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December 2000
Volume 64 |
Number 12
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Bernard Raymond Fink, M.D., F.F.A.R.C.S.
(1914 – 2000)
George S. Bause, M.D.
Honorary Curator, Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology
| Born May 25, 1914, in London, England,
Bernard Raymond Fink, M.D., was raised in Antwerp, Belgium.
By age 22, Dr. Fink had earned degrees in physiology, medicine
and surgery at the University of London. From 1939-49, he
completed medical training and service in South Africa. Following
a few months as a Cornell University researcher, Dr. Fink
finished anesthesiology residency at New York's Beth Israel
Hospital by 1952. Leaving Columbia University after 12 years
as Associate Professor, he arrived as Professor to the University
of Washington in 1964. |
Bernard Raymond Fink, M.D. |
Ray Fink, M.D., was the voice of originality. A charter member of
the International Association for the Study of Pain and the Anesthesia
History Association, Dr. Fink served as secretary of the former
and as president of the latter. His Fink valve permitted practical
controlled ventilation with a nonrebreathing circuit. He designed
clever vallecular extensions to the Macintosh blade, Connell airway
and Waters airway, resulting in, respectively, the Fink blade and
the regular and nippled versions of the Fink airway.He penned more
than 120 original articles that explored diffusion anoxia, medical
history, pain, respiratory regulation, electromyography, anesthetic
toxicity, cell metabolism, local anesthetics and nerve conduction.
ASA bestowed its Excellence in Research Award upon Dr. Fink in 1987.
A voice with many tongues, Dr. Fink lectured
in seven languages to 17 nations on five continents. His language
facility proved an asset during his years editing submissions
to Anesthesiology, Anesthesiology Review, Pain, Regional Anesthesia
and the Wood Library-Museum. His translations of Claude Barnard
and Pirogoff won him David Little Best Book Prizes in 1990 and
1993.
Dr. Fink was the voice of the voice itself.
His masterwork, The Human Larynx: A Functional Study, sold out
in 1975. Co-authored with R.J. Demarest, Laryngeal Biomechanics
soon followed, earning the 1978-79 Best Book Award of the Anesthesia
Foundation. An invited speaker to the American Laryngological
Association and the International Primatological Society, he wrote
dozens of papers on the larynx. For years he pursued evidence
that the larynx and speech were determinants in the evolution
of man and of primates.
Finally, Dr. Fink was the voice of valor.
At South Africa's Moroka Methodist Mission from 1947-49, he preached
against apartheid. In 1989, he warned against researchers’ use
of Nazi data, reminding them that the suffering of prisoners experimented
on without their fully informed consent should be in vain. His
courageous voice and diligence were saluted by Distinguished Service
Awards from the American Society of Regional Anesthesia, the American
Pain Society and ASA. On October 30, 2000, Bernard Raymond Fink,
M.D., succumbed to renal failure. Many will miss Ray's heroic
voice. Humankind will hear his echo for decades to come.
Lamar Jackson, M.D.
(1928 – 2000)
The state of Texas, and indeed the world
of medicine, lost an innovator, a leader, a friend and a true
Southern gentleman when Lamar Jackson, M.D., passed away on October
2, 2000, from complications with leukemia. He was 72.
Dr. Jackson was Vice-Speaker of the ASA
House of Delegates from 1988-99 and Speaker of the ASA House of
Delegates from 1991-94.
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He was born on April 5, 1928, in Temple, Texas, and graduated
from Lubbock High School. He graduated with honors from
Texas Tech where he was elected to Who's Who Among Students
in American Universities and Colleges. He graduated with
honors from Baylor College of Medicine where he was elected
to Alpha Omega Alpha Honorary Medical Society. Dr. Jackson
interned at John Peter Smith Hospital, Ft. Worth, followed
by a year of general surgery residency at the Southern Pacific
Hospital, Houston. He was drafted into the Army in 1955
and served on the general surgery staff of the 5017th SU
Army Hospital, Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri.
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Lamar Jackson, M.D. |
After discharge, he was a general practitioner
in Henderson, Texas, following which he returned to Baylor College
of Medicine for a residency in anesthesiology. Dr. Jackson remained
with Baylor College of Medicine as an instructor in the Department
of Anesthesiology and later as a clinical instructor and clinical
associate professor.
In 1964 he joined the Private Practice
Anesthesia Group at the Methodist Hospital, Houston, where he
served as president of the medical staff in 1982-83.
He was a Fellow of the American College
of Anesthesiology and a Diplomate of the American Board of Anesthesiology
(ABA). He served ABA as an Associate Oral Examiner for 15 years.
He was appointed to the Medical Advisory Committee of the Texas
Rehabilitation Commission from 1979-88 and was a member of the
Harris County Medical Society, the Texas Medical Association and
the American Medical Association. He served as president of the
Texas Gulf Coast Anesthesia Society in 1970 and of the Texas Society
of Anesthesiologists (TSA) in 1977. Dr. Jackson received the Distinguished
Service Award from TSA in 1997.
A fellow Texan, medical school colleague
and close family friend, Betty P. Stephenson, M.D., fondly remembers
Dr. Jackson as the “perennial class president, a fine musician
who sang and played several instruments and, above all, a true
Southern gentleman absolutely.
Although Dr. Jackson's achievements were
many, TSA President James P. McMichael, M.D., remembers the qualities
that won no awards but that won him so much respect: His calm
demeanor, even in the face of otherwise confusing and conflicting
motions and amendments to those motions, his ability to coax clarity
and reason during debate, and his sonorous, mellow voice which
betrayed ever so slightly his Texas heritage, were his hallmarks.
And despite his lifelong service in and
to the state of Texas, his influence was much broader. His counsel
was sought and followed by all: his partners, his fellow anesthesiologists
in TSA and ASA and the surgeons and administrators who were privileged
to work with him. He is greatly missed, Dr. McMichael said. Dr.
Jackson is survived by his wife, Jane, three sons, a daughter
and their spouses, eight step-children and their spouses, seven
grandchildren and 11 step-grandchildren.
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