He was a founding member of the American
Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the first Examination Board Committee member of the American Board
of Internal Medicine in medical oncology. He was elected
ASCO president in 1972 and AACR president in 1979.
He dedicated more than 40 years of his academic career to research, education and patient care. He was a
tireless researcher and educator. He made several important contributions to medicine and oncology. He played a
central role in the understanding of cytogenetics in
chronic myelogenous leukemia, the development of a
curative treatment for Hodgkin’s disease, and adjuvant
chemotherapy for early-stage breast cancer patients, to
name but a few of his scientific contributions. He was not
only an outstanding clinician and a fatherly figure loved
by all his patients, but also an astute researcher who tried
to take clinical problems into the laboratory and foster
research cooperation as well as educate the next generation of oncologists. Patients traveled from all corners of
the world to see him, yet he still had enough time to raise
seven children (three became physicians, one a lawyer and
three hold an MBA).