hails from New Britain, Conn., and attended Wesleyan College. Kerin arrived at the School of Medicine in 1945, during the accelerated program of the WW II years. Following an internship at the Rhode Island Hospital, Kerin returned to Yale for training in surgery and orthopaedics. He went into military service as chief of orthopaedics at Westover Field in Massachusetts, followed by another three years at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Orthopaedics in New York City. After some time on the faculty at Western Reserve, Kerin joined the orthopaedic faculty at Yale in 1957. In 1999 he retired from private practice in Milford, Conn. While in private practice he taught orthopaedics at Yale, as a clinical assistant professor. He has attended every class reunion, organized many of them, and served on the executive committee of the Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine.