In Memoriam

David W. Barry, M.D. ’69, HS ’72, a prominent AIDS researcher, died on January 28 of a heart attack while on a business trip. He was 58. Barry graduated magna cum laude in French literature from Yale College in 1965 and received his medical degree from the School of Medicine. He served his internship and residency training at Yale from 1969 to 1972. In need of an expert on yellow fever, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recruited Barry, who had studied the disease for his thesis. A year later he became the deputy director of the agency’s virology division. In 1977 he joined Burroughs Wellcome and became head of clinical investigation, later serving as director of worldwide research. While at Burroughs Wellcome, one of his first tasks was to develop the herpes drug acyclovir. Barry also was a co-developer of AZT, the first drug developed to treat the AIDS virus. Working with the FDA, the Burroughs Wellcome team pushed the drug through clinical and review stages in 22 months, establishing a model for fast-track approval of treatments for life-threatening diseases. He was an advocate for the AIDS “cocktail” treatment, which uses more than one drug to fight the infection. After 18 years, Barry left Burroughs Wellcome, when it merged with Glaxo Holdings plc., to help start Triangle Pharmaceuticals in Durham, N.C., where he served as CEO and chairman of the board. Barry saw Triangle as an opportunity to do the impossible in the field of drug development. Rather than focus on therapies for common ailments, he wanted to cure the incurable diseases.

Fred W. Buse, M.D. ’33, of Roslyn, N.Y., died on June 27, 2001, of congestive heart failure at the age of 93. Buse, born in the Whitestone section of Queens in New York City, served during World War II in the Army’s medical field service school and received the European Theater of Operation Ribbon, the American Theater Ribbon and a Victory Medal. A general surgeon who later specialized in plastic and reconstructive surgery, Buse was known for his innovative treatment for patients with catastrophic burns. Buse had a private practice in Flushing, Queens, and in the Manhasset Medical Center (now part of the Long Island Jewish Medical Center) until he retired in 1979. He served on the staff at the New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens and the New York Flushing Hospital Medical Center. An avid jogger, swimmer and sailor, Buse walked daily to his practice in Flushing. He was buried at sea in a military ceremony by the U.S. Coast Guard off Point Judith, R.I.

Edward L. Eyerman Jr., M.D. ’57, a retired neurologist from St. Louis, Mo., died on December 15 of complications from cancer. He was 69. Eyerman was among a group of neurologists and neurosurgeons who helped introduce the imaging techniques of computed tomography and magnetic resonance to the St. Louis area. After completing an internship and residency training at the University of Virginia, the NIH and Columbia, he returned to his hometown in 1964 as an assistant professor of neurology at the St. Louis University School of Medicine. He also established a private practice in St. Louis and later had offices in Belleville and south St. Louis County. In the mid-1970s Eyerman co-founded the former Neuroscanning Associates in St. Louis. He also did extensive research on multiple sclerosis and published widely on neurological advances. During his career Eyerman served on the medical staff at Memorial and St. Elizabeth hospitals in Belleville and St. Mary’s Health Center in Richmond Heights.

James R. Fitzgerald, M.D. ’57, an orthopaedic surgeon from Ozona, Fla., died on December 9. He was 70. Born in Hartford, Fitzgerald graduated cum laude from the University of Connecticut in 1953 before studying medicine at Yale. He practiced orthopaedic surgery in the Hartford area for more than 25 years, and was a member of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Fitzgerald retired to Naples, Fla., in 1984 and moved to Ozona in 1995.

Edgar L. Geibel, M.P.H. ’49, of Stamford, Conn., died at the Highland Center in Brackenridge, Pa., on December 8 of complications from acute inflammatory bowel disease. He was 90. Geibel, born in Butler, Pa., served as the health officer for the city of Butler from 1936 to 1943. He attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1941. He served as a captain in the Army Medical Corps from 1943 to 1947 on the hospital ship Chateau Thierry. He was awarded the World War II Victory Medal, the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, the Army Commendation Ribbon, the American Campaign Medal and the Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal. After receiving his master’s in public health, Geibel served for five years as the assistant director of Genesee Hospital in Rochester, N.Y. In 1954 he returned to Connecticut and began a 23-year tenure at Stamford Hospital as chief administrator. Under his leadership the hospital experienced significant change and growth. Geibel was a lecturer in epidemiology and public health at Yale from 1961 to 1978. His affiliation with the Connecticut Hospital Association (CHA) spanned more than four decades; he served on various committees from 1955 to 1979 and as president of the CHA from 1964 to 1965. After his retirement he was a special advisor to the CHA from 1977 to 1983.

Jacob D. Goldstein, M.D., a retired anesthesiologist, died on February 3 at the age of 89. Goldstein was a clinical instructor in anesthesiology at Yale from 1969 to 1970, when he was named assistant clinical professor. Goldstein became associate clinical professor of anesthesiology in 1982.

James Q. Haralambie, M.D. ’35, a retired pediatrician, died of cancer on January 6 at The Connecticut Hospice in Branford. He was 92. Born in Philadelphia, Haralambie earned his A.B. degree in 1931 from Oberlin College and his M.D. from Yale. He interned at the Massachusetts General Hospital, where he was on the house staff in pediatrics from 1935 to 1936, and did his residency in pediatrics at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago from 1937 to 1939. Haralambie was an instructor in pediatrics and director of the Pediatric Outpatient Service at the New York Hospital, Cornell University Medical College, from 1939 to 1941. Haralambie started a private practice in Larchmont, N.Y., in 1941, but in 1942 he joined the Army as a captain. In 1946 he left the service with the rank of major after commanding the 183rd Station Hospital in Alaska. He resumed his practice until his retirement in 1978.

Haralambie also taught pediatrics at New York Hospital, retiring as clinical professor of pediatrics emeritus and honorary attending physician. He served as president of the Westchester County Medical Society from 1965 to 1966.

Dame Sheila Sherlock, M.D., FW ’48, an authority on liver disease and a pioneer in the science of hepatology, died on December 30 at her London home. She was 83. Born in England, Sherlock earned her medical degree from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1941, after medical schools in England refused to accept her because of her gender. She became chair of the Royal Free Hospital’s Department of Medicine in 1959, where she helped set up and direct a clinical, research and training center for liver disease. Sherlock was at Yale from 1947 to 1948 as a Rockefeller Foundation postdoctoral fellow working with physiologist C.N.H. Long, M.D., who was then dean of the medical school. In 1966, she helped create what is now a standard test for diagnosing primary biliary cirrhosis, and in 1971 she showed that treating autoimmune hepatitis with steroids was effective. Her reference book, Diseases of the Liver and Biliary System, now in its 11th edition, “put liver disease on the international map,” according to James L. Boyer, M.D., director of the Yale Liver Center. Peter Scheuer, M.D., a colleague of Sherlock’s who wrote an appreciation of her career in Britain’s Guardian newspaper in January, said that when she was starting out “the specialty of hepatology did not exist; Sherlock was its main creator, and, in a glittering 60-year career, became one of the world’s most famous names in clinical science.”

Richard C. Thompson, M.D., HS ’46, of San Mateo, Calif., died on October 8, 2000, at his home. He was 80.

Thompson, a California native, received his medical degree from Stanford. He served in the Navy during World War II as a physician in Guam, Saipan and Japan. Thompson completed his residency in anesthesiology at Yale. In 1960 he practiced on the hospital ship HOPE, and in 1968 he embarked on a missionary practice in Ghana, where he originated a new treatment for venomous snakebites. Thompson designed a mechanical retractor that bears his name and is used around the world to alleviate problems of manual retraction at the operating table. He was on the staff of Mills-Peninsula Health Services in California for more than 30 years.

Ruth Whittemore, M.D., HS ’44, a retired pediatric cardiologist who provided pre- and postoperative care for the baby who received the first “blue-baby” operation, died on December 27. She was 84. Whittemore, a graduate of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, joined the Yale faculty in 1947 as an instructor of pediatrics. At the request of the Federal Children’s Bureau in 1947, she established and served as director of the first rheumatic fever and cardiac clinic in New England, which was located in the pediatrics department at Yale. With the introduction of penicillin, the incidence of rheumatic fever began to decline and Whittemore devoted more of her time to children with congenital cardiac abnormalities. Her major research contribution to this field was a detailed, long-term follow-up study of her former patients to ascertain the congenital anomalies in the next generation. During her 45 years at Yale, Whittemore also served as instructor of pediatrics, clinical professor of pediatrics and director of pediatric cardiology. She created and directed a lipid clinic to evaluate the children of parents who had died from heart attacks or strokes.

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