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1970s

William H. Dietz Jr., M.D. ’70, G.M.E ’74, Ph.D., was appointed to the scientific advisory board of Weight Watchers International, Inc., to inform and advise the company as it continues to de­velop innovative offerings based on the latest scientific evidence. In 2014, Dietz joined the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington Uni­versity as the director of the Sumner M. Redstone Global Center for Prevention and Well­ness. The focus of the center is the search for solutions to obe­sity and other public health prob­lems that are on the rise world­wide. A member of the National Academy of Medicine, Dietz is the editor of five books, including Clinical Obesity in Adults and Children and Nutrition: What Every Parent Needs to Know.

progress_snydmanDavid R. Snydman, M.D. ’72, received the 2015 Walter E. Stamm Mentor Award from the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He is chief of the Divi­sion of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Tufts Med­ical Center, where he serves as the hospital epidemiologist and as an attending physician. As di­vision chief, he was an innovator in developing a formal mentor­ship program in the late 1990s, modeled on a Ph.D. thesis com­mittee structure, to provide more guidance to fellows as they prog­ress through their training. In addition, for the past 10 years, Snydman has served as director of a successful grant program – funded by the National Institutes of Health – to train independent infectious diseases investigators in clinical research.

An accomplished researcher with broad interests in trans­plant-related infectious diseases, infection control, and clinical mi­crobiology, Snydman has pub­lished more than 200 peer-re­viewed articles and edited 20 books, including the third edition of Transplant Infections. For the past 16 years, he has been section editor of the Immunocompro­mised Host section of Clinical Infectious Diseases. Among his honors is the Distinguished Fac­ulty Award from Tufts University School of Medicine.

Louis A. Matis, M.D. ’75, was named senior vice president and chief development officer of Pieris Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biotechnology company. He brings to Pieris a successful back­ground in developing novel bio­therapeutics over a span of two decades. At Pieris, his work will advance therapeutic proteins based on its proprietary Anti­calin® technology into and through clinical trials in anemia, asthma, and immuno-oncology.

Josephine J. (Gargiulo) Temple­ton, M.D., G.M.E. ’75, who re­tired as senior clinical anesthesi­ologist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, received the Special Achievement Award in Philan­thropy from the National Italian American Foundation. Born in Capri, Italy, Templeton spent much of her early education in the United States but returned to Italy in 1961 to attend medical school. Upon her return to the United States for her postgradu­ate training at the Medical College of Virginia, she met her husband, John M. Templeton Jr., M.D. She did a residency in anesthesiology at HUP and a fellowship in pedi­atric anesthesiology and critical care at the Children’s Hospital. Templeton has been involved in numerous philanthropic and community activities. She serves as a trustee of The John Templeton Foundation, which her late hus­band served as president and chairman; the Museum of the American Revolution; and the scholarship foundation of the Union League of Philadelphia. Templeton was honored by the Salvation Army in 2005, and she and her husband received the 2006 Heroes of Liberty Award from the National Liberty Museum.

Peter T. Pugliese, M.D. ’57, is the author of The Cookie Doctor: An American Physician’s Memoir of Life’s Obstacles and Miracles (The Topical Agent LLC, 2014). He spent two decades as a family practitioner in rural Bernville, Pa., where many of his patients were part of the Pennsylvania Dutch community. Since retiring from clinical practice in 1978, he became more involved in anti- aging research and skin care. Au­thor of Advanced Professional Skin Care and Physiology of the Skin (3rd edition, 2011), he is the founder of Circadia by Dr. Pug­liese, maker of skin-care prod­ucts, and has been honored with the Maison G. de Navarre Medal Award, presented by the Society of Cosmetic Chemists.

The Cookie Doctor draws its name from the fact that Pugliese and other country doctors were often paid in commodities and received gifts of produce, meats, and sweets. But, as the author notes, that abundance was not always beneficial: 

“Obesity and diabetes were two diseases I had to battle constantly in my patients. . . . At one farm, where I happened to be stuck in a snowdrift, the farmer invited me for breakfast before he pulled my car from the snow with his tractor. The breakfast consisted of fried eggs, fried potato, and sausage. This was followed by pancakes and scrapple, a butch­er-scrap specialty whose ingredi­ents are best left un-itemized. The mixture is ground up, formed into a loaf, dredged in flour, fried, and served covered with maple syrup. Finally, coffee was accompanied by coconut cake. I estimate that I had con­sumed close to three thousand calories that morning. No wonder I was facing an uphill battle against obesity in the Pennsylva­nia Dutch.”

In his first chapter, Pugliese writes that his path to being a doctor “was by no means a direct route. After first setting out to be a priest, then a Marine during World War II, then a college stu­dent, then a soldier in the ar­mored division during the Ko­rean War, I became a premedical student and eventually a medical student. It was a long and ardu­ous trip.” Along the way, he says, “I found God, lost him, and found him again. . . .”

Bernville, where Pugliese lived in a stone farmhouse, is about 50 miles northwest of Philadelphia. It sounds like a wonderful place to raise a family, but as The Cookie Doctor points out, it was also a place where husbands sometimes abused their wives, incest was more common than Pugliese ever expected, postpar­tum depression sometimes rav­aged families, and the doctor even had to deal with a woman who was convinced she was hexed by an unfriendly neighbor.

Pugliese does not overlook his time as a medical student at Penn. He survives attending a high-pressure operation with I. S. Ravdin, then the celebrated chair of surgery, who would quiz the students, and learns a valuable lesson from Francis Wood, chair­man of the Department of Medi­cine. Wood had a group of stu­dents examine the same patient, then suggest some diagnostic tests and a course of treatment. The patient was an 80-year-old woman who showed signs of ce­rebral insufficiency. Afterward, Wood heard their diagnostic procedures. “Most of us had sug­gested arteriograms, perhaps a pneumoencephalogram, and then one or two other arduous and painful tests.” Then Wood asked what they would do if the woman was their mother or grandmother.

“Somewhat startled, we said that we would do none of those awful tests, but limit our test to the smallest number of painless procedures. . . . Dr. Wood said softly, ‘Do you not realize this lady is someone’s wife or mother or grandmother? As a physician, you must treat every patient as though that patient was your mother or your wife or sister or brother or father.’ . . . The class was dumbstruck. We had never heard this sentiment expressed by any other physician in the past three years. I recognized this advice was the single most important key to practicing good medicine.”

Robert J. Laskowski, M.D. ’78, M.B.A. ’83, has been appointed chair of the board of directors of the Association of American Medical Colleges. A board-certi­fied general internist with addi­tional certification in geriatric medicine, Laskowski is a profes­sor of clinical medicine at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College and a senior fellow at the Jeffer­son College of Population Health at Thomas Jefferson University. He has a wealth of past experience in leading both medical entities and medical education, including serving as president and chief ex­ecutive officer of Christiana Care Health System in Wilmington, Del., from 2003 to 2014.

Samuel O. Okpaku, M.D., Ph.D., G.M.E. ’78, reports that Essen­tials of Global Mental Health (Cambridge University Press), which he edited, received High Commendation at the British Medical Association 2015 Book Awards. A former fellow in Penn’s Depression Research Unit and a former faculty member of Penn’s Department of Psychiatry, Okpaku is executive director of the Center for Health, Culture, and Society in Nashville. He has served as chairman of the Depart­ment of Psychiatry at Meharry Medical College.

Jennifer Chu, M.D., G.M.E. ’79, who retired from Penn Medicine as associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation, is CEO and founder of eToims®  Medical Technology, LLC. She is the first author of a study pub­lished this year in BMJ Case Re­ports, describing chronic refrac­tory myofascial pain (CRMP) as a global public health disease. The study underscores the authors’ previous findings that electrical twitch-obtaining intramuscular stimulation (eToims) is safe and efficacious for long-term use in CRMP.

1980s

Roy M. Kulick, M.D. ’81, G.M.E. ’85, has been named clinical development advisor of M Pharmaceutical, Inc., a clini­cal-stage company developing innovative technologies for monitoring and treating obesity, diabetes, and other gastroenter­ological indications. Kulick will prepare clinical trial plans for the company’s lead product, Trimeo, a weight-loss capsule.

Donald W. Rucker, M.D. ’81, was appointed chief medical offi­cer of Premise Health, a worksite health and patient-engagement company. A pioneer in medical information and technology, Rucker earlier served as chief op­erating officer of the IDEA Stu­dio at the Wexner Medical Cen­ter of Ohio State University, where he was also clinical profes­sor of emergency medicine and biomedical informatics. In his new role, Rucker will lead Prem­ise Health’s clinical teams and share his expertise in biomedical informatics and data analytics.

progress_panettieriReynold A. Panettieri Jr., M.D. ’83, G.M.E. ’90, who had been the Robert L. Mayock and David A. Cooper Professor of Pulmo­nary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has joined Rut­gers Biomedical and Health Sci­ences. He is the inaugural direc­tor of what will be a new clinical and translational science insti­tute. A pulmonologist, immunol­ogist, and translational re­searcher, Panettieri has studied the cellular and molecular mech­anisms that regulate airway smooth muscle cell growth and the immunobiology of airway smooth muscle. He has also di­rected the comprehensive clinical program for the care of patients with asthma and is actively in­volved in clinical investigations focused on the management of asthma and COPD. At Penn Medicine, Panettieri’s positions included chief of the asthma sec­tion for the pulmonary, allergy and critical care division and deputy director of the Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology. At Rutgers, he will lead all clinical and translational research initiatives across RBHS and lead initiatives to expand inde­pendent clinical research funding.

Paul E. Jarris, M.D. ’84, has been named senior vice president of maternal and child health pro­gram impact and deputy medical officer at the March of Dimes. Jarris, an expert in health-care policy, clinical quality initiatives, disease prevention, and wellness, will lead the new department and will have overall responsibil­ity for its prematurity campaign. Formerly, he was executive direc­tor of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

Susan L. Williams, M.D., G.M.E. ’84, was appointed chief medical officer for Conemaugh Health System, of Duke LifePoint Health­care. She will lead Conemaugh in enhancing quality and expanding its physician network.

Junius John Gonzales, M.D. ’86, M.B.A., is serving as interim president of the University of North Carolina. Previously the senior vice president for academic affairs at the 17-campus system, he will serve as president until March 1, 2016. From 2011 to 2014, he was provost and vice president for academic affairs at the Uni­versity of Texas at El Paso. He is a psychiatrist by training.

Victoria Tishman Handa, M.D. ’86, was named director of the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at Johns Hopkins Bay­view Medical Center and deputy director of gynecology and ob­stetrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She and her research team at the university’s Women’s Center for Pelvic Health specialize in wom­en’s health research, epidemiol­ogy, and pelvic floor disorders. Handa is a reconstructive sur­geon and author of more than 100 scientific papers.

1990s

Stephen Joseph Pakola, M.D. ’94, G.M.E. ’98, has joined Aer­pio Therapeutics, Inc., as its first chief medical officer. Previ­ously, at ThromboGenics, he in­vented and developed its lead product, Jetrea, from its incep­tion through the FDA’s Biolog­ics License Application process. At Aerpio, he will lead the ad­vancement of the company’s de­velopment pipeline, including its lead therapeutic candidate, AKB-9778, for the treatment of diabetic macular edema.

Santosh Kesari, Ph.D. ’96, M.D. ’99, was appointed to the scien­tific advisory board of Therapeu­tics Solutions International, Inc., and to the advisory board of GenSpera, Inc., a biotech com­pany that develops innovative pro-drug therapeutics for the treatment of cancer. Kesari is currently professor of neurosci­ences and chair of neuro-oncol­ogy and neurotherapeutics at the John Wayne Cancer Institute at Providence St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif. His research investigates the bi­ology of gliomas with the aim of developing new therapeutics for patients with brain tumors.

Kevin G. M. Volpp, M.D. ’96, Ph.D. ’98, has been named lead advisor for patient engagement for the recently launched NEJM Catalyst. The online resource connects health-care executives, clinical leaders, and clinicians with practical approaches to im­prove the value of health-care delivery and patient care. Volpp is director of the Center for Health Initiatives and Behavioral Economics and a professor of medicine, medical ethics and health policy, and health man­agement at the University of Pennsylvania. 

2000s

Nishan de Silva, M.D. ’00, M.B.A. ’00, president and chief operating officer of Poseida Ther­apeutics, Inc., was appointed to its board of directors. He previ­ously served on the boards of three public companies and sev­eral private companies. Poseida is a biotechnology company that uses gene editing technologies to develop life-saving therapies, in­cluding gene therapy for orphan liver diseases and immune-oncol­ogy therapeutics for several types of cancer.

Jason S. Chinitz, M.D. ’07, has joined the cardiology team at Southside Hospital in Bay Shore, N.Y. He is board certified in cardiovascular disease and internal medicine.

2010s

Rachel Anolik, M.D. ’11, who completed her medical training at Boston University, was ap­pointed assistant professor of dermatology at Temple Universi­ty’s School of Medicine and di­rector of medical dermatology and inpatient service at Temple University Hospital and Fox Chase Cancer Center.

progress_wolmanMarc A. Wolman, Ph.D., G.M.E. ’15, assistant professor of zoology at the University of Wisconsin, was honored by the Greater Mil­waukee Foundation with a $200,000 grant through its Shaw Scientist Program. The annual award supports emerging investi­gators with innovative ideas in biochemistry, biological sciences, and cancer research. The goal of Wolman’s research is to under­stand how genes function to al­low the brain to learn. His team recently identified a set of genes used by the brain to encode for a simple form of learning called habituation and noted that any disruption in the function of these genes leads to learning im­pairment. With his award, he plans to explore how one of these genes affects neuronal connec­tions to promote learning. 

Wolman was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Mi­chael Granato, Ph.D., a professor of cell and developmental biology at Penn Medicine. Wolman was first author and Granato senior author on a research paper pub­lished last year in Neuron. The team described the first set of genes important in learning in a zebrafish model.

OBITUARIES

1940s

Alice Robinson Erb, M.D. ’40, Lanesboro, Mass., a retired physi­cian; August 18, 2014. She served as clerk of Lehigh Valley Friends Meeting (Quakers), a board member of the American Friends Service Committee, a Girl Scout council treasurer and troop leader, a founder of the Allen­town League of Women Voters, and a board member of Allen­town Planned Parenthood.

Kenneth M. Scott, M.D. ’41, G.M. ’47, Black Mountain, N.C., a retired physician for the state Department of Public Health; September 15, 2014. He was born in Tsingtao, in the German Crown Colony, a son of Presby­terian missionaries in China. Af­ter serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, he was di­rector and chief surgeon at the Presbyterian Hospital in Taegu, Korea, and later professor of sur­gery at Severance Hospital in Seoul. He and his family moved to Punjab, India, where Scott served as director of the Chris­tian Medical College and Hospi­tal. It comprised an 800-bed hos­pital, a medical college of 350 students, a nursing school, and several subsidiary hospitals. The Scotts returned to western North Carolina in 1974, and he worked at the Black Mountain Center as a physician in North Carolina’s tuberculosis program.

Swithin Chandler Jr., M.D. ’43, G.M. ’55, Salt Lake City, a retired medical examiner for the Federal Aviation Administration; No­vember 11, 2014. During World War II, he served in the 3rd Army with General Patton. He was with the 125th evacuation hospital and was a forensic pa­thologist and traveled through­out Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, and Holland. Wounded and awarded the Purple Heart, he was honorably discharged as a captain. After returning to the United States he practiced medi­cine in Trenton, N.J., Capistrano Beach, Calif., and Phoenix, Ariz., and settled in Salt Lake City. As an FAA examiner, he served many pilots in the intermountain area. Chandler received his pilot’s license in 1932 at the age of 17. He accumulated 6,210 hours of flight time and flew a variety of aircraft.

Howard N. Douds, M.D. ’43, Upper St. Clair, Pa.; November 7, 2014. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps. He was an internist in Mt. Lebanon and on staff at St. Clair Hospital from 1954 until his re­tirement in 2008. 

Robert K. Moxon, M.D. ’43, G.M. ’48, West Columbia, S.C., a retired physician; January 28, 2015. In World War II, he was assigned to a beachmaster unit with Amphibious Forces during the invasion of Okinawa. He served as the ship’s doctor on the U.S.S. Piedmont during the occu­pation of Japan. Later in his Navy career, he was chief of medical services at the Naval hospitals in Annapolis, Md., and Portsmouth, Va. Retiring from the Navy with the rank of captain in 1963, he became director of medical edu­cation at Columbia Hospital. Af­ter retiring from an internal medicine practice, he served as consultant in internal medicine for Medicare utilization in the South Carolina Professional Re­view Organization, as an expert witness for Social Security Dis­ability, and taught health topics at the Shepherd’s Center of Co­lumbia, where he was a member of its board of directors. 

progress_cooperRichard A. “Buz” Cooper, M.D., New York City, former chief of hematology in the De­partment of Medicine and a pio­neering cancer research scientist; January 15, 2016. He wrote the grant proposal to create what would become the University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center (now the Abramson Cancer Center) and served as its director from 1977 to 1985. Cooper served most recently as director of the Center for the Future of the Healthcare Workforce at New York Institute of Technol­ogy and as a senior fellow in Penn’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics.  

Cooper began his clinical and investigative training in hematol­ogy and oncology in the 1960s at the National Cancer Institute and Boston City Hospital’s Thorndike Memorial Laboratory. He rose to be Thorndike’s chief of hematol­ogy as an assistant professor at the Harvard Medical School, then joined the Penn faculty in 1971. He returned to his home town of Milwaukee to serve as dean and executive vice president of the Medical College of Wisconsin from 1985 to 1994. Cooper also founded and directed its interdis­ciplinary Health Policy Institute (now the Institute for Health and Society) from 1994 to 2004.  

In the 1990s, Cooper’s health policy research helped change how the size of the U.S. health care work force is evaluated and how future physician needs are projected.  When most of the nation’s leading physician supply experts were calling for a reduc­tion in the physician work force because of a perceived surplus, Cooper correctly predicted a shortage of doctors within the next 20 years. According to Linda Aiken, Ph.D., R.N., the Claire M. Fagin Leadership Professor in Nursing at Penn 
and director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research, Cooper was an innova­tive thinker: “He was an early ad­vocate for nurses taking on ex­panded responsibilities in pri­mary care, and he published many influential papers provid­ing evidence to support full scope of practice for advanced practice nurses.” Cooper was also a vocal critic of the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, which has documented variations in how medical resources are distributed and used in the United States.

Shortly before he died, Cooper finished writing Poverty and the Myths of Health Care Reform: Why Poverty and Income In­equality Are at the Core of Amer­ica’s High Health Care Spending. It is expected to be available from Johns Hopkins University Press in August 2016.

Thomas J. Nauss, M.D. ’44, G.M. ’49, Dallas, Pa., a retired plastic surgeon; December 18, 2014. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army.

Ashton T. Stewart, M.D. ’44, Quarryville, Pa., former chief of rehabilitation medicine at the VA hospital in Martinsburg, W.Va.; November 30, 2014. During World War II, he was a captain in the U.S. Army. In 1947, Ash­ton went to Iran as a medical missionary and served as the di­rector of three different mission hospitals. For four years, he served in Afghanistan with Inter­national Afghan Mission, an in­ternational Christian organiza­tion. During the 1980s he opened a physical therapy school. 

Alfred H. Magness, M.D. ’45, Coshocton, Ohio; January 20, 2014. He completed his general surgical training at Ohio State University Hospital and Youngstown Hospital Associa­tion and was the first Coshocton physician to be certified by a spe­cialty board, the American Board of Surgery. A Fellow of both the American College of Surgeons and the International College of Surgeons, Magness had served as chief of staff and chief of surgery at Coshocton Hospital for many years. He was especially proud that all four of his children be­came physicians. 

William M. Groton, M.D. ’47, Sherborn, Mass., a retired physi­cian with the state’s Department of Public Health; January 28, 2015.

R. David Warner, M.D. ’49, Xe­nia, Ohio, a retired primary phy­sician for the Ohio Soldiers and Sailors Orphanage Home; De­cember 27, 2014. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II and the Korean War. He practiced medicine for 52 years, doing physicals for sports at many area schools, making house calls at all hours of the night, and delivering 4,000 babies.

1950s

George R. Kennedy Jr., M.D., G.M. ’50, Tulsa, Okla., a retired physician; November  6, 2014. He served in the U.S. Air Force as a captain, first as chief of surgery at Webb Air Force Base in Big Spring, Tex., and then as chief of surgery at the 36th Tactical Air Group in Bitburg, Germany. Back in the United States, he estab­lished a medical practice in Bar­tlesville, Okla., where he prac­ticed medicine and surgery for more than 30 years. He had been a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and of the Interna­tional College of Surgeons.

William Plummer III, M.D. ’50, G.M. ’54, West Chester, Pa., a re­tired physician; June 15, 2014. He was a former member of Chester County Hospital’s section on en­docrinology and metabolism and helped establish the first diabetic department there.

Cliff Ratliff Jr., M.D., G.M. ’50, Ellicott City, Md., retired director of nuclear medicine at St. Agnes Hospital, from 1956 to 1990; January 28, 2015.

William J. Tuddenham, M.D ’50, G.M. ’56, Naples, Fla., emeri­tus professor of radiology and a former director of radiology at Pennsylvania Hospital; October 5, 2014. He was founding editor of the journal Radiographics. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Naval Reserves. He was a recipient of the Gold Medal of the Radiological Society of North America.

Robert S. Ayerle, M.D. ’51, Paoli, Pa., a retired medical di­rector in industrial and occupa­tional medicine; November 6, 2014. After several years of em­ployment as a research chemist with the Rohm & Haas Com­pany, he left to pursue his true passion in medicine at the Uni­versity of Pennsylvania. He com­pleted his residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital in Washington, D.C. After dis­charge from the military, he be­gan his career in industrial and occupational medicine with the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. He then became medical director of Pennsylvania Bell Telephone Company, where he adminis­tered its medical departments that served 60,000 employees. While at Bell he oversaw a num­ber of clinical research projects, including an early breast cancer screening study. Upon retiring from Bell, he became the inter­national medical director for the Scott Paper Company. Ayerle in­stituted one of the first corporate drug and alcohol treatment pro­grams in the country, helping thousands of employees and in­dividuals gain sobriety and lead productive lives. He also served on the President’s Council for Al­coholism and the President’s Council for Physical Fitness.

Capt. John R. Bierley, M.D., G.M. ’52, Winlock, Wash., a re­tired surgeon and medical offi­cer in the U.S. Navy; August 23, 2013. He received a Purple Heart during World War II. As a civilian, he was a general sur­geon and/or hospital medical director in Puerto Rico most of the years between 1935 and 1950. A Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, he also be­came a Diplomate of the Amer­ican Board General Surgery in 1954 while in the Navy. Upon retiring from the Navy in 1970, Bierley was awarded the Joint Services Commendation Medal. 

Won Y. Koh, M.D., G.M. ’52, Bound Brook, N.J., a retired physician at Somerset Medical Center; November 21, 2014. He earned his medical degree at Yonsei University in South Korea.

James B. Aycock, M.D., G.M. ’53, Sparta, N.C., a retired radiol­ogist; January 23, 2015.

Thomas G. Dickinson, M.D., G.M. ’53, Sarasota, Fla., a retired ophthalmologist who had main­tained a practice for many years; October 20, 2014. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Navy. 

Gordon D. Myers, M.D., G.M. ’54, Mechanicsburg, Pa., a retired surgeon who had served as a pri­mary physician for the old Penn­sylvania Railroad and several mo­tor freight companies; January 27, 2015. He joined the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War and served as chief of surgery at the Dow Air Force Base Hospital in Bangor, Me., and was a captain at the time of discharge. Myers opened his own surgical office in Harrisburg in 1957. In 1965, he became the first director of the emergency department at Harris­burg Hospital. He was a Fellow of the American College of Sur­geons, and the Harrisburg Hospi­tal house physicians twice hon­ored him with the Distinguished Teacher Award.

Donald M. Cohen, M.D. ’56, Fort Worth, Tex., a retired pa­thologist; December 2, 2014. He was commissioned a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Medical Corps upon graduation. After his Army service, completed in Germany, he took his residency in pathol­ogy at the Mayo Clinic in Roch­ester, Minn. He practiced 37 years with Pathology Associates at Harris Hospital and another 10 years for ProPath Laboratories.

Avery R. Harrington, M.D. ’56, Brunswick, Maine, a retired ne­phrologist at Maine General Medical Center; July 10, 2014. After earning his medical degree, Harrington and his wife, Carolyn, spent time on Indian reservations in Arizona. He later had a faculty position at the University of Wis­consin Medical School. The Har­ringtons volunteered for a year at rural hospitals in Zimbabwe, where they returned three times.

John S. Strauss, M.D., G.M. ’56, Iowa City, emeritus professor of dermatology at the University of Iowa; July 28, 2014.

progress_hessMarilyn Hess, Ph.D. ’57, M.S.Ed. ’85, emeritus professor of phar­macology; October 20, 2015. Af­ter earning her B.S. degree in chemistry and biology from Villa Maria College, she studied at Penn, earning her master’s degree in physiological chemistry and physiology in 1949. Her Ph.D. de­gree in pharmacology was the first granted at Penn. From 1946 to 1950, Hess was a research as­sistant at Penn. She joined the faculty in 1951 as an assistant in­structor in physiology and, later that year, in pharmacology. She left her post in physiology in 1952 and rose through the ranks in pharmacology, eventually be­coming full professor in 1976. That same year, she became the course coordinator for the Phar­macology Graduate Group and later became the course director of Pharmacology 100. Garret A. FitzGerald, M.D., the Robert L. McNeil Jr. Professor in Transla­tional Medicine and Therapeu­tics, has described Hess’s Phar­macology 100 “the best inte­grated course on pharmacology for medical and graduate stu­dents developed at any university in the country. Students taking her course consistently outper­formed in this discipline in na­tional standardized tests.”

Hess served a year as acting chair of the Department of Phar­macology and served on the Uni­versity’s Faculty Senate. She re­ceived the University’s Lindback Award for Distinguished Teach­ing and the School of Medicine’s Special Dean’s Award.

Hess pursued her research on the relationship between per­turbed metabolism and cardiac function. She obtained a presti­gious Research Career Develop­ment Award from the NIH and became an Established Investiga­tor of the American Heart Asso­ciation (AHA). Hess retired from Penn in 1994. “It is as a teacher supreme that Marilyn will be most fondly remem­bered,” said FitzGerald. 

Bernard A. Kirshbaum, M.D., G.M. ’57, Bala Cynwyd, Pa., a re­tired dermatologist; September 14, 2014.

1960s

William Preston Calvert, M.D. ’60, Marathon, Fla., a retired ra­diologist; January 26, 2014. 

His residency in internal medi­cine at the Pennsylvania Hospital was interrupted by the Vietnam War, and he served as a flight surgeon at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines for two years. When his military service was completed, he returned to com­plete his residency as chief resi­dent. He went on to the Univer­sity of Miami, where he com­pleted a fellowship in G.I. medi­cine, finished a residency in ra­diology, and became board-certi­fied in radiology and nuclear medicine. During his time in South Florida, he served intervals as chief of radiology at local hos­pitals and spent time on the fac­ulty of the University of Miami School of Medicine. 

William Pinsky, M.D. ’61, Lans­dale, Pa., a retired physician who had maintained a practice there for 38 years; November 6, 2014. As a Penn undergraduate, he was a member of the men’s base­ball team. 

Paul A. Urffer, M.D. ’61, Doylestown, Pa., a retired physi­cian; December 22, 2014. He had been a radiologist at the Abing­ton Memorial Hospital for more than 30 years. A veteran of the U.S. Army, he served during the Vietnam War.

Arno R. Hohn, M.D., G.M. ’62, Pomona, Calif., retired professor of pediatrics at the University of Southern California; March 21, 2014. After serving in the U.S. Air Force, he became a faculty member at Buffalo’s Children’s Hospital and then at the Medical University of South Carolina. He next served as chief of the Divi­sion of Cardiology at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles from 1984 through 1999. His research fo­cused on hypertension in pediat­rics as well as heart problems in muscular dystrophy, HIV, and premature infants. Hohn was ed­itor of Basic Pediatric Electrocar­diography (1974).

Leslie P. Surrey, M.D., G.M. ’62, Philadelphia, a retired physician; November 3, 2014. He earned his M.D. degree from Howard Uni­versity Medical School, then did his internship at Episcopal Hos­pital. While working at German­town Hospital, he opened his own private practice and worked part time for The International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union.

Arthur Ames, M.D. ’63, Storm Lake, Iowa; September 30, 2014. He overcame setbacks at an early age. Born with a club foot, he un­derwent more than a dozen op­erations to walk normally and at 16 contracted polio. After his specialty training, he was drafted into the Air Force and stationed as a surgeon at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. Later, he started a family prac­tice, eventually joining Buena Vista Clinic, where he remained until retiring in 1996.

Legacy Giving

progress_herman“Penn gave me a full scholarship. There is no way I would have been able to afford such a great school without the wonderful financial support I received,” said Carol Herman Szarko, M.D. ’66, G.M.E. ’69. “When I started medical school, Penn guaranteed that no students would drop out for financial reasons; students would get the support and opportunities they needed to excel. Penn was good on their word.” Giving back to her medical alma mater was not a difficult decision.

“I also trust Penn; the institution is strong and secure, and the medical school has been around for 250 years.” She was confident that setting up a charitable gift annuity for herself through Penn Medicine Planned Giving was the right choice to meet her philanthropic interests. She was so satisfied with the results, she set up an annuity for her sister and brother-in-law just a few years later. By designating the annuity to support medical scholarships, Dr. Szarko is thrilled to be able to “pay it forward,” in support of current and future students.

“By using multiple appreciated stocks, I was able to simplify my stock holdings and reduce the number of statements I received,” she said in reference to her own charitable gift annuity. 

In many ways, setting up a gift annuity for her sister and brother-in-law through Penn Medicine was the missing piece of the puzzle. They are retired and living modestly. “When I learned more about their financial situation, I realized how they would benefit from reliable, monthly payments, so I established a gift annuity for them.”

“Creating a planned gift, particularly a gift annuity, was an ideal way to provide guaranteed income to my family,” Dr. Szarko added. “It was uncomplicated to arrange and immensely rewarding, in terms of meeting my family’s needs and doing this through an institution to which I owe my personal gratitude.”

Planned Giving has sometimes been described by our donors as the final piece of a puzzle. Figuring out how this important puzzle piece can work best for you, your family, and your philanthropic goals is what we do best. Speak with us to learn more about giving options and we will help you find the missing piece of your puzzle. Contact Christine S. Ewan, JD, executive director of Planned Giving, at 215-898-9486 or cewan@upenn.edu.

For more information, please visit the website at: www.plannedgiving.med.upenn.edu.

A. Stephen Boyer, M.D. ’64, G.M. ’71, Franktown, Va., a re­tired physician; October 11, 2014. 

Deborah M. Forrester, M.D. ’64, Malibu, Calif., an associate professor of clinical radiology, medicine, and orthopaedic sur­gery at the University of South­ern California, where she was di­rector of its radiology residency program from 1979 to 2003; Jan­uary 17, 2015. She won several teaching honors, including the Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1999. Forrester was first author of The Radiology of Joint Disease, a stan­dard textbook in musculoskeletal radiology with three editions in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, and she contributed chapters to 20 textbooks in the fields of radiol­ogy, orthopaedic surgery, rheu­matology, and neurosurgery.

Ralph G. Fennell, M.D. ’65, Parker, Colo., a retired flight sur­geon; September 3, 2014. He completed a residency in aero­space medicine at Ohio State University, where he also earned an M.S. degree in preventive medicine. He joined United Air­lines, where he was employed in a variety of locations over 30 years. Fennell was also a senior aviation medical examiner for the Federal Aviation Administra­tion. A former president of the Airline Medical Directors Asso­ciation, he was a Fellow of the In­ternational academy of Aviation and Space Medicine.

Hazel I. Holst, M.D., G.M. ’66, Swarthmore, Pa., an emeritus as­sociate professor of surgery at the University; April 9, 2015. An alumna of the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, she had also worked at the Philadelphia VA Hospital and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Her specialty became hand surgery and use of the microscope in the repair of the hand. Holst was the first woman member of the Plastic Surgery Research Council and the Philadelphia Academy of Surgery.

William E. Jacobs, M.D. ’69, G.M. ’76, Charlotte, N.C., a re­tired plastic surgeon; December 6, 2014.

1970s

Arthur J. Kennel, M.D., G.M. ’70, Rochester, Minn., retired as­sistant professor of cardiology and chair of community medicine at the Mayo Medical School; De­cember 12, 2014. From 1970 to 1972, he served with Medical As­sistance Programs International by moving his family to Kinshasa, Zaire, where he became chair of the cardiology department at the 1,500-bed Hospital Mama Yemo (now Kinshasa General Hospital). He was a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology and of the American College of Chest Physi­cians. He published a memoir, Life, Love, Llamas, and Laughs: My Story, in 2011.

Earl L. Giller, M.D., Ph.D., G.M. ’72, Madison, Conn., April 28, 2014. Giller earned his M.D./Ph.D. degrees in neurochemistry from New York University, work­ing in the laboratory of Eric Kan­del, the future Nobel Prize win­ner. His career was dedicated to scientific advances in pharma­ceutical development, and he taught numerous medical stu­dents at Yale University and at the University of Connecticut. He also worked for Pfizer for many years.

FACULTY

Marilyn Hess, Ph.D. See Class of 1957.

Hazel I. Holst. See Class of 1966.

John M. Templeton Jr., M.D., Bryn Mawr, Pa., a former pediat­ric surgeon who was president and chairman of the John Tem­pleton Foundation; May 16, 2015. After earning his M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School, he trained in pediatric surgery under C. Everett Koop, M.D., at The Children’s Hospital of Phila­delphia. He served two years in the U.S. Navy, then returned in 1977 to Children’s Hospital, where he became director of the trauma center. He also taught at Penn’s School of Medicine. During his practice, Templeton became an expert in surgeries in­volving conjoined twins. Many of those surgeries were undertaken with his wife, Josephine Gargiulo Templeton, M.D., G.M.E. ’75, as lead anesthesiologist. A Fellow of the American College of Sur­geons, he had also been vice chairman of the American Trauma Society and was presi­dent of its Pennsylvania division. He served on several boards, in­cluding those of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and the American Trauma Society.

Templeton retired from medi­cine in 1995 to manage the Tem­pleton foundation, established by his father, Sir John Templeton, the global investor and philan­thropist. After the death of his father in 2008, Templeton be­came the foundation’s top execu­tive. Under his leadership, the foundation’s endowment grew from $28 million to $3.34 billion. The foundation awards grants, mainly to universities and schol­ars, and gives an annual $1.7 mil­lion Templeton Prize to honor a person who has made excep­tional contributions to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works.

In addition to papers published in medical journals, Templeton wrote two books, Thrift and Generosity: The Joy of Giving (2004), and A Searcher’s Life (2008).

William J. Tuddenham. See Class of 1950.

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