In Memoriam

Brandon Brei, of Orange, Conn., a predoctoral student in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health, drowned on March 22 off the coast of San Juan, Puerto Rico, while trying to save a fellow student caught in an undertow. He was 26. Brei studied the ecology of vector-borne spirochetes. His research provided valuable information about strategies for controls.

Edward S. Brown, M.D. ’43, of Sagamore Hills Township, Ohio, died on April 30 at the age of 85. Brown was the director of emergency services at St. Luke’s Hospital in Cleveland for more than 20 years and director of the hospital’s health services. He was a captain in the Army Medical Corps during World War II, receiving a decoration from the Philippine government.

Felix M. Brown, M.D. ’93, a pathologist and associate director of surgical pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, died of cancer on May 27 at his home in Dedham, Mass., at the age of 36. In his honor, the Department of Pathology at Harvard has created an annual award to be presented to pathologists-in-training whose qualities of humanity, generosity and dedication complement their talent as physicians.

Nicholas J. Daukas, M.D., former assistant professor of ophthalmology at Yale, died on February 25 at the age of 80. Daukas, of Middletown, Conn., and Watch Hill, R.I., was an All-American football player in college and an All-Pro tackle for the minor-league Brooklyn Dodgers football team while in medical school.

Robert M. Donaldson Jr., M.D., the David Paige Smith Professor Emeritus of Medicine and former deputy dean and acting dean of the School of Medicine, died on July 9 at the age of 75 at his Cape Cod home. Donaldson joined the Yale faculty in 1973 and later served as vice chair and acting chair of the Department of Internal Medicine. From 1991 to 1992 he served as acting dean. A specialist in gastroenterology and a prolific contributor to the medical literature, Donaldson edited the journals Gastroenterology and Current Opinion in Gastroenterology and served on the editorial board of The New England Journal of Medicine.

Donnell D. Etzwiler, M.D. ’53, HS ’54, died of cancer on April 6 at the age of 76. Etzwiler founded the International Diabetes Center in St. Louis Park, Minn., in 1967. He established 60 diabetes care programs around the world, including 30 in Russia, for which he won the Russian Peace Prize in 1994. For 25 years he served as medical director of Camp Needlepoint, a summer camp for children with diabetes in Hudson, Wis.

Evelyn T. (Stotz) Farnsworth, M.N. ’38, M.P.H. ’55, of Wellesley, Mass., died on February 12 at the age of 100. Farnsworth served as an ensign in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps in World War II. During her career she was an assistant administrator at the Boston Dispensary and Rehabilitation Institute.

James E.D. Gardam, M.D. ’45, former vice president of medical services and governmental health programs at Prudential Insurance Co. of America, died on May 30 in Millville N.J., at the age of 81. While at Prudential, Gardam received a citation from the Secretary of Health and Human Services for his efforts to accelerate the federal reimbursement for new medical tests, services and procedures. After his retirement he founded the Argyle Medical Associates, consultants to health insurers.

Patricia Goldman-Rakic, Ph.D., professor of neurobiology, neurology, psychiatry and psychology, died on July 31 at the age of 66 from injuries after being struck by a car. Goldman-Rakic, who joined the faculty in 1979, pioneered the study of memory function. She was the first researcher to explore the frontal lobe, formerly considered inaccessible to scientific analysis, and to discover and describe its order and structure, which is responsible for the highest level of cognitive functions. She also studied amphetamine abuse in adolescents and young adults and how it diminishes the mind’s performance.

S. Jerome Greenfield, M.D. ’39, died on May 6 in the Boca Raton (Fla.) Community Hospital at the age of 88. Greenfield, a retired ophthalmologist from Millburn, N.J., served as a physician in the Army Air Corps in England and Iceland during World War II, attaining the rank of major.

William A. Gryboski, M.D. ’56, HS ’62, of Tequesta, Fla., died of lung cancer on January 18 at his vacation home in Greensboro, Ga., at the age of 73. Gryboski, formerly of New Britain, Conn., served as a chief surgical officer in the Navy aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Essex and as chief of surgery at the U.S. Naval Submarine Base in New London, Conn. During his 26 years as a senior attending surgeon at New Britain General Hospital he introduced several new procedures, including the insertion of cardiac pacemakers.

Jerold A. Haber, M.D. ’71, of Atlanta, died on April 30 at the age of 57. Haber, an orthopaedic surgeon, pioneered outpatient IDET (intradiscal electrothermal annuloplasty) and APLD (automated percutaneous lumbar discectomy) “Band-Aid” back surgery. Haber, an accomplished photographer and potter, has permanent photographic exhibits at Northside Hospital and the radiation oncology department at St. Joseph’s Hospital Cancer Center, both in Atlanta.

Frederic L. Holmes, Ph.D., the Avalon Professor of the History of Medicine at Yale, died on March 27 at the age of 71 after a long illness. As chair of the Section of the History of Medicine from 1977 to 2002, Holmes was a leading force in building Yale’s program in the history of science and medicine, both as a scholarly field and as a link between the humanities, natural sciences and medicine.

Peter B. Hukill, M.D. ’53, died on May 18 at his home in Winchester, Conn., at the age of 76. He was the former director of laboratories at Charlotte Hungerford Hospital and director of the Connecticut Dermatopathology Laboratory. Hukill was also on the faculty at Yale as an associate clinical professor of pathology from 1979 until his death.

Margaret F. Knapp, M.P.H. ’49, a retired commissioned officer of the U.S. Public Health Service, died on March 20 at the age of 95. While working at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., Knapp wrote the first nursing manual on cancer treatment, which was distributed to state health departments. She was also chief of the Division of Nursing Services at the Indian Health Service in Washington.

Ira R. Levine, M.D., an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Yale and an attending psychiatrist on the Dual Diagnosis Unit of Yale-New Haven Psychiatric Hospital, died after a brief illness on January 31. He was 65. At the VA Connecticut Healthcare System in West Haven, Levine was director of ambulatory services and chief of the day hospital and mental hygiene clinic.

Robert A. Mino, M.D. ’42, of Evansville, Ind., died at home on February 8 at the age of 86. Mino was on the surgery staff at St. Mary’s Medical Center and Deaconess and Welborn Baptist hospitals in Evansville. He was a member of the American Medical Writers Association and the Mississippi Valley Medical Writers Society, and he published numerous scientific articles in medical and surgical journals.

Russell R. Monroe, M.D. ’44, of San Francisco, died on April 4 of pneumonia at the age of 82. Monroe, a former chair of psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, explored the relationship between madness and genius, as well as the electrical storms deep in the brain that trigger violence. Monroe studied offenders at the Patuxent Institution in Maryland and wrote several books on episodic behavioral and brain disorders.

Elpenor R. Ohle, M.D., HS ’44, died on May 25 in Green Bank, W. Va., at the age of 88. Ohle started a medical practice in Celo, N.C., after a tour of duty with the U.S. Public Health Service in 1944. He was an old-fashioned family physician for nearly 40 years, until he retired to pursue gardening and landscaping. In 1997 Ohle was honored by the National Weather Service for 50 years of continuous recording of weather in the South Toe Valley in North Carolina.

Harold C. Patterson, M.D., HS ’48, of North Wilkesboro, N.C., died on February 12 at the Villages of Wilkes Skilled Care at the age of 91. Patterson was a clinical instructor in ophthalmology at Yale and had a private practice in Danbury, Conn.

Claire E. (Burton) Reinhardt, Ph.D. ’42, of West Hartford, Conn., died on January 30 at the age of 87. Reinhardt spent her career as a public health professional with the Connecticut departments of Public Health and Education until her retirement in 1981.

Arnold Schoolman, Ph.D. ’54, M.D. ’57, of Prairie Village, Kan., died on April 14 at the age of 75. Schoolman was professor of surgery (neurology) at the University of Kansas School of Medicine and had a private neurological surgery practice until his retirement in 1998.

David B. Skinner, M.D. ’59, former president and CEO of the New York Weill Cornell Medical Center, died of a cerebral hemorrhage on January 24 at the age of 67. Skinner presided over the merger of New York and Presbyterian hospitals and directed the building of the New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System. He oversaw the construction of the Maurice R. and Corinne P. Greenberg Pavilion, an 850,000-square-foot structure that extends over Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive. Skinner continued performing esophageal surgery throughout his administrative career.

Kenneth J.W. Taylor, Ph.D., M.D., professor of diagnostic radiology and obstetrics and gynecology at Yale, died on February 15 at the age of 63. Taylor explored the use of diagnostic “grayscale” ultrasound in cancer patients at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Australia and received grant support from the American Cancer Society and the National Institutes of Health for his work on detection of tumor vascularity by Doppler ultrasound. He authored and edited numerous books on diagnostic ultrasound including the Atlas of Ultrasonography and Clinical Applications of Doppler Ultrasound.

Jack L. Westcott, M.D., clinical professor of diagnostic radiology at Yale, died on January 31 at the age of 71. Westcott, former chair of radiology at the Hospital of St. Raphael, past president of the Society of Thoracic Radiology and a radiologist at Hartford Hospital, was the creator of the Westcott biopsy needle, which is used in hospitals today.

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