In Memoriam

Remi J. Cadoret, M.D. ’53, died of prostate cancer at his home in Iowa City, Iowa, on November 12. He was 77. After graduating from the School of Medicine, Cadoret spent two years in the U.S. Air Force, during which time he delivered 500 babies. He did research at the Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory in North Carolina before taking a position at the University of Manitoba College of Medicine in Canada. From there he went to Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Iowa. He was director of the Iowa Consortium for Substance Abuse and Evaluation. After his retirement in 1998 he continued his research, using adoptee studies to study gene-environment interaction, with a focus on antisocial behavior and substance dependence.

Ludmil A. Chotkowski, M.D. ’42, of Berlin, Conn., died on October 6 at the age of 89. Chotkowski was an internist for more than 50 years at New Britain General Hospital, the Rocky Hill (Conn.) Veterans Home and Hospital and Connecticut Valley Hospital. He was also a self-published author, columnist, community activist, naturalist and farmer with a 14-acre fruit orchard. In Berlin, where he was born and raised on a family farm, he served as health officer, improving water quality and introducing innovative public health measures. He established one of the first clinics to administer polio vaccinations, and he performed kidney dialysis and recommended inhalers to treat asthma before these practices were widely used. In another way, however, he remained old-fashioned, continuing to make house calls.

Michael T. Cronin, D.V.M., Ph.D., M.D., HS ’67, assistant clinical professor of pathology, died in Branford, Conn., on November 23 of Parkinson’s disease. He was 81. Cronin’s medical career spanned 30 years at Yale, the Hospital of Saint Raphael and Memorial Hospital in Meriden, Conn. Early in his career, Cronin, a native of Ireland, did veterinary research at the Irish Racing Board and the Equine Research Station in England. From 1971 to 1989 he was a consulting editor for the magazine American Scientist.

Armin F. Funke, M.P.H. ’60, died on June 24 in Roseville, Calif. He was 78. Born in Germany, Funke came to the United States in 1948 and worked at the state of California Department of Health for 30 years.

Joshua C. Gibson, M.D. ’01, died on November 14 in New York of a cardiac arrhythmia. He was 34. Gibson was a fellow in infectious diseases at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where he co-founded the Advancing Idealism in Medicine Curriculum to help residents get involved in international programs that focus on improving the plight of others. Gibson himself worked at a refugee camp in Tanzania for Rwandan refugees, volunteered at a rural health center in India and tracked the health impact of the World Trade Center attacks on rescue workers. At a memorial service, Daniel S. Caplivski, M.D. ’00, an assistant professor at Mt. Sinai, recalled his classmate, friend and colleague: “We had seen each other as first-year medical students just learning to listen through a stethoscope. Now I was watching his wonderful bedside manner and I saw his deep compassion and his meticulous attention to detail. He had become a great doctor.”

James H. Greenwald, M.D. ’58, died on November 14 in Chicago. He was 73. Greenwald served his internship and residency at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, then practiced nephrology and internal medicine in the Chicago area until he retired in 2000. He was a member of national medical societies and the author of several research papers.

Martha F. Leonard, M.D., a former professor of pediatrics long affiliated with the Child Study Center, died on December 27 in North Branford, Conn. She was 89. Leonard came to Yale in 1961. As an early-childhood specialist, she provided compassionate care to children and their families. She also worked to influence legislation affecting children. She was active in the Center Church in New Haven, the Interfaith Cooperative Ministries and the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. In 1979 she received an honorary M.A.H. degree from the Yale Divinity School and later served as chaplain at the Evergreen Woods retirement community in North Branford, where she lived.

Mary Ann Lillie, R.N., M.P.H. ’87, died on October 4 at the Connecticut Hospice in Branford, Conn. She was 54. Lillie worked for many years at Yale-New Haven Hospital and was an active member of St. Andrews United Methodist Church in New Haven.

Patrick J. McLaughlin Jr., Med. ’48, died on September 8 in Massachusetts at the age of 82. McLaughlin was a social worker for the city of Lowell and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. For many years McLaughlin, who started but did not complete his medical education at Yale, and his wife lived in Andover, Mass., but recently moved to Concord to be near one of their daughters and her family.

Kay Tanaka, M.D., D.Sc., professor emeritus in the Department of Genetics, died on August 21 in New Haven. He was 76. Before coming to Yale in 1973, Tanaka held faculty positions at Baylor College of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. He founded and, from 1977 to 1989, directed the Biochemical Disease Detection Laboratory at Yale, and in 1987 he received a MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health. He was a pioneer in the use of gas-liquid chromatography and nuclear magnetic resonance in the identification of inherited metabolic diseases.

Wilbur D. Van Buren, Med. ’78, M.D., Ph.D., died on November 6 in Kansas City, Mo., of pancreatic cancer. He was 57. Van Buren began his medical studies at Yale, but obtained his degree at St. Louis University. Known as “the singing doctor,” he was in private practice and worked at hospitals and nursing homes in Kansas City. He was a major in the U.S. Army Reserves, a Grand Knight of the Knights of Columbus and active in the Holy Name Catholic Church.

Send obituary notices to Claire M. Bessinger, Yale Medicine Publications, 1 Church Street, Suite 300, New Haven, CT 06510, or via e-mail to claire.bessinger@yale.edu