Alumni Website. To report the death of a faculty member, please email wcm med. Notices will be edited for space and clarity. Nugent joined the Air Force in , attaining the rank of colonel and flight surgeon. He served in many places throughout his career including England, Washington, Vietnam and Dayton, Ohio. He was involved in Project Gemini as a medical monitor, checking vitals when the spacecraft flew overhead. He was the son and grandson of doctors who practiced on Long Island, N.
Higgins Jr. Higgins completed an internship and residency in Syracuse, N. He went on active duty with the U. Air Force, accepting an assignment in Wiesbaden, Germany, from to Higgins joined the San Diego County mental health service in , eventually becoming head of adult mental health services before retiring in Family was the most important part of his life, including his wife of 69 years, Sandy, his five children, seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Alan Berkenfield of La Jolla, Calif. He did his surgical residency at Bellevue Hospital in New York. He served more than 10 years in the U. Navy, beginning his service a year before the end of World War II. He was recalled to active duty as a doctor at the start of the Korean War and deployed to Japan, and then to Korea as a battlefield surgeon. After his discharge from active duty, Dr. Berkenfield and his young family made their permanent home in La Jolla, where he opened his medical practice.
Trained as a general surgeon and hand surgeon, he later augmented his skills in bariatric surgery. He was also a founding surgical member of the Scripps trauma surgical staff. He loved medicine and was devoted to helping people. He volunteered for the Flying Samaritans and provided medical services at clinics in Mexico.
On one of these trips to a small village, he treated a young girl who had been badly burned. He saved her life and later legally adopted Rosita as his fourth daughter. He is survived by his loving wife, Patty; his brother John; children Scott, Marci, Liz and Leslie; 14 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren. Owen of Eau Claire, Wis. Born in Hannibal, Mo. As he was a good student, his college professors in Missouri convinced him to apply to what is now Weill Cornell Medicine.
