Front Page
Brain surgeons KEITH BLACK (M.D. 1981, Residency, 1987), director of Cedars-Sinai Neurosurgical Institute in Los Angeles, and BEN CARSON (M.D. 1977), director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, have both received cover stories and front page spotlighting of their work in the past few years in leading national publications: Keith Black on the cover of a special Fall 1997 issue of Time magazine on "Heroes of Medicine" and Ben Carson on the cover of the May 11, 1997 Parade magazine and the front page of the November 20, 1998, edition of Investor's Business Daily as the lead individual for that day's "Leaders & Success" feature. In all of the articles their training at Michigan was mentioned. Black has also been profiled on CBS, CNN and PBS special programs; Carson has been the subject of a drama, "Ben Carson, M.D.," staged in Baltimore for Baltimore-area school children. He was honored with a Distinguished Achievement Award by the Medical Center Alumni Society at the September, 1998, reunion in Ann Arbor, and will be the commencement speaker for the 1999 Medical School graduation in June.

Gerard Rudy and Norvelle Goff-Rudy with son, Peter.

Isolated But Not Alone
GERARD RUDY (M.D. 1990) has been practicing medicine for the past six years under conditions that he could hardly have imagined as a medical student and basketball player under coach Bill Frieder at Michigan: In the Honduran village of Ahuas where he works and lives with his wife, Norvelle Goff-Rudy, a Honduran native who is also a physician, there are no roads and no electricity. But they do have diesel-powered generators, kerosene refrigerators, propane stoves, ham radio, an e-mail address through a friend (maurice@psinet.hn) and small planes that fly in and out regularly from the coastal town of La Ceiba, about 135 miles away. The damage caused by Hurricane Mitch in the fall of 1998 left them mostly unscathed, although there was loss of livestock and the rich black soil in the area; a river a mile and a half away came within 100 yards of the village but no closer.

Gerard and Norvelle are the adoptive parents of 2-year-old Peter, the eleventh child in a family whose biological parents felt he would have a better chance at a good life with the Rudys.

The Rudys' work is sponsored by the Moravian and Reformed Churches. Anyone interested in sending money or other help to the Rudys can do so by contacting the Board of World Mission of the Moravian Church, 1021 Center Street, PO Box 1245, Bethlehem, PA 18016-1245 or by calling (610) 868-1732.

Applause for the Small-town Doctor
DONALD D. FINLAYSON (M.D. 1941) of Brimley, a retired Sault Ste. Marie family physician, received the Frederick K.M. Plessner Award at the 133rd annual meeting of the Michigan State Medical Society's House of Delegates in Dearborn in May, 1998. More than 300 physician-delegates representing 14,000 physicians statewide gave Finlayson a standing ovation for his work "best exemplifying the practice and ethics of a rural practitioner." Finlayson grew up in the Upper Peninsula during the Great Depression. After graduating from Michigan's Medical School he served as a physician on a U.S. Navy destroyer during World War II and upon completion of his postgraduate training at Harper, Children's and Herman Kiefer Hospitals in Detroit, returned north to his hometown. Finlayson and his wife, Catherine, recently made a gift of $100,000 to the University's Donor Pooled Income Fund. Upon their deaths, distributions from the fund will support scholarship awards for students in the Medical School from Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Pictured from left to right: Gene and Marge Ragland, Wanda and John Vanlandingham and son Jerrod following the evening tribute to John at the First Baptist Church in Flomaton, Alabama, on November 1, 1998.

In 1972 JOHN VANLANDINGHAM (M.D. 1970), who also holds bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering from the University of Michigan, went down to southern Alabama to spend some time with his parents, who lived in the little town of Evergreen in an area of cotton fields and paper mills. He worked in a couple of the nearby small hospitals and in early 1974 was asked to fill in for a few months in Flomaton, Alabama, while the town's only physician took a medical leave. More than 300,000 patient visits later, John Vanlandingham, now married and the father of two sons, is still there. Last November he received the adulation of several hundred of Flomaton's residents at a surprise tribute held for him at the First Baptist Church in Flomaton. Among the hymns on the program: No. 188, "The Great Physician." His friend and classmate Gene Ragland (M.D. 1970), an emergency physician at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, participated in the event and furnished the photo shown here.

1940s

Warren Austin (M.D. 1940) with second-year medical student and Austin Scholarship recipient, Jeffrey Gaines.

Warren R. Austin (M.D. 1940), who practiced internal medicine in Santa Barbara, California, for many years, has established the Warren R. Austin Endowed Scholarship Fund in the Medical School with a gift of $100,000. He is pictured here on a visit to Ann Arbor last year with second-year medical student Jeffrey Gaines of Fraser, northeast of Detroit, who is the first recipient of the scholarship. The Austin Scholarship provides a stipend of several thousand dollars this year and will provide more as the Fund grows over time. Austin and his late wife, Florence Heath Horton, gave their historic 17-acre Montecito estate, located just east of Santa Barbara and known as Val Verde, to the city of Montecito for a public museum and garden. The couple had wide-ranging interests and for many years ran a French-language camp for children in the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington, which Austin still helps run.

1960s

Miles Murphy (M.D. 1961), a Grand Rapids obstetrician, received widespread Associated Press coverage for the prenatal care he'd given years before to three football players on Michigan's 1998 Rose Bowl team. He delivered or provided prenatal care to offensive lineman David Brandt and walk-on players P.J. Cwayna and Ryan Parini. "When David was born Dr. Murphy said, 'I think we have a football player here,' Brandt's mother, Jan Brandt, recalled in the article. "I was having a little trouble delivering David's shoulders and that's exactly what Dr. Murphy said to me at the time." A Michigan football season ticket holder since the early 1970s, Murphy attends most home games each year.

The significance of January 19 inspired the following from Glenn W. Geelhoed (M.D. 1968), professor of surgery and professor of international medical education at George Washington University Medical Center:

"In 1998, the federal holiday celebrating the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. fell on January 19. January 19 also marks the birthday of Robert E. Lee, a somewhat more regional celebration. And, it also marks mine.

"On that same day in 1998 I learned that January 19, 1848, marked a decision by the University of Michigan Regents to set in motion what would become one of the nation's preeminent medical faculties, and, in my opinion, not unbiased though from a distance, the supreme standard of excellence by which to judge all other aspirants to superior performance in patient care, health education and medical research. Thus has January 19 become an even more meaningful day of celebration for me. I hope that another alumnus, reflecting on the 300th anniversary of the Regents' January 19 decision, will write in by who-knows-what-technology to report that the blue and gold standard is still the mark of medical excellence.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY BIG BLUE MED!"

Geelhoed can be reached at: msdgwg@mail.gwumc.edu

E. Michael Okin (M.D. 1966) of Rydal, Pennsylvania, was elected to the Board of Councilors of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons in March, 1998. Okin has been in private practice since 1973 at Delaware Valley Orthopedic Associates in Philadelphia. He is also on the staff at Frankford-Torresdale and Frankford Hospitals in Philadelphia, Allegheny University Hospitals in Elkins Park, and Holy Redeemer Hospital and Medical Center in Meadowbrook.

Eleanor S. Segal (M.D. 1966), who was featured on a panel of five women speakers ("representing 50 years of women medical school graduates," she notes) at the Class of 1966 reunion in Ann Arbor, writes that she is now working for the second-largest biopharmaceutical company in the world, Chiron Corporation, in Emeryville, California, as senior director of drug safety and clinical quality assurance. She also has an appointment as clinical professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Family and Community Medicine, at Stanford University School of Medicine, and teaches a twice-yearly course in rural health which includes a field trip to the San Joaquin Valley and the Tuolumne Rancheria Indian Health Clinic.

Segal can be reached at Eleanor_Segal@cc.chiron.com

Marshall Strome (M.D. 1964, M.S. 1970, Residency 1970) received 15 column inches of coverage in the Sunday edition of the New York Times on January 11, 1998, as leader of a surgical team in the Department of Otolaryngology at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, that successfully performed the first larynx transplant since 1969. In the 12-hour surgery, a 40-year-old man who had lost his voice in a motorcycle accident 19 years earlier received the larynx, part of the trachea and 70 percent of the throat of a donor.

1970s

Four years ago James C. Hays (M.D. 1977), an ophthalmologist who heads up the Atlanta (Georgia) Eye Surgery Group, established a scholarship fund in his name, now valued at more than $100,000, to benefit medical students at Michigan. He's pictured here with the current recipient of the Hays Scholarship, Elise Georgi, a first-year student from Howell. Hays' first scholar, Kristie Keeton (M.D. 1998) is now a graduate student in public health at the University of Illinois-Chicago. She is studying maternal and child health in the Division of Community Health Sciences. She will earn her master's degree in May and begin a residency in obstetrics and gynecology in July at a yet to be determined place. Hays' classmate, Jean Holland (M.D. 1977), a dermatologist from Birmingham, was inspired last fall, after meeting Keeton, to set up a scholarship fund herself. She and her five sons have endowed a memorial fund with a gift of nearly $400,000 to honor her late husband and the boys' father, Frederick Richard Holland (M.D. 1977), an ophthalmologist who died of a brain tumor in July, 1997.

Lewis A. Jones, Jr. (M.D. 1978), has been a physician consultant for the Michigan Department of Community Health in Lansing since October, 1997, where women's health promotion is a top priority for him. A diagnostic radiologist, he has been active in raising public awareness about the importance of early breast cancer detection. Earlier he was a staff radiologist at Harper Hospital in Detroit, In 1995, the readers of Essence Magazine voted him winner of the "What a Man" contest for his breast cancer awareness programs. He is currently enrolled in public health studies at the University of Michigan. You can reach him at: jonesle@state.mi.us

1980s

Richard L. Harvey (M.D. 1988), reports that he is an assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Northwestern University Medical School and an attending physician at The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, where he holds the Wesley and Suzanne Dixon Chair in Stroke Rehabilitation Research. The focus of his studies is the epidemiology of venous thromboembolism following stroke. He is working on a master's degree in public health at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Stephanie L. Heard (M.D. 1986), joined the psychiatric faculty at the Michigan State University Kalamazoo Center for Medical Studies in Kalamazoo in August, 1997. The Center is a partnership of the Borgess Medical Center, Bronson Methodist Hospital and MSU's College of Human Medicine. Dr. Heard practices in the Center's psychiatry office and trains medical students and residents in psychotherapy, multicultural sensitivity and women's issues. Before entering Michigan's Medical School, Dr. Heard worked for more than 10 years as a professional musician.

Deaths

In this first issue of Medicine at Michigan we have included those few obituaries sent to us over the past year and a half. We encourage relatives and friends to let us know of Michigan Medical School graduates who have died and to include information and photos that will help their classmates and other readers of Medicine at Michigan remember them.

Waite Bohne (Residency 1941) at home in Savannah, Georgia, on February 17, 1998.

In 1950 Bohne began his medical practice at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. He served as chief of urology from 1952 to 1970. During his career he was president of the Michigan Urological Society and recipient of the Distinguished Career Award from the Henry Ford Medical Association. Bohne was a captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during World War II, serving with the 23rd General Hospital Unit in North Africa, Italy and Germany. He was 83.

Daniel J. Buckley Jr. (M.D. 1954) on August 27, 1997, of lung cancer, at his home in Denver, Colorado.

An active proponent of the Lamaze method of childbirth, Buckley spent most of his 40-year medical career as an obstetrician and gynecologist in Decatur, Illinois, before moving to Florida in 1983. He spent the last few years of his life in Denver. A student of Pierre Vellay, who himself had studied under Lamaze, Buckley was the American representative for the Paris, France-based International Society of Prophylactic Obstetrics and served on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Prophylactic Obstetrics. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1926, he earned his undergraduate degree at Michigan and after graduating from the Medical School did his internship and residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Toledo Hospital in Toledo, Ohio. He was 71.

Richard H. Freyberg (M.D. 1930, Residency 1932, M.S. 1936) in January, 1999, at his home in Venice, Florida.

Captain of the track team and one of the nation's leading middle distance runners, Freyberg earned his undergraduate degree from Michigan in 1926. After completing his residency in 1932, Freyberg established the Rackham Arthritis Research Unit at U-M, and served as its director until 1944 when he moved to New York to become director of the newly established Division of Rheumatic Diseases at the Hospital for Special Surgery, chief of the Arthritis Clinic at New York Hospital, and clinical professor of medicine at Cornell University Medical College. He was among a small group of rheumatologists who in 1948, with the support of Floyd B. Odlam, chairman of the Atlas Corporation and a sufferer of arthritis, established the Arthritis Foundation, which Freyberg directed for 22 years. In 1970 he helped established the arthritis and rheumatism wing of the Eisenhower Medical Center in Palm Desert, While living in Venice, Florida, for the past 20 years he remained active in the field of rheumatology and co-authored a book on its history. He was 94.

Robert S. Gove (M.D. 1959) on November 18, 1997, at his home in Cocoa Beach, Florida.

After earning his medical degree in 1959, Gove interned at Borgess Medical Center in Kalamazoo and then undertook a part-time four-year surgery preceptorship. He was in private practice in medicine and surgery with Jack Hunt in Kalamazoo. In 1975 he was appointed medical chief of staff at Western Michigan University. He was on the medical staff of Borgess Medical Center and Bronson Hospital and had teaching affiliations at Western Michigan University and Michigan State University, where he earned his undergraduate degree in zoology in 1952. He was 68.

Herbert S. Ratner (M.D. 1935), on December 6, 1997, while visiting his daughter in Cleveland, Ohio.

A 54-year resident of Oak Park, Illinois, Ratner was director of the city's Department of Public Health from 1949 to 1974. A visiting professor of community and preventive medicine at New York Medical College, he was also associate clinical professor of family and community medicine at Loyola University where he was director of student health and where he taught a course in medical ethics for many years. In the 30s and 40s he served as scientific consultant to Robert Maynard Hutchins, president of the University of Chicago, and to the Encyclopedia Brittanica. An early critic of the manufacturing process for the Salk polio vaccine and later, of testing for the birth control pill, he was also opposed to legalized abortion and helped organize Americans United for Life in 1971. Pope John Paul II appointed him as a consultant to the Pontifical Council on the Family in 1982. He believed strongly in the benefits of breast feeding and was a senior medical adviser to La Leche League for more than 40 years. He was also an advocate of the natural childbirth movement. He was born in 1907 in Manhattan. He was 90.