In Memoriam

In June the Columbia Hospital for Women in Washington, D.C., dedicated The Michael A. Puzak, M.D., Continence Center to honor the late urologist and genito-urinary surgeon who graduated from the medical school in 1942. The Continence Center, the first of its kind in the Washington, D.C., area, was founded in 1986 by one of Puzak’s former students at Georgetown University Medical School. Under a grant from Puzak’s family, the expanded services of the center will emphasize awareness of sports-related incontinence and the newest treatment for pregnancy-related and older-age incontinence.

James M. Bunce, M.D. ’42, died of cancer on Aug. 30. He was 82. Born in Hartford, Conn., Bunce graduated from the Loomis School. After undergraduate and medical studies at Yale, he completed his internship and residency training at Johns Hopkins University Hospital and Hartford Hospital. For his service in the Army Medical Corps in Europe during World War II he received the Bronze Star for Valor. Bunce, a West Hartford resident, practiced obstetrics and gynecology at Hartford Hospital for 32 years. He was a fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and a supporter of the anatomical gift program of the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.

Sanford Roy Dietrich, M.D. ’44, of Santa Barbara, Calif., died Aug. 10 at home. He was 80. Born in Kansas City, Mo., Dietrich attended the University of Kansas for two years before transferring to Yale to complete his bachelor’s and medical degrees. He was enrolled in the Navy V-12 College Program at Yale and served as a physician during World War II with the rank of lieutenant junior grade. He then completed his residency at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, Mo. Dietrich practiced plastic and reconstructive surgery in California until his retirement. He also served as president of the Santa Barbara County Medical Society.

John L. Doppman, M.D. ’53, died of cancer Aug. 21 at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md., where he served as chief of diagnostic radiology for 25 years. A resident of Potomac, Md., Doppman graduated from Holy Cross College. After he received his medical degree from Yale, he completed his internship at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Mass. He served in the Navy from 1954 to 1957 and went on to residency training in radiology at the Hospital of St. Raphael in New Haven. Doppman worked in research at the Postgraduate Medical School at Hammersmith Hospital in London and at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, before joining the NIH as deputy chief of the diagnostic radiology department in 1964. During his career, Doppman developed and performed various semi-surgical radiologic procedures, including angiography. He also did research on vascular malformations of the spinal cord and developed ways to visualize and treat them. His later research concentrated on endocrinology and techniques for locating ectopic or elusive glandular tumors.

James M. Giffin, M.D. ’61, retired surgeon and author, died of leukemia on May 12 at his home in Ridgway, Colo. He was 64. Born in New York City, Giffin graduated from Amherst College, received his medical degree from Yale and trained in surgery at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, Mo. He went on to become the chief of surgery at Beach Army Hospital in Mineral Wells, Texas, and at the 45th MUST Hospital at Tay Ninh, Vietnam. He was awarded a Bronze Star. Giffin practiced surgery for 11 years in Springfield, Mo., before moving to Colorado in 1978 to serve on the staff of Delta County Memorial and Montrose Memorial hospitals. In 1991, during Operation Desert Storm, he was called to active duty and served at the Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver, the Fox Army Hospital in Huntsville, Ala., the 24th Evac Hospital in Seoul, Korea, and Darnall Army Hospital in Fort Hood, Texas. Giffin retired in 1995 with the rank of lieutenant colonel and moved to Ridgway. Giffin wrote a book on the Great Pyrenees breed of dog, which he raised and showed and wrote several books on the care of dogs, cats and horses.

Malcolm Hill, M.D. ’57, of New York City, died of cancer July 16. He was 70. Hill was a graduate of Swarthmore College and received his medical degree from Yale. He was an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and was known by colleagues as a gifted and sensitive therapist and teacher.

T. Dennie Pratt, M.D. ’37, died June 8 in Bar Harbor, Maine. He was 88. Pratt, born in Brookline, Mass., graduated from Phillips Andover Academy in 1930 and from Harvard University in 1934. He received his medical degree from Yale in 1937 and completed his internship and residency training at Boston Hospital and the Mallory Institute of Pathology. Pratt was a surgical fellow at the Massachusetts General Hospital and later had a practice in New York City. He served in the Army Medical Corps in World War II. After his retirement in 1977 at age 65 he enjoyed sailing, gardening and tennis.

Roy C. Robison, M.D. ’36, died Sept. 12 at his home in Tucson, Ariz. He was 91. After serving in the Army Medical Corps during World War II, Robison opened a practice of obstetrics and gynecology in Stamford, Conn. He also served as vice president of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Stamford. Robison lived in Noroton, Conn., until his retirement and enjoyed sailing, skin diving and tennis and was a member of the local yacht club. He also enjoyed music, especially jazz.

Nathan E. Ross, M.D. ’28, of Hollywood, Fla., died April 23. He was 95. Ross, who graduated from Yale College in 1925, spent much of his career as a family practitioner in Beechhurst, N.Y., with his wife Hilda at his side as his office manager. During World War II, Ross served in Italy and North Africa. In 1946 he returned to New York to practice in Astoria. At age 55, he left his busy family practice to receive residency training in anesthesiology, which he practiced until his retirement to Florida in 1975.

Robert Treat Rowe, M.D. ’40, an Ohio native, died April 2. He was 86. Rowe graduated from Harvard University in 1935 and, after receiving his medical degree from Yale, served his internship and residency at Akron City and Akron Children’s hospitals. He was coroner of Medina County, Ohio, from 1941 to 1945, then moved to Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich., to practice pediatrics. He was an attending at Henry Ford Hospital and the Herman Kiefer Hospital for Infectious Diseases. He practiced in Akron from 1949 until 1952, when he joined the U.S. Air Force as a major, serving at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. In 1954 Rowe resumed his career in Akron, where, with a colleague, he founded The Pediatrics of Akron practice. He also held the positions of chief of staff at the Akron Children’s Hospital and clinical associate professor emeritus of pediatrics at the Northeastern Ohio Universities of Medicine. He retired in 1980.

Douglass Willey Walker, M.D. ’39, died Aug. 20 at the Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport, Maine. He was 87. Walker received his undergraduate degree from Bowdoin College in 1935 before beginning his medical studies and, later, a residency at Yale. His residency was interrupted during World War II, when he joined the Army Medical Corps and was assigned to the preventive medicine division of the Surgeon General’s office in Washington. He became executive officer and received the Legion of Merit for his performance there. Walker returned to Yale for a fellowship in pediatrics and then joined the Laconia Clinic in New Hampshire for 17 years. He also worked in the allergy department at The Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston. In 1963 he was named assistant dean for administration of the Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore and assistant professor of pediatrics. He was later promoted to associate dean. Walker was appointed as the Maine Medical Center’s first medical director in 1970 and was named vice president of medical affairs in 1975.

Henry M. Williams, M.D. ’52, died Aug. 29 at his home in Avon, Conn. He was 74. Williams’ undergraduate schooling at Yale was interrupted by World War II, in which he served as an infantryman in France and Germany. A bullet cut short his military career and he was awarded a Purple Heart. He returned to Yale to complete his premedical studies, graduating from Yale College in 1946, and continued on to the medical school. He served his internship and residency at Hartford Hospital from 1952 to 1956 and spent a year as a special fellow in medical neoplasia at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. In 1957 Williams entered practice in Hartford as one of the first medical oncologists in the state of Connecticut. What followed was a 28-year career in the field of medical oncology that was finally recognized as a subspecialty by the American Board of Internal Medicine in 1967. He was an assistant clinical professor of medicine at Yale from 1963 to 1986. After retiring in 1986, he worked as a medical consultant, area medical director, director of medical policy and consultant in technology assessment at Aetna Life and Casualty until 1996. Williams enrolled at the University of Hartford in a business/medicine program in 1997 and received an E.M.B.A. in 1999 at the age of 73.

Send obituary notices to Claire M. Bessinger, Yale Medicine Publications, 1 Church Street, Suite 300, New Haven, CT 06510, or via e-mail to claire.bessinger@yale.edu