School of Medicine

1953

George C. Kaiser, of Webster Groves, Missouri, a pioneer in heart transplantation who became nationally prominent during his 35 years at St. Louis University, died on July 1, 2020. He was 91. Kaiser established and served as chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at SLU, where he was part of the team that performed the first heart transplantation operation west of the Mississippi in 1972. He later became president of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, the world’s largest cardiovascular surgical association.

1954

James F. Schauble, of Baltimore, the former director of cardiac anesthesia at Johns Hopkins who also had overseen the merger of the Cedars of Lebanon and Mount Sinai hospitals in Los Angeles, died on August 21, 2020. He was 93. Originally a surgeon, he shifted to anesthesiology due to medical reasons. He taught and practiced it at the University of California in San Diego and the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York before becoming director of anesthesia at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in LA. He returned to the Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1978 to become head of cardiac anesthesia. He also was chair of the hospital’s risk management committee for 17 years.

1955

Floyd R. Parks, Jr., of Laguna Niguel, California, became known as “the flying surgeon” after he got his pilot’s license in the 1960s and provided medical services to rural areas of eastern California and western Nevada for more than 20 years. He died on July 16, 2019, at the age of 89. Parks logged 4,000 hours in the air — and survived five dead-stick landings. He retired in 1991 — but enjoyed traveling the world as a cruise ship’s physician.

1956

Eric S. Merrifield, of Seattle, Washington, a respiratory diseases expert who was a pulmonary medicine specialist for a group practice for 25 years before becoming vice president for medical affairs at the city’s Northwest Hospital, died on Sept. 10, 2020. He was 90.

1957

Richard W. Newcomb, of Chicago, a pediatric allergist who was a protégé of Johns Hopkins’ renowned allergy specialists Kimishige Ishizaka (1925–2018) and his wife, Teruko (1926–2019), died of pneumonia on June 23, 2020. He was 89. In 1974, he became medical director of the University of Chicago’s La Rabida Children’s Hospital and Research Center. There he established the university’s first pediatric pulmonary function laboratory.

1960

Gerald P. Bodey, of The Woodlands, Texas, who had a distinguished three-decade career at the University of Texas’ M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, died on June 22, 2020. He was 86. Bodey established the center’s adult acute leukemia service, served as chief of the cancer chemotherapy branch in the Department of Developmental Therapeutics, founded the section of infectious diseases, was the first director of the Office of Protocol Research and was chairman of the Department of Medical Specialties.

Stephen P. Carney, of Easton, Maryland, who maintained a private practice in cardiology and oncology there for 35 years, died on June 3, 2020. His leadership of the medical community on Maryland’s Eastern Shore was exemplary. He served as chief of staff of the University of Maryland Shore Medical Center, was instrumental in founding the Shore Regional Cancer Center and was the first board president of the Talbot County Hospice Foundation. He made house calls throughout Talbot and Dorchester counties, often accepting seafood and waterfowl as payment for his services.

Alexander C. McLeod, of Nashville, Tennessee, who practiced internal medicine for 30 years but also undertook important health care management work at Vanderbilt University, died on November 6, 2020. He was 85.

George E. Pierce, of Austin, Texas, a mentor to generations of surgeons and a major contributor to the advancement of kidney transplantation, died on June 18, 2020. He was 86. A surgical protégé of Alfred Blalock ’22, Pierce practiced vascular and thoracic surgery for more than 40 years, holding positions at the University of Washington, University of Colorado, the Veterans Administration’s Medical Center and the University of Kansas School of Medicine.

V. Stabler Jr., of Greenville, Alabama, a former president of the Alabama Medical Association, died on August 13, 2020. He was 86. A recipient of a Bronze Star for his services during the Vietnam War, he became chief of surgery and chief of staff at the L.V. Stabler Memorial Hospital (now known as the Regional Medical Center of Central Alabama), which was originally named for his grandfather, also a prominent physician. The emergency room in the hospital is named for the younger Stabler.

1963

Turpin H. Rose, of Denver, Colorado, who became a prominent ophthalmologist in Danbury, Connecticut, during a 38-year career there, died on July 11, 2020. He was 83.

1977

James B. Metzger, of Maumee, Ohio, medical director for infection control at the Toledo Hospital for 25 years, died on November 6, 2020. He was 68.

1980

Jon A. Wolff, of Madison, Wisconsin, a physician/scientist who devised numerous diagnostic and therapeutic advances that have become standards of care for many genetic diseases, died of esophageal cancer on April 17, 2020. A pioneer of gene therapy in the 1980s, Wolff played an important role in developing gene therapy for liver and brain disorders. Subsequently, he helped spearhead techniques for transferring genes and nucleic acids into cells using physical and chemical methods. Internationally known, Wolff founded Genetic Support Foundation (GSF) in 2012.

1984

John E. Humphries, of Charlottesville, Virginia, a specialist in bleeding and clotting disorders at the University of Virginia, died on August 19, 2020. He was 62. Humphries also consulted internationally for the pharmaceutical industry.

Faculty, Fellows and House Staff

Edyth H. Schoenrich (HS; fellow, internal medicine, 1948–1954; faculty, medicine, 1953–1969), who became the first woman associate dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 1986, died in her Ruxton, Maryland, home on September 12, 2020. She was 101.

Harvey W. Bender Jr. (HS, surgery, 1959–1961; 1963–1967; faculty, surgery, 1963–1971), who joined Vincent Gott (faculty, surgery, 1965–2008) in performing the first heart transplant operation at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1969, died on September 12, 2020. He was 86. Bender, of Nashville, Tennessee, left Johns Hopkins to become chief of the division of cardiac surgery at Vanderbilt and then, in 1975, chair of the newly formed Department of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgery. During the quarter century he headed that department, Bender led Vanderbilt’s program to national and international prominence. He was president of the American College of Surgeons in 2000–2001.