Notes

1930s
Albert W. Diddle, M.D. ’36, professor and chair emeritus of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Tennessee Memorial Research Center and Hospital, is a life fellow of the American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society. He is also a member of the Central Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Continental Gynecological Society and Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society.

2004-2005

Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine

1940s

Sanford F. Cockerell, M.D. ’45, of Independence, Mo., retired in 2000 from his pediatric practice after 50 years. His son, Charles, and daughter, Michele, took over the practice, which has eight other physicians, two nurse practitioners and offices in two cities. Cockerell says that his activities include racquetball, gardening and duck hunting. For the past 15 years he has served as president of the Independence Hunting Club, which maintains a waterfowl marsh 35 miles from his home.

David E. Morton, M.D. ’48, HS ’55, who retired from the practice of internal medicine in 1993, relinquished the post of managing partner of the Lake Medical Building in Pueblo, Colo., in January. Morton’s first two grandchildren, Hina Kojima and Akemi Ozoa, were born in 2003. He still travels frequently to Denver to visit his daughter, and to Boston, Seattle, Japan and Europe.

1960s

John J. Kelly Jr., M.D. ’69, HS ’71, professor and chair of neurology at the George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., was named to the Brown University Football Team of the Decade for the 1960s. Kelly played varsity football at Brown from 1962 through 1964 as a fullback and linebacker. He also played varsity baseball. He and other teammates were honored in Providence in November, when they were introduced during half time of the Brown-Penn game and at a dinner and reception that evening.

1970s

H. Steven Moffic, M.D. ’71, professor of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, is principal investigator for a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for the provision of marriage enrichment services to Milwaukee’s refugee community.

Rebecca A. Taub, M.D. ’78, formerly executive Director of biology at Bristol-Myers Squibb, was named vice president of research, metabolic diseases, at Hoffmann-La Roche in Nutley, N.J., in March. Metabolic diseases, such as diabetes and obesity, are a major research focus of the company.

Ross M. Tonkens, M.D. ’74, has been appointed global scientific head of cardiovascular therapeutics for Quintiles Transnational Corp., the world’s largest contract research organization, in Research Triangle Park, N.C. Tonkens was a cardiologist in Beverly Hills before moving to Las Vegas, where he founded his own clinical research site and started a venture capital fund. While in Nevada he also served as medical director for Intracorp, a Cigna HealthCare case management subsidiary, and managed several successful statewide political campaigns.

Virginia A. Zakian, Ph.D. ’75, the Harry C. Wiess Professor in the Life Sciences and professor of molecular biology at Princeton University, has been named to the National Advisory General Medical Sciences Council. Council members, who serve four-year terms, perform the second level of peer review for research and research training grant applications assigned to the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. Zakian studies the structure and replication of eukaryotic chromosomes, using yeast as a model organism.

1980s

Michael D. Burg, M.D. ’87, assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, Fresno’s Medical Education Program, is on sabbatical and serving as the Emergency Medicine Residency Program director at the Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis in Amsterdam, Netherlands. This hospital was the first in that country to start an emergency medicine residency.

David Fassler, M.D. ’82, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont College of Medicine, testified before the Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee of the Food and Drug Administration in February on behalf of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Fassler, a trustee of the APA and vice chair of the Assembly of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), addressed the diagnosis and treatment of childhood and adolescent depression and the safety and efficacy of anti-depressant medication. At the request of the American Bar Association, he also testified before legislatures in Nevada, New Hampshire and Wyoming on bills to eliminate juvenile executions. Fassler helped draft and pass the APA and AACAP position statements on the juvenile death penalty, based on scientific evidence concerning adolescent brain development.

David M. Gaba, M.D. ’80, director of the Patient Safety Center of Inquiry at the VA Palo Alto (Calif.) Health Care System and professor of anesthesiology at Stanford University, has been awarded the 2003 David M. Worthen Award for Academic Excellence. This award, the highest given by the Department of Veterans Affairs, recognizes outstanding achievements of national significance in health professions education.

Mary Ann (Fagan) Gray, Ph.D., FW ’87, owner of Gray Strategic Advisors, which advises public and private biotechnology companies, has joined the board of Dyax Corporation, a company that focuses on antibodies, small proteins and peptides as therapeutic products for unmet medical needs, particularly in the areas of inflammation and oncology.

Eric J. Nestler, Ph.D. ’82, M.D. ’83, the Lou and Ellen McGinley Distinguished Chair in Psychiatric Research at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, has been named one of 10 recipients of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Freedom To Discover Grant. Nestler will use the unrestricted grant to identify molecular and cellular changes that drugs of abuse produce in the brain, and to characterize the genetic and environmental factors that determine individual differences in the ability of the drugs to produce these changes.

Edwin Trevathan, M.D., M.P.H., HS ’84, professor of neurology and pediatrics and director of the Pediatric Epilepsy Center at Washington University in St. Louis, has completed, along with his colleagues, studies of clinical data used to diagnose epilepsy and of outcomes of epilepsy surgery among children. Trevathan and his co-investigators are conducting population-based surveillance and epidemiological studies of autism, mental retardation and epilepsy among children in St. Louis.

1990s

Brian G. Cole, M.D., M.P.H. ’95, and Yale College alumnus Lucas W. Campos, M.D., have launched Ivy League Pharmaceutical Consultants and Associates in Tyrone, Pa. Their mission is to produce and interpret sound evidence for new pharmaceutical applications. Cole also has practices in Hawaii and New York, and occasionally serves as a cruise ship doctor in North Africa, the Baltics, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and, most recently, the Hawaiian Islands. “God has blessed me and I’m very grateful!”

Jeffrey M. Dembner, M.D. ’96, has completed his neurological surgery training at Stanford University Medical Center and is now in private practice in Newport Beach, Calif. Dembner is also affiliated with Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian.

Jiyon Lee, M.D. ’96, is in private practice at Rye Radiology Associates in Rye Brook, N.Y., after training at Columbia Presbyterian. She and her husband have two children, Serena, 3, and Aaron, 15 months in March. Lee ran the Philadelphia marathon last fall where she saw former classmate Eric A. Gomes, M.D. ’96, an internist in Princeton, N.J. She offers to talk with any medical students or radiology residents who are interested in seeing what a private practice environment is like in Westchester.

Jonathan M. Rothberg, M.S., M.P.H. ’87, Ph.D. ’91, president and chief executive officer of CuraGen Corporation in Branford, Conn., was elected in February to The National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Rothberg’s membership honors his contribution to the application of engineering principles to the mining of genomic information for the discovery and development of new drugs.

Samir Suresh Shah, M.D. ’98, is completing fellowships in pediatric infectious diseases and general pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, while working toward his master of science degree in clinical epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine’s Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

2000s

Alicia L. Arbaje, M.D. ’00, M.P.H., a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, is focusing her research on problems related to fragmentation in the health care delivery system, in particular the difficulties that chronically ill patients face.

Michele Lynn Frascatore, M.M.S. ’02, and Alan Francis Colwell were married on July 12, 2003, in Waterbury, Conn. Frascatore is a physician assistant at Middlesex Cardiology in nearby Middletown. Colwell is pursuing a master’s degree in environmental science at the University of New Haven and works for GeoDesign in Middlebury as an environmental consultant.

Rocco Angelo Iannucci, M.D. ’02, and Alisa Mary Marko were married on July 26, 2003, in up-state New York. Iannucci is a resident in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital/McLean Hospital in Boston.

Neda N. Pakdaman, M.D. ’00, has completed her residency in internal medicine at Stanford and is now an internist practicing in a multispecialty group. Pakdaman was married in May 2003.

Send alumni news items to Claire M. Bessinger, Yale Medicine Publications, P.O. Box 7612, New Haven, CT 06519-0612, or via e-mail to claire.bessinger@yale.edu.