Alumni

1950 
Elizabeth Crandall, a pediatrician and obstetrician committed to public service for decades in Maplewood, New Jersey, died Jan. 31, 2022, at age 98. Dr. Crandall was one of 17 women in her class. She became a physician for the New Jersey Bell Telephone Company, followed by nearly 30 years at the South Orange-Maplewood School District. She also served as a physician to Our Lady of Sorrows and worked for the South Orange Keep Well Clinic. In the 1970s, she moved into insurance medicine, serving as medical director for the Prudential Insurance Company and later for American International Group. She consulted for several clients, including Bankers Trust. Dr. Crandall was instrumental in organizing clinical services for Maplewood’s Planned Parenthood clinic in the1950s and 1960s. She advocated for the building of Maplewood’s community pool and volunteered with her husband, Charles Eben Crandall’50, to administer the polio vaccine. She raised funds for child care services for working families through the South Mountain YMCA and was a committed volunteer with the Girl Scouts, United Methodist Church, and Winchester Gardens. She loved sailing. Elizabeth was preceded in death by her husband and two sons. She is survived by two children, three grandchildren, and a great-grandchild. 

1951 
Barbara O’Connell, a pioneering psychiatrist in adolescent and women’s mental health and the care of incarcerated women, died May 30, 2022. She was 95. She was an avid sailor, reader, gardener, and bridge player. She is survived by four children and seven grandchildren. 

Muriel Kowlessar, professor emerita of pediatrics at the Medical College of Pennsylvania, died July 13, 2022. She was 96. She trained at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester and later became assistant professor of pediatrics at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center. In 1966, she moved to Philadelphia to accept a position at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children. In 1970, she joined the Department of Pediatrics at the Medical College of Pennsylvania, where she served as vice chair, director of the pediatric outpatient department, and professor of pediatrics until retirement. She moved to Massachusetts in 2008, where she volunteered as a foster care reviewer for the Department of Children and Families, a school mentor for the Big Brothers Big Sisters Program, and a member of the board of directors of the Community Music School of Springfield. Dr. Kowlessar is survived by a daughter and a granddaughter.

1952
Gustave Prinsell, a surgeon with a family medicine practice in Houghton, New York, from 1964 until his retirement in 1991, died July 13, 2022. He was 100. He served four years in the U.S. Navy as a minesweeper during World War II. He trained at the University of Michigan’s Saginaw Hospital and completed a fellowship in tropical medicine through the University of London. He devoted the early part of his career to medical missions at Kamakwie Wesleyan Hospital in Sierra Leone, as well as in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Haiti. He returned to Sierra Leone in 2001 and 2009. He was the school physician at Houghton College and Fillmore Central School, helped found the Wesleyan Medical Fellowship, and was active in the Houghton Wesleyan Church. Dr. Prinsell is survived by his wife, Louise Bininger, four sons, seven grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

1953 
Leland B. Cowan, a radiation therapist, died June 23, 2022, at age 93. After medical school, he became a medical officer in the U.S. Air Force, serving on active duty first on Johnston Island, a tiny atoll in the South Pacific, then at Tripler Army Medical Center on Oahu. He later trained at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. In 1965, he went into practice side by side with his father, Dr. Leland R. Cowan, a longtime surgical oncologist in Salt Lake City. When his father died of cancer in 1976, Dr. Cowan helped found the Leland R. Cowan Cancer Clinic and treated patients there for the rest of his career. Dr. Cowan is survived by two sons and two grandsons.

1954 
Mehran “Micky” Goulian, a hematologist, molecular biologist, and professor emeritus at UC San Diego, died Jan. 7, 2022, at age 92. He trained at Barnes Hospital at Washington University in St. Louis, conducted research at the NIH, and received further training in internal medicine and hematology at Yale University and Massachusetts General Hospital. He later studied DNA synthesis as a fellow in the laboratory of Arthur Kornberg at Stanford University. He joined the faculty of the University of Chicago, then the Division of Hematology at UC San Diego. There he continued his bench work in the molecular biology of DNA while serving as a practicing clinician, investigator, and educator until retirement in 1995. Dr. Goulian was a passionate violinist who played in string quartets. He is survived by three children and three grandchildren.

Eugene Goldberg, a psychoanalyst, training analyst, and lecturer at Columbia’s Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, died Feb. 16, 2022, at age 93. Dr. Goldberg was a life-long New Yorker and musician. He is survived by his wife, three children, and two grandchildren.

1955 
Sylvia Robinson Cruess, professor emerita of medicine and health sciences education at McGill University and an Officer of the Order of Canada who studied professionalism in medicine, died Sept. 8, 2022. She was 92. While in medical school, she married classmate Richard Cruess. She trained in endocrinology at the Royal Victoria Hospital, McGill University, Bellevue Hospital, and NYU. The Cruess family moved to Montréal, where she became director of the Metabolic Day Centre of the Royal Victoria Hospital. In 1978, when she was appointed medical director of the Royal Victoria Hospital, she became the first woman in Québec to serve in a high administrative position within the hospital sector. She retired in 1995 and spent the next 25 years studying issues related to professionalism in medicine. Dr. Cruess and her husband published together extensively. The McGill University Health Centre named its principal lecture hall the Sylvia and Richard Cruess Amphitheater, and McGill University established the Richard and Sylvia Cruess Chair in Medical Education. Dr. Cruess received the highest awards available in the medical education community in Canada (the Ian Hart award), the United States (the Flexner award), and the United Kingdom (the ASME gold medal). She enjoyed classical music, fly fishing, berry picking, birdwatching, skiing, and crosswords. She is survived by her husband, two sons, and four grandchildren. 

1956 
Robert Montroy of Friendsville, Tennessee, died Nov. 3, 2021. He was 91. 

1957 
George Burnell, chief of psychiatry at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Santa Clara, California, and Honolulu, Hawaii, for the bulk of his career, died May 1, 2022. He was 92. Dr. Burnell was born in Lyon, France, and immigrated to the United States at the age of 20. He served in the USAF (MC) as a captain. He trained at the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute in San Francisco, Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, and UC San Francisco. Throughout his career, he served in many capacities, including diplomat of the American Board of Psychiatry, fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at Stanford University and the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii. Dr. Burnell was a prolific writer, notably of a memoir about growing up in Nazi-occupied France. He is survived by his son, two grandchildren, and two stepchildren. 

1958
Paul D. Harris, a cardiac surgeon at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City and Hackensack Medical Center in New Jersey, died Feb. 15, 2022, at age 89. He trained at the University of Rochester, Harvard, and Columbia. In retirement, he was devoted to baseball, especially as part owner of the Norwich Navigators, a Yankees AA farm team. Dr. Harris is survived by his wife, Sarah, children, and stepchildren. 

1959 
Mortimer “Mort” M. Civan, emeritus professor of physiology in the Perelman School of Medicine and an influential researcher of epithelial salt and water transport, died April 17, 2022. He was 87. He completed his internal medicine internship and residency at Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Civan studied salt and water transport across kidney epithelia at the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases. Later, in the lab of Alex Leaf at Massachusetts General Hospital and as a faculty member at Harvard, Dr. Civan focused on the toad urinary bladder as a model of the kidney and contributed to the discovery of the need by cells for an energy-dependent mechanism to effectively extrude water (the “double Donnan” hypothesis). He joined Penn’s faculty in 1972 and developed a second interest in ocular physiology, using similar methods to help clarify the underlying mechanisms of fluid transport within the anterior part of the eye. He served for 40 years on the editorial board of the American Journal of Physiology: Cell Physiology and earned three patents. Dr. Civan is survived by his wife, Judith, two sons, and five grandchildren.

1960
Horacio Fabrega Jr., a medical anthropologist and professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, died Feb. 21, 2022, at age 88. He trained at St. Luke’s Hospital in New York and at Yale Grace New Haven Hospital before serving in the U.S. Army as a psychiatrist and captain at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. As a medical anthropologist, he focused on evolutionary psychology, ethnomedicine, the biological and social evolution of sickness and healing, and cultural psychiatry. He completed field work in Chiapas, Mexico, and Cuzco, Peru. He published four books, “Disease and Social Behavior” (1974), “Evolution of Sickness and Healing” (1997), “Origins of Psychopathology” (2002), and “History of Mental Illness in India” (2009). Until 2019, he was actively working with colleagues in the United States, Europe, and Australia on conceptions of mental illness in primates and pre-human hominids. He loved reading, movies, and rock climbing. He is survived by his wife, Joan, two daughters, and three grandchildren.

Joost J. “Joe” Oppenheim, senior investigator and head of the cellular immunology section in the Cancer Innovation Laboratory at the NIH, died May 14, 2022. He was 87. Dr. Oppenheim was born in the Netherlands. He and his brother survived the Holocaust there as Jewish children hidden by a Catholic Dutch family. His father was captured and killed, and his mother was sent to a labor camp. In 1945, the boys were reunited with their mother and immigrated to New York City. After completing a residency in Seattle, Dr. Oppenheim joined the NIH. For five decades, he generated landmark discoveries in the field of cytokines, chemokines, and alarmins, which are substances produced by immune cells that enable them to communicate and act as first responders to injury or infection. He was one of the first to acknowledge the importance of intercellular cytokine signals in the regulation of immune defenses against infections and tumors, for which he nicknamed himself the “Father of Cytokines.” He demonstrated the key roles of chemokines in AIDS, inflammation, immune responses, and development. His later work focused on utilizing alarmins as vaccine ingredients for use against infectious agents and tumors. Dr. Oppenheim led societies and journals, received numerous awards for his discoveries and leadership, and trained a network of scientists in Europe, Asia, and the United States. He is survived by his second wife, Ann Goldman, four children, two stepchildren, and 20 grandchildren.

1961 
William Dantzler, a founding faculty member of the physiology department at the University of Arizona, died May 27, 2022. He was age 86. After medical school, he earned a PhD at Duke University and joined the new medical school at the University of Arizona. Over the next 37 years, Dr. Dantzler became professor and chair of physiology, initiated the physiology undergraduate major, served as president of the American Physiological Society, and received two of that society’s most prestigious career awards (the Berliner and Krogh Lectureships). Following his retirement in 2005, Dr. Dantzler continued his passions for reading, theater, art, swimming, and travel. He is survived by his wife, Barb, a daughter, and a brother. 

Carl F. Brunjes, an orthopedist, died April 13, 2022, in Spokane, Washington, at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center, the same hospital where he had been a surgeon for decades and across the street from the first office where he practiced. He was 86. Dr. Brunjes completed an internship at Mary Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown, New York, before completing residency at Harvard. In 1967, Dr. Brunjes entered the U.S. Air Force and served at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane, Washington. In 1969, he became a founding partner of what is now known as Northwest Orthopedic Specialists. He enjoyed the Spokane Symphony, classic cars, bronze sculptures, art, and skiing. Dr. Brunjes is survived by his wife, Marilyn Northern, three daughters, two grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

1962 
Earl Fogelberg, an orthopedic surgeon, died Jan. 24, 2022. He was 85. He served in the U.S. Air Force as a captain at Stead Air Force Base, trained in Washington Heights, and moved to California to open a private practice and teach at UCSF. He joined the Ski Patrol at Alpine Meadows as an MD consultant, loved fly fishing, and volunteered with the Guardsmen service to support at-risk youth in the Bay Area. Dr. Fogelberg was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September of 2020. He funded an endowment that bears his name for cancer trials and treatment. He is survived by his wife Norma (Spreeman) Fogelberg, two children, a stepdaughter, and five grandchildren.

1963
Myron Lewis, a gastroenterologist who spent most of his career at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, died April 9, 2022, at age 84. He trained at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Cornell Bellevue Division of Memorial Sloan Kettering before serving in the U.S. Public Health Service in Louisville, Kentucky. Dr. Lewis joined Baptist Memorial Hospital in 1970, where he co-directed the gastrointestinal laboratory and served as the hospital’s chief of staff in 1985. He was most proud of his time as president of the National American College of Gastroenterology from 1987 to 1988. He taught at the University of Tennessee and served on the editorial board of the Journal of Gastroenterology. A volunteer physician at Church Health, Dr. Lewis also enjoyed opera and played tennis in his retirement. He is survived by his wife, Gail, three daughters, and four grandchildren.

1964
Paul Berk, former professor of medicine in the division of digestive and liver disease at VP&S who made significant research contributions to the field of hepatology, died July 11, 2021, at age 83. Before medical school, he was a Fulbright Scholar in applied mathematics at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. After training at Columbia he joined the NIH as a clinical associate in the metabolism branch at the National Cancer Institute and was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Public Health Service. Dr. Berk used his mathematical expertise to examine the kinetics of radiolabeled bilirubin disappearance in people and extended these studies to encompass individuals with Gilbert syndrome. He pursued this line of investigation for two decades as a senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute. He taught at Georgetown and was recruited to Mount Sinai as chief of the Division of Hematology and later chief of the Division of Liver Diseases. He was the founding editor of the journal Seminars in Liver Disease, which he led for more than three decades. In 2004, he returned to Columbia to teach, and he focused on the role of long chain fatty acids in obesity and the pathophysiologic effects of bariatric surgery in humans. Dr. Berk is survived by his wife, Nicole, and four children. 

1966
Arnold Bank, an OB/GYN in private practice in Cedarhurst, New York, for 30 years who later became an attorney, died June 13, 2022, at age 81. Born and raised in New York City, Dr. Bank studied chemistry and art history at Columbia College before medical school. After training at Mount Sinai Hospital, he served in the U.S. Army as a major at Fort Lee, Virginia, until 1973. After 30 years in private medical practice, Dr. Bank enrolled at the CUNY School of Law and was a malpractice defense attorney for 16 years. He loved sailing. Dr. Bank is survived by his wife, Sharon, two children, and five grandchildren.

1968 
John Davis, an orthopedic surgeon who established Mid-Carolina Orthopedics and served Tryon and Rutherfordton, North Carolina, for more than 30 years, died July 7, 2022. He was 79. He trained at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta and was a U.S. Navy lieutenant physician serving in Vietnam and at the Naval Hospital in Oakland, California. He later trained in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He was a member of the Eastern Orthopedic Association, the Southern Orthopedic Association, and the North American Spine Society. Dr. Davis is survived by his wife, Judy Byars Davis, three children, a stepson, two grandsons, and a brother. 

1976 
Guillermo “Bill” R. Sánchez, a pediatric cardiologist who helped Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) create specialty care centers across New Jersey, died Jan. 7, 2022, at age 76 while on his way to care for patients at the CHOP Princeton Specialty Care Center. At age 15, his family immigrated to New Jersey as Cuban refugees. He completed a PhD in biochemistry from Columbia and an NIH postdoctoral research fellowship before attending medical school. He trained at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. He worked at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia and Cooper Hospital/University Medical Center in Camden, New Jersey, before joining CHOP in 1995. He taught at each post, eventually joining the Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Sánchez made many clinical research contributions to the field of pediatric cardiology and established pediatric cardiology clinics in southern New Jersey in Voorhees, Princeton, Atlantic County, and other communities. He served CHOP as medical director of pediatric cardiology in South Jersey until the time of his death. He was a little league coach, a masters swimmer, and an active parishioner of Queen of Heaven Catholic Church and School. Dr. Sánchez is survived by his wife, Earline, four children, a grandson, and eight siblings.

1977
Craig Coonley, an Air Force lieutenant colonel, hematologist/oncologist, and clinician-scientist who practiced for two decades in Bridgeport, West Virginia, died June 7, 2022. He was 71. Dr. Coonley completed his internal medicine residency at Wilford Hall USAF Medical Center, Lackland AFB, in San Antonio, Texas, and his fellowship in hematology/oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He served as chief hematologist/oncologist at USAF Medical Center-Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Mississippi, and was staff hematologist/oncologist at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. He received a USAF Commendation Medal in 1986. His retirement from private practice in 2012 was short-lived, as he soon became medical oncologist and cancer program administrator at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Dr. Coonley was a licensed amateur radio operator and member of the Central West Virginia Wireless Association. He is survived by his wife, B. Joyce Coonley, two daughters, two stepsons, three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. 

1978
Andrea Schaffner, who practiced geriatric medicine in Essex and Middletown, Connecticut, for 38 years, died March 19, 2022, of cancer. She trained in internal medicine and geriatrics at Yale New Haven Hospital. During her career, she served as the medical director of four nursing homes and cared for many thousands of patients across the Connecticut Shoreline. She enjoyed travel, cooking, reading fiction, book clubs, gardening, canasta, and mahjong. She is survived by her husband, Mike Saxe, three children, three stepchildren, and two grandchildren.

1979
Brooke Barton, who practiced pharmacological psychiatry in Santa Monica, California, died Jan. 11, 2022, of unsuspected cardiac problems at her home in Los Angeles. She was 67. Before medical school, she attended Princeton University, where she was an enthusiastic member of the Glee Club. She trained in neurology and psychiatry at UCLA. She filled her life with music, studying cello, flute, and piano and singing in three chorales. She attended the theater, ballet, and opera; took ballet class; and loved traveling. Dr. Barton is survived by her father, a sister, two nieces, and a nephew.

2017 
Ifeanyi Onyeji, a urologic surgery resident at UC Davis, died unexpectedly May 8, 2022. He was 31. Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Dr. Onyeji immigrated to Greensboro, North Carolina, at the age of 11 and attended Stanford University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. At VP&S, he co-directed Young Docs, which connects medical students with neighborhood children to interest them in medical careers. This earned Dr. Onyeji a Student National Medical Association Pipeline Mentoring Institute grant. He graduated from VP&S with the Dean’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to VP&S. He dedicated an additional year of his training to research and was published in the field of andrology. Dr. Onyeji was passionate about travel and extended his outreach abroad, spending time in Spain and Nicaragua. His acumen in Spanish enhanced his care for his patients. Dr. Onyeji is survived by his mother, stepfather, two brothers, and two sisters.