In Memoriam

Robert W. Berliner, M.D., professor emeritus of cellular and molecular physiology and a former dean of the School of Medicine, died on February 5. He was 86. Berliner came to Yale in 1973 after a distinguished career at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and for the next 11 years guided the school as it became one of the country’s leading research institutions. He was well known for his contributions to the study of renal physiology and was a leader in shaping American biomedical science. With colleagues, he was instrumental in elucidating the main features of potassium excretion by the kidney. A native of New York, Berliner graduated from Yale College in 1936 and studied medicine at Columbia University. He did his residency at Presbyterian Hospital and Goldwater Memorial Hospital in New York, and began his research career at Goldwater. In 1950 he left Columbia, where he was an assistant professor of medicine, for a job at the NIH. There, he built the Laboratory of Kidney and Electrolyte Metabolism and served as its chief for 12 years. He subsequently became director of intramural research at the National Heart Institute and deputy director for science at the NIH. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and of the Institute of Medicine. At Yale he was honored by the creation of the Robert W. Berliner Chair and the Robert W. Berliner Lectureship in Renal Physiology.

Allen Chetrick, M.D. ’53, HS ’56, former associate clinical professor of medicine at Yale, died of cancer in Branford, Conn., on October 2. He was 74. Born in New Haven, Chetrick graduated from Yale College in 1950 and from the School of Medicine three years later. He served an internship in medicine at Bellevue Hospital in New York City and two years of residency at the West Haven Veterans Administration Hospital and Grace-New Haven Community Hospital. The American Heart Association awarded him a research fellowship in cardiology in 1956. Chetrick joined the Yale faculty in 1957 and practiced internal medicine and cardiology in New Haven for 41 years. He was an attending physician at Yale-New Haven Hospital and The Hospital of St. Raphael. Chetrick also served in the Navy during World War II. He was a fellow of the American College of Physicians and a member of the American Society of Internal Medicine. He was also past secretary of the internal medicine section of the Connecticut Medical Association. In 1969 Chetrick received the Israel Service Award from the Greater New Haven Israel Bond Committee.

Alvan R. Feinstein, M.D., HS ’54, Sterling Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology, died of a heart attack at an awards ceremony in Toronto on October 24. He was 75. A native of Philadelphia, Feinstein received his bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree in mathematics and his doctor of medicine degree from the University of Chicago. He completed his clinical training in internal medicine at Yale and his research training at Rockefeller Institute. Feinstein joined the Yale faculty in 1962 and became the founding director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at Yale in 1964. Under his direction, the program became recognized as one of the leading sites for training in the methods of clinical research. He was also the director of the clinical examination course (for second-year medical students) and created a course in quantitative clinical epidemiology (for Johnson Clinical Scholars) that was imitated throughout the country. Because of his work on the statistical analysis of clinical signs and symptoms of real patients—rather than on the historically nonclinical methods of pure statistics—Feinstein was a key figure in the establishment of the field of clinical epidemiology. His approaches and methods were reported in three books: Clinical Judgment, Clinical Epidemiology and Clinimetrics. His approaches to quantitative data were presented in three other books: Clinical Biostatistics, Multivariable Analysis and Principles of Medical Statistics. Feinstein will be remembered for his influence on the careers of over 100 fellows who trained in the clinical scholars program and others who considered him their intellectual muse.

Monte Nelson Frazier, M.P.H. ’65, of Colebrook, Conn., a graduate in epidemiology and public health and a veterinarian, died June 29 at the age of 76. Frazier, as noted in an obituary in The Hartford Courant, had a worldwide reputation in an esoteric specialty, the health of poultry. He parlayed a boyhood chore on his father’s Michigan farm into an international career. Frazier taught in the agriculture department of the University of Connecticut, then joined Arbor Acres Farm Inc. in Glastonbury, Conn., serving as director of poultry health for 25 years. He was an early advocate for using the highest standards of cleanliness and sanitation in order to eliminate diseases that could decimate whole flocks. He thought the best precaution was to isolate the birds from humans, other birds and animals. Frazier, known from Venezuela to India, worked for Aviagen Inc. (formerly Arbor Acres Farm Inc.), a company that does business worldwide. He logged up to 100,000 miles a year, to 35 countries in all, visiting farms and giving lectures on disease prevention. At the end of his career, Frazier lectured in Thailand to poultry experts whom he had helped train over several decades.

C. Norman Gillis, Ph.D., professor emeritus of anesthesiology and of pharmacology at the School of Medicine, died in Boston on August 16. He was 68. Gillis, a native of Scotland, earned his Ph.D. degree in 1957 from Glasgow University. He came to Yale in 1961 as assistant professor of pharmacology. In 1966 he was named associate professor of pharmacology, and in 1969, associate professor of anesthesiology. In 1973 Gillis was named professor of anesthesiology and of pharmacology, and served as director of anesthesiology research from 1979 until 1993. Gillis, nationally recognized as a specialist in pulmonary vascular disease and pharmacology, published more than 250 scientific articles during his career. He had recently been appointed to serve on a committee of the Institute of Medicine and was an adjunct professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. He was an associate editor of the journal Biochemical Pharmacology and served on the editorial boards of several other journals in his field.

Richard H. Granger, M.D., HS ’51, of Guilford, Conn., a member of the faculty in the Child Study Center, an advocate for children and a former master of Morse College, suffered with multiple myeloma and died of pneumonia on April 9 at Yale-New Haven Hospital. He was 76. While at Yale, Granger sought to train pediatricians to understand the interface between physical and psychological development. He established a program for the continuing education of pediatricians that brought them together with child psychiatrists to address the challenges faced by children and families. Granger had his own pediatric private practice in New Haven before joining the Child Study Center in 1969, where he supervised three major facilities expansions and served under three of the Center’s four directors. He was master of Morse College from 1975 to 1982. Granger served as president of both New Haven’s Dixwell Community House and the New Haven Area Mental Health Association. He headed the research unit of Connecticut’s Mental Health Association, and was also a delegate to the White House Conference on Children.

Laurence Van Doren Harris Jr., M.D. ’51, formerly of Thomaston, Conn., died of spinal cancer on September 7 in Longwood, Fla. He was 78. Harris was born in Wallace, Idaho. He attended high school in Kent, Conn., and completed one year at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., before enlisting in the Army during World War II. He returned to Williams after the war to complete his bachelor’s degree and then received his medical degree from Yale. Harris served his internship and residency at Waterbury Hospital, and after four years in private practice in Thomaston, he returned as a surgeon to the Army Medical Corps with the rank of major. Harris served in the United States, Germany and Thailand and completed his 20 years of service as a colonel before retiring to Florida.

Jerome K. Myers, Ph.D. ’50, a retired Yale sociology professor and pioneer in the fields of social psychiatry and medical sociology, died May 7 at the age of 79. Born in Lancaster, Pa., Myers graduated from Franklin and Marshall College in 1942 and served in World War II before earning his master’s and doctoral degrees in sociology at Yale. Myers remained at Yale throughout his 43-year career of teaching and research. During that time he co-founded and directed a National Institutes of Mental Health training grant program in medical sociology. Myers was principal investigator of a number of large-scale community surveys on mental health and mental health services, which culminated in the first major study of the prevalence of mental disorders in the United States. He authored and co-authored many books, including Research Techniques in Schizophrenia; Family and Class Dynamics in Mental Illness; A Decade Later: A Follow-up of Social Class and Mental Illness and Community Surveys of Psychiatric Disorders. Among Myers’ honors were the Rema Lapouse Award from the American Public Health Association and the Distinguished Career Award from the Psychiatric Sociology Section of the Society for the Study of Social Problems.

Raymond E. Parks, M.D. ’45, died August 9 at his home on St. Simons Island, Ga., at the age of 78. Born in St. Paul, Minn., Parks received his medical degree from Yale and was awarded the Campbell Prize, which is given to the student obtaining the highest standing in medical studies. He served his internship at Ramsey County Hospital in St. Paul, followed by a tour in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, where he attained the rank of captain. He completed his residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Certified in radiology and nuclear medicine, Parks was a consultant for the Florida State Board of Health. He was appointed to the Florida Air Pollution Control Commission in 1960, serving until 1967. He was also a radiologist on the heart transplant team at Cape-town University in South Africa during 1968. Parks was a member of the National Advisory Council on Radiation in Washington. He served as associate dean for continuing education at the University of Miami (UM) and professor and chair of the Department of Radiology at the UM School of Medicine. During his career Parks also served as director of radiology at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Kendall Hospital, Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, National Children’s Cardiac Hospital, Broward General Medical Center, North Broward Hospital and Imperial Point Hospital. He retired as clinical professor of radiology at the University of California at Davis.

Robert R. Wagner, M.D. ’46, of Charlottesville, Va., professor emeritus of microbiology at the University of Virginia Medical School, died of lung cancer on September 15 at the University of Virginia Hospital. He was 78. A native of New York and a 1943 graduate of Columbia University, Wagner taught microbiology at Yale and Johns Hopkins before moving to Charlottesville. He was on the faculty at Yale as an instructor in medicine from 1951 to 1953 and as an assistant professor of medicine from 1953 to 1955. Wagner joined the University of Virginia faculty in 1967 as chair of the microbiology department and remained chair until 1996. He was founding director in 1983 of the school’s cancer center and served in that position until 1995. He co-edited the multivolume texts Comprehensive Virology and The Viruses and published more than 200 articles in scientific journals. Wagner was a president of the American Society for Virology and a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine.

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