Alumni

1948
William E. Sherpick died June 14, 2018, shortly before his 93rd birthday. He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Mary, and four daughters. Dr. Sherpick was born in Brooklyn and lived in Scarsdale, New York City, and Hawaii during his medical training. He moved to Farmington, Conn., where he and his wife raised their girls and dogs. He enjoyed spending time shoreside on Shelter Island and later in Wareham, Mass. He was an accomplished woodworker, crafting furniture for family and friends. After retirement, he and Mary moved to Needham, Mass., to be closer to their children.

1952
James Archibald “Arch” Jacob Jr.  died Feb. 9, 2017, of carcinoid syndrome in his native West Virginia. Shortly after graduating from VP&S he was drafted into the Navy, which took him to places around the world. Upon discharge he settled in Wheeling, W.Va., where he raised four children. He also joined the board of a manufacturing company that had been associated with his family for generations. Dr. Jacob was medical director of the Wheeling Steel Company before going into private practice. He became a captain in the Army Reserves and did considerable traveling. His other passions were reading, gardening, opera, classical music, birding, and crossword puzzles. He is survived by his wife, Doretta, four children, and six grandchildren. 

1953
Garrison “Gary” Rapmund of Bethesda, Md., died April 22, 2018, at age 90. He trained in pediatrics at Babies Hospital before joining the Army, where he rose to the rank of major general. He was an assistant surgeon general in the field of research & development and a scientific adviser to the NIH, the FAA, and the Department of Energy. His honors include the Legion of Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, and a named medal from the Infectious Diseases Society for his work on rickettsial diseases. He is survived by a son, a daughter, and three grandchildren. 

1954
Peyton Hoge Mead of Farmington, Conn., died May 3, 2018, of complications from Alzheimer’s disease/vascular dementia. At his side during his final days were his wife of 25 years, Mimi, and his four children. A native of Connecticut, Dr. Mead trained in surgery, became a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, and practiced at Hartford Hospital. In 1964 he served on the hospital ship HOPE in Guinea, West Africa. He left private practice to work as an occupational physician at an aircraft company. His passions were flying and parachute jumping. Dr. Mead participated in the 1963 march for civil rights on Washington at which Dr. Martin Luther King made his famous “I have a dream” speech, and he volunteered for Meals on Wheels.

1955
Daniel Starr Pettee died May 24, 2018, at age 93 at his home in Broomfield, Colo., where he lived with his daughter and her family. Dr. Pettee was elected to AOA, trained in neurology at Rochester, and was an expert on multiple sclerosis. An avid singer, he joined the P&S Bards as well as nationally recognized choral groups. During World War II he was wounded in Bitche, France, and received the Purple Heart. He recently completed his autobiography, “One Son of Bitche.”

1956
Donald M. Gleason, a urologist, died March 22, 2018. After serving his country in the Air Force he finished his residency in New York City, then moved to Tucson where he practiced urology for more than 30 years. He is survived by his wife, Peggy, four children, and nine grandchildren.

1957
William C. Rhangos died May 31, 2018. A native of Massachusetts, Dr. Rhangos graduated from Yale before entering VP&S. He trained in surgery at Roosevelt before going into the Army. Upon discharge he moved to Duke University where he completed training in orthopedic surgery. He moved to Savannah, Ga., where he became chief of the Crippled Children’s Clinic and remained for many years.

Sterling P. Tignor died April 10, 2018. As an undergraduate at Yale, he was voted as the “student most likely to succeed.” After medical school, he completed a surgical residency at Boston City Hospital then served in the U.S. Army Surgical Corps until his discharge in 1964. Following a fellowship at Memorial Hospital he opened a practice in Kokomo, Ind., and served on the faculty of Indiana University’s medical school. He also served a term as president of the Indiana College of Surgeons. Among his hobbies were classical music, photography, woodwork, and travel. He was an avid motorcyclist and owned several “bikes.” His wife died in 2017. He is survived by two daughters, a son, and six grandchildren.

1958
Jules White, 84, died May 24, 2018, in Stamford, Conn. His professional life was distinguished by being board-certified in three fields: surgery, thoracic surgery, and radiology. After military service in Vietnam, for which he received a Bronze Star, he practiced cardiothoracic surgery in Dayton, Ohio, and radiology at New Milford Hospital. His hobbies included classical music, military history, languages, long distance swimming, alpine skiing, tennis, and long walks. He is survived by two daughters and two grandsons. 

1959
Warner Slack died of lung disease June 23, 2018. He was best known for the computer applications he used to maintain patient records. As early as 1965 he envisioned a computer-based medical history. In the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Slack showed that “patients enjoyed interacting with the computer and that the resulting histories were more detailed and accurate than those resulting from physician-patient interviews.” Dr. Slack served as co-chief of the Division of Clinical Computing at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he oversaw some of the earliest and most effective hospital-wide clinical computing systems.

1960
Saul Moroff died May 14, 2018. Dr. Moroff did his postgraduate training at Einstein and Jacobi hospitals and was chief resident and director of the medical service at Einstein Hospital. His subspecialty was hematology. He was made clinical professor emeritus upon his retirement, after which he and his wife, Libby, took courses, visited museums, attended concerts,  and completed cross-country drives. He is survived by his daughters and grandchildren.

1961
Joel Kovel, a former Freudian psychiatrist who evolved into an apostle of what he called ecosocialism, a so-called green-and-red agenda against the environmental evils of globalization in favor of the nonviolent eradication of capitalism, died April 30, 2018, in Manhattan. He was 81. He trained at Downstate Psychiatric Institute and directed residency training at Einstein. A book he authored, “White Racism,” was nominated for a National Book Award. His wife, Dee Dee Hallek, and two daughters survive him. 

1962
Howard A. Fox, longtime chair of pediatrics at Monmouth Medical Center, died May 15, 2017. His field of expertise was neonatology. He trained in pediatrics at Babies Hospital and served in the U.S. Public Health Service, which took him to the CDC. He completed his training at Yale, after which he assumed the position of director of neonatology at Mount Sinai in New York. He held the same position for 11 years at the University of Kansas, where he developed a program that facilitates transport of newborns. Upon retiring, Dr. Fox earned a degree in art history from Rutgers and spent 10 years as a volunteer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is survived by his wife, Barbara, two daughters, and two grandchildren.

Herman Frankel died July 11, 2018, at the age of 80. He trained in pediatrics at Montefiore and Cornell, eventually becoming director of the Portland Health Institute for Building Caring Relationships. He also held faculty appointments at Pacific University of Professional Psychology and Portland Community College. In 1984 he received the Secretary of Health and Human Services Award of Excellence and the Children’s Rights Council National Award of Excellence. He is survived by his wife, Ruth, and by two daughters, one of whom is a pediatrician.

1964
William Garrick Friend died April 7, 2018, at age 82. He spent two years in the Army and later developed the world’s first synchronous pacemaker. A native of Seattle, he returned there as the first board-certified colorectal surgeon in Washington state. He was an attending at Swedish Hospital and a clinical faculty member in surgery at the University of Washington. Considered a pioneer in the fields of colonoscopy, outpatient surgery, and laser surgery, he authored numerous articles and gave many lectures, nationally as well as locally. He also conducted clinical trials for the FDA and was president of a venture capital firm in Seattle. His hobbies were gardening, landscaping, and boating. He is survived by two daughters, five grandchildren, and a sister.

David R. Nank died April, 22, 2018. The native of Washington state completed an internship in general surgery at the University of Washington in Seattle. After serving two years in the U.S. Air Force, he returned to Seattle to train in orthopedic surgery. He practiced in Seattle for more than 30 years. His hobbies were scuba diving and underwater photography. He is survived by two children, five grandchildren, and a sister.

1965

Davida Coady, a pediatrician who became an international health activist then a substance abuse specialist who devoted her life to the care of society’s most vulnerable, including refugees, the homeless, and the incarcerated, died May 3, 2018, of ovarian cancer. Inspired by the likes of Albert Schweitzer and Mother Teresa, Dr. Coady traveled the world, often at considerable personal risk, to aid populations in need. One stop was Biafra, a break-away region of Nigeria, where she appealed for American aid that helped save imperiled children from starvation. Serving for a time as acting medical director of the Peace Corps and later working in conjunction with various NGOs, including Irish Ghost Fathers and Concern, she became an expert medical tactician tending to the pressing needs of displaced people. Her field of operations shifted among Africa, Asia, and Central America. Along the way, she worked with Mother Teresa in the slums of Calcutta and United Farm Workers organizer Cesar Chavez in the vineyards of California, both of whom she revered. She also garnered lifelong friends, admirers, and supporters of note, including the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, actor Martin Sheen, and the late Keith Brodie’65, former president of Duke University. Back in California between missions she helped to kick-start the fledgling Venice Family Clinic, a free clinic serving low-income families, at which she officiated for many years as the head of the pediatric service. Returning home from her extensive travels in 1994, she recognized drugs and alcohol as key aggravating factors in child neglect and abuse and decided to switch gears from pediatrics to substance abuse, to promote recovery among addicts on the street and among the incarcerated in California prisons. In 1997 she founded Options Recovery Services to assist substance and alcohol abusers, many homeless and/or in and out of jail, to engage in effective recovery. Working in tandem with her husband, Thomas P. Gorham, who survives her, she answered the call of prisoners serving life sentences at San Quentin and Solano State prisons in California, launching and running the Offender Mentor Certification Program to help incarcerated men and women tackle the problems of addiction and, in turn, help others to do the same. A life-affirming purpose for those still serving time, it has proved a precious and marketable skill that those later released on parole have applied to build a clean life on the outside. In the words of James Ward, a member of the first graduating class, who at age 66 called himself the “elder statesman” of that first crop of peer mentors: “I am simply a raw human being trying to do as best as I can. It takes a special kind of person to work with someone like me, to look me in the eye and tell me there’s still something worth saving, and then go ahead and teach me how.”

1977
Ira S. Goldman died June 12, 2018. He was a gastroenterologist and gastroscopist who was in a group practice in Long Island, N.Y., and he was associate professor of clinical medicine at North Shore University. Over the years he held several leadership positions in the American Gastroenterological Association. He served on the faculty of New York University, Cornell University, Hofstra University, and UCSF. Dr. Goldman is survived by two sons and one granddaughter.

HOUSE STAFF
Robert H. Thompson, who completed a pediatrics residency at Columbia, died Aug. 26, 2017.