But for a brief stint in the Medical Corps of the U.S. Navy and for a year spent as a Fulbright lecturer in Austria, your entire 44-year career centered on two great institutions with international influence—the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. You were already a distinguished thoracic surgeon when, in 1969, you began an 18- year tenure as Mass. General’s chief of emergency services. This became the field for which, as senior editor and contributor to the 804-page MGH Textbook of Emergency Medicine, you literally wrote the book. Published in 1978, the text is still in use, and it still saves lives today. You have also helped subsequent generations of doctors, and their patients, through your more than 30 years of teaching at Harvard and through dozens of articles in the medical journals. Your work has won for you the Commonwealth Award and led to your election as president of the New England Surgical Society, as chair of the Hospital Emergency Medical Services Committee of the Conference of Boston Teaching Hospitals, and as chair of the board of New England Life Flight, a program that flies emergency patients by helicopter from remote areas to Boston hospitals. Even in retirement, back here in Williamstown, you have maintained your dedication to the field of emergency medical practice by serving so ably on the board of our community’s Village Ambulance Service. Always the athlete, your selection in 1965 as a Sports Illustrated Silver Anniversary All-American for reflecting “rounded human values in which athletics and education are joined,” now seems an even more fitting tribute to one who went on to serve for 16 years as head physician to the Boston Bruins. In recognition of your distinguished achievement as practitioner and teacher in emergency medicine and thoracic surgery, Williams College is proud to honor you with its Bicentennial Medal. June 4, 1993
Megamenu Social