The 50s

Robert Burton (M.D. 1953, Residency 1959), like most doctors, can claim he has saved lives — what is different about him is that he’s never met many of the people he’s saved. After spending each Wednesday afternoon for two years in Lansing as chairman of the Michigan Coalition for Seatbelt Use, Burton convinced legislators to pass the 1983 legislation that made not wearing a seatbelt a secondary offense in the state. He continued to push for the law to be classified as a primary offense, and won that battle just two years ago.

The 70s

Ronald B. Irwin (M.D. 1971) has been appointed medical director and senior vice president of Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. Irwin is an orthopedic surgeon specializing in bone cancer and also directs the Musculoskeletal Tumor Services at Beaumont. He has served as corporate director of oncology services for Beaumont Hospitals since 1998, a position he will continue to hold.

The 90s

Mihir Meghani (M.D. 1997), an emergency specialist with Kaiser Permanente of Northern California, was part of a team of experts in disaster management and planning from the state of California Office of Emergency Services to conduct a workshop following an on-site tour of Bhuj, India, and surrounding areas. Sponsored by the Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority and the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, the workshop brought together parties that would be involved in managing a disaster like the earthquake that struck Bhuj in January 2001. Workshop participants discussed the resources and capabilities available to them in the event of another disaster in Gujarat.

Mark Moronell, M.D. (Residency 1997), completed a fellowship in cardiovascular disease at Vanderbilt University and was recently appointed chief of cardiovascular services at Alaska Regional Hospital. He is a member/owner of the Alaska Heart Institute and lives with his wife, Christina, and their two children in Anchorage.

LIVES LIVED

Julius J. Deur (M.D. 1948) died on January 23 of complications from Parkinson’s Disease. He was 79. He served his internship at Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids and completed a residency and postgraduate training in internal medicine at the Alexander Blain Clinic and Hospital in Detroit. He served in the uniformed corps of the United States Public Health Service and maintained a private practice for 30 years in Lafayette, Indiana before retiring in 1988.

David A.W. Edwards (M.D. 1943) died on October 16, 2001, in London, England. Edwards returned to his native England at the end of his Rockefeller scholarship at the U-M. He became a physician at University College Hospital Medical School London and later a reader in medical sciences there. He specialized in gastroenterology.

David F. Frederick (M.D. 1946) died on December 2, 2001. He was 78.

William J. Hanley (M.D. 1946) died on February 28 in Naples, Florida, after suffering from Parkinson’s Disease. Born and raised in Muskegon, he practiced ophthalmology there from 1952 to 1989. Hanley was an early pioneer in the field of ocular surgery and one of the first in Michigan to use the phacoemulsification process to remove cataracts. He was a past president of the Muskegon County Medical Society and chief of staff at Mercy Hospital.

Bronko P. Lelich (M.D. 1939) died on April 23, 1999, at the age of 83.

Cary S. Peabody (M.D. 1939) died on January 12 in Grand Rapids at age 88. Peabody served as a physician in the U.S. Army Medical Corps with the rank of captain during World War II, from 1942-46. He then practiced ophthalmology for 25 years in Ohio. After retiring in 1976, he and his wife, Marion, moved to Lake Odessa, then in 1990 to Grand Rapids.

John Raskin (Ph.D. 1935, M.D. 1939) died of complications from a stroke on November 7, 2001, in Sacramento, California, at the age of 95. Raskin contributed greatly to the understanding of the nature of the tuberculosis organism as a part of the Deparment of Bacteriology at the U-M. He practiced general medicine and surgery for eight years in Detroit and for 30 years in Vallejo, California. Following retirement, he began active research into malignant insulinoma in conjunction with the Pathology Department at the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine.

Joel Salon (M.D. 1946) died at the age of 78 on December 25, 2001 at Covington Manor Nursing Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Salon was a polio survivor, having contracted the disease while stationed with the Air Force in Bermuda during the Korean War in 1953. He spent a year in recovery before returning to the private medical practice he had established prior to the war. He retired in 1989 after a distinguished career that consisted of being a member of the courtesy staff at Lutheran and Parkview hospitals, a consultant for the Veterans Administration Hospital and clinical assistant professor of internal medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine. He had also served as president of the Fort Wayne Medical Society and had been awarded the Chapter Laureate award of the Indiana Chapter of the American College of Physicians. In 1987, Salon, whose father, grandfather, uncle and cousin also attended the U-M Medical School, and his wife, Marilyn, established the Joel W. and Marilyn G. Salon Endowed Scholarship Fund at the University of Michigan.

L.S. Whitaker, M.D. (Residency 1941), died on July 17, 2001. He was 91.

Civil Rights Leader John Holloman Is Dead at 82

John L.S. Holloman Jr. (M.D. 1943) died at 82 of a stroke in Queens, New York, on February 27. Holloman, a leader in the civil rights struggle as it related to medicine, was featured in the Summer 2000 issue of Medicine at Michigan. A substantial obituary on Holloman in the March 2 edition of the New York Times noted his presidency of New York City’s public hospital corporation in the mid-1970s, his myriad contributions to civil rights in medicine, and his tireless advocacy of better health care for the poor. He was a board member of the State University of New York for almost 30 years (1966-95). In his many medical leadership positions, including the presidency of the National Medical Association, he appealed to the medical profession to fight racial prejudice, including racist practices in the American Medical Association. In many forums he pressed for health care as a basic right, and he campaigned tirelessly for national health insurance. He was a native of Washington, D.C., where his father preached for 53 years at the Second Baptist Church.

Former NIH Director Donald Fredrickson, 77, Pioneered Acceptance of Genetic Engineering

Donald S. Fredrickson (M.D. 1949), noted geneticist and leading researcher on the relationship between lipids, fats and heart disease, died on June 7 at the age of 77 at his home in Bethesda, Maryland.

Dean Allen S. Lichter (M.D. 1972) stated: “We at the Medical School are saddened by the passing of Donald Fredrickson, a distinguished U-M Medical School alumnus, former director of the National Institutes of Health and past president of the Howard Hughes Medical Research Institute in Bethesda.

“After he graduated from the Medical School, he began a career in research and scientific leadership. Dr. Fredrickson discovered two genetic disorders and helped to illuminate our understanding of plasma lipoproteins. While serving as NIH director, he smoothed the way for our society’s acceptance of genetic engineering and the safety of recombinant DNA technology.

“Physician, scientist, teacher, author and leader...he will be missed.”

Fredrickson served as president of the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine from 1974-75, as NIH director from 1975-81, and as president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute from 1984-87. He was a keynote speaker during the Medical School’s sesquicentennial celebration gala in October 2000. Fredrickson, 2000 Holloman, 1963