Profile: Werner Ascoli, MD, ’55, MPH Alumnus of the Year 2000

Born on a coffee plantation in Guatemala, Werner F. Ascoli, MD ’55, saw young

families endure severe illnesses and suffering brought about by abject poverty. He

witnessed the lives of some of his friends cut short because of poor medical conditions

in his homeland. As a youth, he was frustrated that more could not be done to protect

the health of his neighbors. He vowed then to one day become a physician and bring

about change in some small measure in the land he loved. For his leadership in public

health, Dr. Ascoli is named Temple University School of Medicine’s Alumnus of the Year

2000.

“In the 1950s especially, it was very difficult for foreigners to gain admission to a

medical school in the United States,” Dr. Ascoli remembered. “The reputation of U.S.

medicine was great. I was accepted finally to three: Yale, Temple and Duke.”

His love of classical music and especially the renown of the Philadelphia

Orchestra, then conducted by Eugene Ormandy, brought him to Broad Street and

Temple. “Within two weeks of my arrival in Philadelphia, I was invited to a dinner party at

the home of Dr. Polk, a pediatrician in Bryn Mawr. There, I met Eugene Ormandy.

Shortly after, at a dinner in Germantown, I met a pianist, Dorothy, who was studying at

Temple’s School of Music. Dorothy and I married three years later.”

Not too much further into his studies at Temple’s School of Medicine, Dr. Ascoli

met and mentored with Dr. Richard Kern, then head of Temple’s Department of

Medicine. “Dr. Kern spoke Spanish, and had been to Guatemala several times. He and I

became good friends. With him, I was able to discuss my interest in public health and

tropical medicine. He encouraged me to go home and make a difference.”

And so he did. Dr. Ascoli spent fifty years of public service in Guatemala, as Field

Chief, Division of Nutrition, Guatemala Public Health Service and Chief, Division of

Applied Nutrition for the Institute of Nutrition for Central America and Panama. He

traveled the world as an invited lecturer on public health, nutritional diseases and

deficiencies, as well as on screening methods and preventive programs for diseases in

agricultural workers. He has served as consultant to the World Health Organization on

applied nutrition programs throughout the western hemisphere, India, Japan and

Thailand.

“With the advent of vaccinations in children and the use of antibiotics especially,

not just medicine but also the health of Guatemalans has improved measurably in my 45

years here,” Dr. Ascoli said. “Death rates and infant mortality rates are half of what they

used to be. I have had a part in the improvements. Many people took me as an example,

and some have followed my footsteps, although not as many as I would have liked.”

Dr. Ascoli and his wife, Dorothy, continue to live in Guatemala, although Dr.

Ascoli retired from active practice in 1995. He still enjoys traveling throughout his

country, visiting farms and factories, to see how former patients are faring. He spends

his spare time reading, as well as writing his memoirs. The Ascolis visit the States often

to visit their three daughters (two of whom are physicians, and each is married to a

physician). Dorothy, Dr. Ascoli proudly notes, founded a school in their town, where she

continues to teach.

“To lead by example, and hope others follow, is a great honor,” said Dr. Ascoli. “I

am most pleased that Temple gave me the foundation and the knowledge so that I could

have the opportunity to be a part of improvements in the lives of so many.”

Profile: Charles D. Tourtellotte, MD, ‘57 “Honored Professor Award”

As a young man, Charles D. Tourtellotte, MD, ’57, dreamed of a career as a

biochemist. At Temple, Dr. Tourtellotte melded his interest in biochemical research with

an application to medicine, and has witnessed advances in biochemical treatment of

rheumatic disease – to the point now that some of his patients are seeing “dramatic”

improvement where there was once little hope of sufficient treatment, let alone cure.

“Early in my career, not many physicians were choosing rheumatology as a

specialty because treatment modalities were few,” Dr. Tourtellote recalled. “With the

discovery of cortisone and its clinical application to arthritis, there was an upsurge,

particularly due to the dramatic effect cortisone had on patients. Again, the excitement

waned until very recently, with additional knowledge of immunology and immune

processes and the emergence of new treatments. Now, as I near retirement, there are

cellular inflammatory mediators that have, in many cases, made patients very much

better.”

Dr. Tourtellotte credits his continuing interest in biochemistry and rheumatology

to a professor named Robert Baldridge, MD. “He took me under his wing, and

encouraged my interest and Masters degree in biochemistry, which I received along with

my medical degree,” Dr. Tourtellotte remembered. “Dr. Baldridge was relatively new then

to Temple, having just arrived from the University of Michigan – where I later went for my

residency.”

“Temple Medicine’s teaching characteristic is nurturing, where professors take a

real interest in the younger generation,” he said. It set an example for Dr. Tourtellotte as

a professor and mentor, one who encouraged research along with patient care as

integral components of a student’s education. Dr. Tourtellotte figures he has taught

some 40 fellows in rheumatology over his years at Temple, and most have gone on to

be leaders, “chiefs and chairmen,” of rheumatology sections at many of the area’s

hospitals.

For 33 years (1966-1998), Dr. Tourtellotte served as Temple’s Chief of

Rheumatology, all the while providing professional leadership to such groups of the

Philadelphia Rheumatism Society, the Philadelphia County Medical Society, the Arthritis

Foundation, and as a founding member of the Greater Delaware Valley Arthritis Control

Program.

He served as Assistant (1965-67), Associate (1967-72) and full Professor of

Medicine (1972-1998) at Temple’s School of Medicine, as well as Attending

Rheumatologist, Chief of the Arthritis Clinic, and Director of the Pediatric Rheumatology

Center at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children from 1985 to 1998.

In addition, he served Temple University and its Medical School well: in 1984-86,

he was President of the Medical Staff and was a member of the Hospital Board of

Governors. He was President of the Faculty Senate for the School of Medicine from

1971 to 1972, and President of the Medical Alumni Association for four years, 1996-

1999. Dr. Tourtellotte has been honored on numerous occasions by the Arthritis

Foundation, the American College of Physicians, and the American Medical Association.

Dr. Tourtellotte looks forward to his retirement by June 30, 2000, his “start date

for a new career” – sports fishing. He recently bought a bigger boat, a twenty-eight foot

beauty that can carry him to the “canyon” in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Beach

Haven, NJ. There, he hopes to land his share of swordfish, marlin, dolphin and tuna,

tossing back most of his catch to foster breeding, and ensuring more sport for another

day.

Profile: E. Howard Bedrossian, MD Medical Alumni Service Award

As a second-year medical student, E. Howard Bedrossian, MD ’45, received an

intimate education from Temple on handling peritonitis. Over the Christmas holidays that

year, his own appendix ruptured and because “this was well before the days of

antibiotics,” his life hung in the balance for a long two weeks. “I owe my life to Temple,”

he reminisced, “so the least I can do is give back to it through alumni service.” So with

his brother, Robert Bedrossian, MD ’47, the Drs. Bedrossian recently established The

Bedrossian Endowed Chair in Ophthalmology – the first chair to be fully-funded by

medical school alumni.

The Bedrossian Chair has been established to continue the improvement of

teaching and the development of clinical criteria in the field of ophthalmology, and to

maintain an approved residency program in ophthalmology.

It is anticipated that the recipient of the endowment will be announced next year,

during the School’s centennial, and in a year straddling the two brothers’ 55th year

reunions. “My brother and I first established the Bedrossian Scholarship and Loan Fund,

in memory of our father, to provide a stipend or loan to motivated juniors or seniors in

Temple’s Medical School. It was not only the right thing to do in terms of allegiance, but

is designed to set a good example for others,” he said.

Dr. Bedrossian is the middle of three generations of ophthalmologists who in

1999 celebrated 75 years of vision care from the same office on State Road in Drexel

Hill. His father, Edward Hagop Bedrossian, MD, (a Penn alumnus) opened the office in

1924; in 1978, Dr. Bedrossian had the privilege of awarding a diploma from Temple

University’s School of Medicine to his son, Edward H. Bedrossian, Jr., MD. Dr.

Bedrossian’s brother practices ophthalmology in Vancouver, WA.

In addition to his private practice, Dr. Bedrossian has served as a clinical

professor of ophthalmology at Thomas Jefferson University School of Medicine and for

25 years, as a clinical associate professor of ophthalmology at the University of

Pennsylvania. He was also director of the department of ophthalmology at Delaware

County Memorial Hospital, an attending surgeon at Wills Eye Hospital, associate

ophthalmologist at Graduate Hospital, and an attending ophthalmologist at Riddle

Memorial Hospital.

“I was always very proud of my Temple Med education,” Dr. Bedrossian said.

“This was affirmed several times. First, when I was in basic military training (prior to his

induction in the Army Air Force), I was among two or three hundred others being tested

on clinical pathology protocols. Guys sitting next to me from some of the Ivy League

schools would miss a diagnosis on the test, but I got it right.“

“Another time, a senior medical student, relayed to me that when she was

interviewing in Los Angeles for an internship, the interviewer told her that Temple has

the ‘best medical school in the City of Philadelphia,’ and I agree,” Dr. Bedrossian

recalled. “Temple has a reputation for choosing the professors who are the very best in

teaching, offering very practical and factual lessons, to make sure students learn.”

To ensure that the School’s reputation lasts well into its second century, Dr.

Bedrossian remains active as a member of the Board of Directors of the Temple Medical

Alumni Association – a directorship he assumed in 1974, and serving as its president for

two years (1989-91). He has backed this commitment with generous gifts, supporting

numerous strategic challenges of the Medical School, both programmatic and capital.

For that benevolence as well as “the example” he chooses to set, Dr. Bedrossian is

awarded the 2000 Medical Alumni Service Award.

Profile: Kenneth Randall Chien, MD, PhD, ’80 Alumni Achievement Award

Reflecting on his years in Temple University School of Medicine, Kenneth Randall Chien, MD, PhD, ’80 said that while in Philadelphia, he experienced a

reawakening, personally and professionally.

“Temple reignited my interest in science that had been extinguished during my

undergraduate studies (at Harvard),” he recalled. “In my second year of (Temple)

medical school, I had a particularly stimulating professor, John Farber (MD), a

pathologist, who encouraged my interest in practicing science as applied to medicine.

Until my very important interactions with him, I wasn’t quite sure what path I was on, but

in following science, I was certainly enjoying what I was doing.”

Dr. Chien’s current work as director of University of California, San Diego

(UCSD)/Salk Program in Molecular Medicine is specifically focused on finding genes that

cause heart disease. He is a widely respected researcher, with more than 200

publications, and having presented several dozen lectures internationally on molecular

biology. He is Professor of Medicine at UCSD and a member of UCSD’s Center for

Molecular Genetics. He is also co-director of UCSD’s Cardiovascular Center, and is the

American Heart Association’s (California affiliate) Endowed Chair (2000) in

Cardiovascular Research.

“Most importantly, at Temple I learned what being an academic physician is

about,” Dr. Chien said. “That is, to use everything we have, our intelligence and our

compassion, to advance human health.” Dr. Chien remembered a film he saw at TUSM,

one he said helped him to always “remember why we wanted to become a physician in

the first place.”

“The film was of a patient of Professor Larry Naiman, then an oncologist at St.

Christopher’s. The film was about a boy with leukemia, a child whose disease could

probably be successfully treated today. The boy was mature beyond his years, and

showed him through the stages of his disease, his treatment, his remission, recurrence

and eventually, his death. Near the end of his life, the boy was interviewed. He said with

so much purity, if he could live, he wanted to be a doctor, so he could help kids like

himself.”

“Medicine today takes a certain level of commitment,” Dr. Chien concluded. “And

Temple showed me that I – like so many others in my class – had what it takes to be

more than just another doctor: commitment, sincerity, authenticity, and a genuine desire

to try to do the right thing. Temple was willing to explore the diversity that creates good

physicians.”

Dr. Chien resides in La Jolla, CA with his wife, Patricia (who was working in

pathology at Temple when they met), and daughters Marisa (14) and Elena (12½).

Temple’s Medical Alumni are pleased to add to Dr. Chien’s long list of honors by

awarding him with an “Alumni Achievement Award.”

Profile: John W. Lachman, MD ’43 “Honored Professor Award”

In his sixty years at Temple, from his undergraduate studies begun in 1936 to his

retirement from orthopedic surgery in 1996, John W. Lachman, MD ’43, has witnessed

many changes. The trolley he once rode to school from his home near Ardmore north on

Broad Street is now a subway, and Temple’s physical plant at the University and

Hospital, blossomed. He has seen medical students assert “perhaps more

independence over the years, just as department heads have become real leaders not

benign dictators.”

“Times and techniques have changed, but Temple’s commitment has not,” Dr.

Lachman recalled. “I was always very proud that Temple was willing to look after the

poor, both as students, and as patients.” Dr. Lachman remembered that he himself

attended Temple University on scholarship (A.B., Chemistry, ’40), and both he and his

brother Robert graduated from its School of Medicine. “Back then to get into Temple’s

medical school, one had to be interviewed and accepted directly by Dean Parkinson, the

boss of it all. I was lucky to get in and later to do my internship at Temple. I was pretty

good in my class, so Dr. (John Royal) Moore accepted me – first as his resident and

later as his partner.”

“If I am to have any legacy at Temple, I would want to be known first as a good

teacher,“ Dr. Lachman said. “The best part of my work at Temple was running its

residency program (in orthopedics),” work Dr. Lachman undertook for 23 years (1966 to

1989), while professor and chairman of orthopaedic surgery. For ten of those years

(1966-76), he also served as chief of orthopedics at St. Christopher’s Hospital for

Children, and as an attending surgeon at Shriners Hospital for Children.

A Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, Dr. Lachman has received

innumerable awards and citations, including the Lindback Foundation Award for

Distinguished Teaching, Temple University Hospital’s Physician of the Year Award (in

19??), Temple University School of Medicine’s Alumnus of the Year (19??), and he is

this year’s recipient of the TUSM’s “Honored Professor Award.”

A lifelong bachelor, Dr. Lachman retired in 1996 to Juno Beach, FL, where he

now lives, at age 80, with his sister, Mary. He fills his days with golf “a few times a

week,” and he enjoys reading biographies, mysteries and spy stories.

“I consider myself very lucky. At Temple, we were blessed with opportunity, and

to teach, well, that was the best part. Quite honestly, there is nothing about my

professional life I would change if I had to do it all over again.”

Profile: Vincent Markovchick, MD, ‘70 Alumni Achievement Award

It’s hardly a place where most young men would choose to visit on a Saturday

night, but Vincent Markovchick, MD, ’70, was drawn to Temple University Hospital’s

Emergency Department. “Hanging out in the ER on a Saturday night was what I liked to

do most, and it is where I first got a sense that that is what I wanted to do with my

medical career,” Dr. Markovchick remembered. “It wasn’t the nicest neighborhood, even

then. My roommates and I shared a house just a half-block from the ER entrance. We

had a little sense of security though, because of the steady stream of the police cars and

ambulances that continually passed our front door.”

“There isn’t a particular patient or incident that stands out, just being in the ER

itself was the draw. Being able to observe and assist was such an early stimulus for

me,” Dr. Markovchick reflected. “Emergency medicine wasn’t a recognized specialty

back then, more than thirty years ago.” Dr. Markovchick honed his interest during his

residency in emergency medicine at the University of Chicago (1974-76), and has been

actively promoting the specialty ever since.

“I almost chose orthopedics, because Dr. (John) Lachman was such an

impressive teacher,” he said. “While all the teachers were terrific, Dr. Lachman stands

out as taking an incredible amount of time and patience to ensure that we were given the

best clinical education that could be offered anywhere.”

But the draw of those Saturday nights in the ER was overwhelming. Now, Dr.

Markovchick heads the department of emergency medicine for Denver (Colorado)

Health Medical Center, the city and county’s principal provider of trauma services. He

also serves as medical director for the Denver Fire Department, and heads the medical

efforts for the 9-1-1- paramedics, basic EMTs, as well as all ambulance response. He is

associate director of Denver Health’s emergency medicine residency program, and is

president of the American Board of Emergency Medicine. In his “spare time,” he is

medical advisor to the Copper Mountain Ski Patrol, which “forces” him to ski twice a

week.

Dr. Markovchick is widely sought-after as a lecturer and visiting professor,

offering more than 200 presentations nationally and abroad, including SUNY Brooklyn

(1998), Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency (1997), and Case Western

Reserve (1990). He has written four books, including Prehospital Care Secrets (Hanley

and Belfus, 1998), 13 articles, 30 book chapters and two research abstracts.

“All of the hats I wear have worn the hair off my head,” Dr. Markovchick joked.

Still, he finds special time for his wife, Leslie, and their three daughters, Nicole (24),

Tasha (23) and Nadia (18). For all these notable achievements, Dr. Markovchick is one

of TUSM’s four Alumni Achievement honorees this year.

Profile: Thomas A. Miller, MD ’70 Alumni Achievement Award

“One of the things I noted during my years at Temple was a tendency for its

students to undersell themselves, to have a sort of inferiority, playing second fiddle to

‘that other medical school’ across town’,” Thomas A. Miller, MD ’70, recalled. “We

hoped we would be able to accomplish great things with our Temple education.” Dr.

Miller is one of four who are honored this year for their Alumni Achievements.

“What I found – and I know others have found this too – when matched with

others from even Harvard and Hopkins, our clinical education was every bit as good if

not better,” he asserted. “My Temple education opened doors. One of my mentors at

Temple was Ollie Owen (MD), then in the Endocrinology section, who was assigned to

be my faculty advisor. Ollie refused to write letters of recommendation for my internship

applications unless I chose institutions that were excellent, not just those that were local

and what I thought were ‘good enough.’ He encouraged me to reach for the stars. His

attitude was one that I was potentially capable of very great things, and he was stubborn

enough to make me reach.”

Dr. Miller’s reach took him to a surgery internship at the University of Chicago

Hospital and a residency at the University of Michigan Hospitals. His postdoctoral

studies have included a research fellowship in Gastrointestinal Physiology at the

University of Texas, and to ongoing federally-funded research in the mechanisms of GI

damage and repair, peptic ulcer disease and gastrocytoprotection. He is currently a

professor of surgery at the St. Louis University School of Medicine.

Dr. Miller is widely published, including a recent book, Modern Surgical Care:

Physiologic Foundations and Clinical Applications (Quality Medical Publishers, St. Louis,

MO, 1998). He serves as Associate Editor for “Surgical Gastroenterology,” and

Assistant Editor for “Digestive Surgery” magazines. He has also published 102

abstracts, 135 articles, and 27 book chapters. His work has garnered Dr. Miller several

awards, including the American College of Surgeons Frederick A. Coller Award for

Excellence (1974), and the University of Texas Outstanding Achievement in Research

Award (1992).

Dr. Miller and his wife, Janet, have raised a family of four; their three sons live in

Texas, and a daughter, Laurie, is a recent USC graduate living in Los Angeles.

Profile: Joseph Mirro, Jr., MD “Alumni Achievement Award”

“During my orientation to Temple Medical School,” reflected Joseph Mirro Jr., MD, ’75, “I was told that one-half of everything you will learn in medical school will be

outdated or incorrect in five years, and in the future, the amount of medical knowledge

will double every three years.”

“I think the first part of the quote has proven correct, but the last part is a

dramatic underestimate of the advances in medical science that have occurred since I

graduated from Temple,” he continued.

Dr. Mirro witnesses these advances almost daily from a unique vantage point as

Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, as well as Director of Bone Marrow

Transplantation, at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN, positions he

has held since 1997. In addition, Dr. Mirro is professor and Vice Chairman of the

Department of Pediatrics at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine. Prior to his

move to Tennessee, he was co-director of the Leukemia/Lymphoma Center at the

Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, and Chief of Hematology/Oncology at Children’s Hospital of

Pittsburgh.

Dr. Mirro has been Principal Investigator on numerous federal and foundation

grants regarding bone marrow transplantation and therapeutic trials in myeloid leukemia.

He has had dozens of national and international visiting professorships and invited

lectureships, including presentations at the Johns Hopkins Oncology Center (1992), the

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (1992) and Istanbul Oncology Institute (1996).

He has published 104 articles, 42 books chapters, and a book, “Parents Guide to

Pediatric Cancer and Its Treatment” (Plenum Press), and he has served as a national

trustee for the Leukemia Society of America.

In 1975, Temple honored Dr. Mirro at graduation with its Clinical Excellence

Award and the W. Emory Burnett Prize in Surgery. At this, his silver anniversary, the

Medical Alumni are pleased to honor him again, this time as an Alumni Achievement

Awardee.