In Memoriam

I didn't know Dr. Kirchner but wish I had after reading his obituary.

In Memoriam: John A. Kirchner
March 27, 1915 – July 31, 2011

John A. Kirchner, M.D., a world-renowned physician-scientist who served as chief of the Section of Otolaryngology at Yale School of Medicine for 30 years, died peacefully on July 31 at Yale-New Haven Hospital after a brief illness. He was 96.

Dr. Kirchner was a skilled surgeon and prolific researcher, with particular expertise in the anatomy, physiology, and pathology of the larynx and pharynx, and the surgical treatment of laryngeal cancers.

Born on March 27, 1915, in Waynesboro, Pa., Dr. Kirchner grew up in Lancaster, Pa. After graduating from high school he hitchhiked across the country, foreshadowing his lifelong love of travel. (Among his many adventures, he spent a week in jail in Tennessee after being arrested for hopping a freight train.)

Dr. Kirchner received his M.D. at the University of Virginia in 1940, completing an internship at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, La., in 1941. During World War II, he was a medical officer of the 314th Regiment, 79th Infantry Division, of the United States Army, and was part of the landing force at Utah Beach in Normandy, France, in the days following the D-Day invasion.

At one point Dr. Kirchner's medical unit, hidden under trees at the edge of a field, was mistakenly strafed by American planes. To warn the pilots, Kirchner got into an ambulance marked with a Red Cross and drove it into the center of the field as the planes came around for another pass. For this and other meritorious actions, Kirchner was awarded the Bronze Star and four campaign medals.

From 1945 to 1950, Dr. Kirchner was an otolaryngology resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he met and soon married Aline Legault, a French-Canadian student in Johns Hopkins' Department of Art as Applied to Medicine. He came to Yale in 1951, and was chief of the Department of Surgery's Section of Otolaryngology for the next 30 years. He was named professor emeritus of surgery (otolaryngology) in 1985. For those who trained under him, he was known as "the Boss," but he was never bossy. His many trainees looked to him for guidance and continued to do so until his death.

His research, including histopathological studies of more than 400 laryngectomy specimens he collected, has been published in 200 reports in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters. In addition, Dr. Kirchner was a contributing editor to the Year Book of the Ear, Nose & Throat from 1969 to 1975 and edited the books Vocal Fold Histopathology: A Symposium (1986) and Atlas on the Surgical Anatomy of Laryngeal Cancer (1998). After his retirement from practice in 1985, Dr. Kirchner made numerous appearances at New Haven schools to speak about the health hazards of tobacco.

Among the numerous awards and honors bestowed on Dr. Kirchner are the Harris P. Mosher Award from the Triological Society (1958); the Casselberry Award (1966), Newcomb Award (1969), and deRoaldes Award (1985) from the American Laryngological Association; and the Semon Medal from the University of London (1981).

Dr. Kirchner served as president of leading organizations in otolaryngology, including the American Society for Head and Neck Surgery, the American Laryngological Association, the American Rhinological and Otological Society, and the American Head and Neck Society.

Dr. Kirchner pursued a variety of interests throughout his life. He was an enthusiastic organic gardener, crabber, and fisherman, and a talented musician who played guitar, accordion, and piano. Fluent in several languages, he was often invited to give lectures and teach courses abroad. In his mid-50s he became interested in mountain climbing and traveled to Europe several times to scale the Alps.

All who knew Dr. Kirchner were inspired by his enthusiasm, his humor, his adventurous spirit, and his active, ongoing interest in everyone and everything. He had a lifelong love of learning and continued to take adult-education courses well into his 80s. Ever the alert physician, on the eve of his 95th birthday he performed the Heimlich maneuver on a dinner companion when he saw that she was choking. "Don't ever think you've out-lived your usefulness," she told him.