
On June 28, 2010, past ASH president Clement A. Finch, MD, died at his home in California at the age of 94. To learn more about Dr. Finch, please read his obituary published in The New York Times or peruse the links below.
Clement (Clem) Alfred Finch, MD, was born on July 4, 1915, in upstate New York. With a father and grandfather who were physicians, and occasionally joining his father on evening house calls, Dr. Finch decided to follow in their footsteps. After his second year at the University of Rochester Medical School, Dr. Finch was offered the Dean's Fellowship to work with Nobel Prize winner George Whipple — a pillar at the school. Although Dr. Finch didn't feel he "accomplished anything [in] particular," his first paper, on hemoglobin regeneration in dogs that had been bled, was published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, which was not bad for a second-year student. Also, in Rochester he came into contact with Paul Hahn, who was working on iron metabolism, and, to a lesser extent, Joe Ross, whom Dr. Finch would later join in Boston. [Select the Profile link below to continue reading this article.]
Dr. Finch was profiled in the November/December 2008 issue of The Hematologist, "Clement Finch: A Unique Man at a Unique Time."
An obituary on Dr. Finch was published in The New York Times on July 5, 2010.
Learn more about Dr. Finch by reading his oral history transcript.
Share your thoughts and recollections about Dr. Finch through the Legends in Hematology guestbook.
Dr. Finch published numerous articles in the Society's journal Blood.