Patras / Peschel / Peterson / Phillips / Pilcher / Powell

Dorothy Patras, MD (1973)


Background
Dorothy “Pat” Patras was born in Pennsylvania to Louis and Genevieve Patras, who were immigrants from Peloponnesus in Greece. Dr. Patras and her twin sister, Phyllis, were born on December 1, 1918. She had three other sisters and a brother.
 
Dr. Patras passed away on August 4, 2013.

Medical Education & Practice

After graduating from Franklin High School through the business track, Dr. Patras took a job in a doctor’s office. Her employer asked her to take some science classes so she could do lab work. She took chemistry and biology at the high school, which igniting her interest in laboratory science.

Dr. Patras then enrolled in Grove City College in southwestern Pennsylvania to pursue a degree as a medical technician. She transferred from Grove City College to Temple University School of Medical Technology and obtained her BS degree in 1941. Upon graduation, she accepted a position at the Emergency Hospital in Washington, D.C.

In 1944, Dr. Patras applied for a position at Harris Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas and was eventually hired by Dr. John J. Andujar with whom she worked for several years. Dr. Patras wanted to continue her education, and with Dr. Andujar’s blessing, enrolled in medical school at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas in 1952.

Dr. Patras received her MD degree in 1956. She did a residency at Cincinnati General Hospital in Ohio, and a two-year residency at Bellevue Hospital in New York where she served as chief pathology resident. These residencies qualified her to become board certified in both anatomic and clinical pathology.

After her residencies, Dr. Patras returned to her job with Dr. Andujar at Fort Worth Pathology Laboratories. Much of their work involved serving as consultants to hospitals in Azle, Glen Rose, Graham, Jacksboro, Mineral Wells, and Stephenville. She worked with Fort Worth Pathology Laboratories from 1961 until 1992.

Prior to going to medical school, Dr. Patras served as president of the Texas Society of Medical Technologists. She later served as dean of the School of Medical Technology at Texas Christian University and Harris Hospital. She also served for twenty years as Tarrant County delegate to the Texas Medical Association, and was elected to the TMA Council on Legislation, formerly known as the Council on Medical Jurisprudence. Additionally, Dr. Patras ran for the State Legislature on a Republican ticket.

Texas Society of Pathologists

Dr. Patras served as president of the TSP in 1973, the second woman to hold that office. During her tenure, she initiated the TSP’s formal newsletter. She also served as chairman of a committee that sought to develop guidelines for slide referrals. Those guidelines were adopted by the TSP in 1975.

Dr. Patras received the George T. Caldwell, MD Award in 1979 for her service in the field of pathology.

Notable Publication(s)

Benacerraf, B., McCluskey, R. T., & Patras, D. (1959). Localization of Colloidal Substances in Vascular Endothelium. A Mechanism of Tissue Damage: I. Factors Causing the Pathologic Deposition of Colloidal Carbon. The American journal of pathology, 35(1), 75.
Patras, D., & Andujar, J. J. (1966). Meningoencephalitis due to Hartmannella (Acanthamoeba). American journal of clinical pathology, 46(2), 226-233.

Margie B. Peschel, MD (1990)


Background
Dr. Margie Barnes Peschel was born in Granger, Texas in 1932, as one of three children in her family. She married Mr. Logan Peschel on April 16, 1955 and they had two daughters, Penny and Patti. Logan Peschel passed away in 2010.

Medical Education & Practice
Dr. Peschel graduated cum laude from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, where she was elected to Alpha Chi. She then enrolled at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, Texas, graduating with an MD degree in 1959. Dr. Peschel completed an internship and residency in pathology at Harris Hospital in Fort Worth. She did a second residency in pathology at St. Joseph Hospital in Fort Worth from 1961 until 1964.

In 1959 Dr. Oscar O. Wollman of Fort Worth established a blood banking system with the help of the Amon Carter Foundation, now known as Carter Blood Care. Dr. Peschel, whose specialty was in hematology, became director of the program, and would remain the director until her retirement in 1995. Dr Peschel also chaired the Texas Medical Association’s Committee on Blood Banking and Blood Transfusion, and in 1987, she helped implement the “Look-back” program which allows blood banks to inform patients of blood-born infectious diseases while still maintaining their confidentiality.

Dr. Peschel served as a diplomat on the American Board of Pathology in 1964, and in 1983 she served as president of the Tarrant County Medical Society, where she wrote regularly for the “T.C. Physician.” She also served as president of the North Texas Society of Pathologists, South Central Association of Blood Banks, and the Tarrant County Medical Library Association. She served as officer of the American Cancer Society, the Texas Medical Association, American Association of Blood Banks, and the American Society of Clinical Pathology.

She has held academic appointments at Tarrant County Junior College, The University of Texas at Arlington, Tarleton State University and The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School.
Dr. Peschel has been an active volunteer for the American Cancer Society, participating in two cancer prevention studies. She continues to volunteer with the American Cancer Society in her retirement, helping to recruit volunteers for cancer prevention studies.

Texas Society of Pathologists

Dr. Peschel received the George T. Caldwell, MD Award in 1987, and served as president of the TSP in 1990.

Notable Publication(s)

Peschel, M B and Giordano, G F (1988). Expanding services through autologous and intraoperative blood salvage programs: a live, interactive, video conference presented by South Central Association of Blood Banks. Startech Network, Austin, Texas.

Robert F. Peterson, MD (1991)


Background
Dr. Robert “Bob” F. Peterson was born in Drummond, Oklahoma on June 25, 1931 to Roy Edwin and Myrtle May Jantz Peterson. He grew up on a farm eight miles west of Enid. His elementary schooling was in a one-room county schoolhouse that held all eight grades. He graduated from Lahoma High School as valedictorian of his class. He married Jacquelyn on Thanksgiving Day in 1953, and they had two children, Diane and Keith.

Dr. Peterson passed away on May 25, 2006 in Waco, Texas.

Medical Education & Practice

Dr. Peterson received his undergraduate education in pre-med at Northwestern State College in Alva, Oklahoma. He received his MD degree from the University of Oklahoma School of Medicine in 1957. He did his rotating internship at Wesley Hospital in Oklahoma City, which was associated with Oklahoma City Clinic, and he did a pathology residency at the Cleveland Clinic under Dr. John Beach Hazard. During his last year at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Peterson was the recipient of the William E. Lower Award, named for one of the clinic’s founders and is given annually to the resident judged to have completed the best thesis. In 1962 Dr. Peterson was certified by the American Board of Pathology in clinical and anatomic pathology.

After his residency, Dr. Peterson served two years in the U.S. Army as Chief of Laboratory Services at the U.S. Army Hospital in Fort Hood near Temple, Texas. During his time in active military service, he was the only pathologist on a base that served approximately 110,000 people.

Following his military service, in 1964, Dr. Peterson moved to Kansas City, Missouri to practice at Menorah Medical Center. In 1965, he accepted a position at Scott and White Clinic in Temple, Texas, where he practiced for the remainder of his professional career. He served in many roles at Scott and White, including director of the Tumor Registry, chief of the Section of Cytopathology, director of Pathology Residency Training, director of Anatomic Pathology, and chairman of the Staff Executive Council. From 1982 until 1993, he was chairman of the Department of Pathology.

Dr. Peterson’s first formal teaching appointment was as clinical instructor in pathology at the University of Kansas School of Medicine from 1964 until 1965. He was appointed lecturer at Texas A&M University School of Medicine in June 1977 and became professor of pathology and laboratory medicine in September 1983.

Dr. Peterson considered organized medicine a high priority and served in various leadership roles. From 1968 to 1971, he served on the Section of Pathology and Physiology for the American Medical Association. In 1972, he became chair of this group when it changed to the AMA Council on Pathology. He served on several AMA council and committee assignments in subsequent years. From 1972 until 1974, he was a Section Council on Pathology representative to the Intersociety Pathology Council, and was a member of the council’s ad hoc committee to review JCAH requirements for a fixed autopsy percentage.

Beginning in 1974, Dr. Peterson served as delegate or alternate delegate from Bell County to the Texas Medical Association. He held this position for twenty-five years. Additionally, he served as delegate or alternate delegate for the College of American Pathologists from 1986 to 1988.

Dr. Peterson took official retirement in 1999, but continued to consult in surgical pathology on a part-time basis.

Texas Society of Pathologists

Dr. Peterson served the TSP in many capacities. From 1988 to 1989, he served as delegate for District 12 to the House of Delegates. He served as speaker of the House of Delegates, and the following year, in 1991, he served as president of the TSP.

Dr. Peterson also served on several committees including the Membership Committee, the Committee on Scientific Program, the Council on Plan and Scope, the Residents/Fellows Seminar Committee, and the Nominating Committee. He was chairman of the Constitutional Bylaws Council.

In 1999, Dr. Peterson received the Andujar Citation of Merit Award for his work at Scott and White and his service in organized medicine.

Notable Publication(s)

Dr. Peterson continued to contribute to the medical literature even after retirement with over twenty-four published articles, abstracts, and exhibits. Several of these are from his time as chairman of the GI Pathology sub committee of the Southwest Oncology Group from 1978-1989.

Skipski, V. P., Peterson, R. F., & Barclay, M. (1962). Separation of phosphatidyl ethanolamine, phosphatidyl serine, and other phospholipids by thin-layer chromatography. Journal of Lipid Research, 3(4), 467-470.

Bukowski, R. M., Johnson, K. G., Peterson, R. F., Stephens, R. L., Rivkin, S. E., Neilan, B., & Costanzi, J. H. (1987). A phase II trial of combination chemotherapy in patients with metastatic carcinoid tumors. A Southwest Oncology Group Study. Cancer, 60(12), 2891-2895.
 

Charles B. Phillips, MD (1950)


Background

Dr. Charles B. Phillips was born on November 10, 1890 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama to Alexander Lacy and Susan Moseley Phillips. He spent most of his childhood in Virginia. He married Beulah Frances Robinson, a nurse from Virginia who he met while in France during World War I. They were married at the Little Church Around the Corner in New York on March 12, 1919. They had one daughter.

Dr. Phillips passed away in Houston, Texas on October 31, 1970.

Medical Education & Practice
Dr. Phillips did his undergraduate work at Richmond College in Virginia graduating with an AB degree in 1912. He received his MD degree from the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond in 1916. During the summer of 1915 and for a brief time after his graduation, Dr. Phillips worked at the Mayo Clinic to prepare him for the position of head of the Department of Pathology at Stuart Circle Hospital in Richmond. However, his career track changed with the beginning of World War I. Dr. Phillips served as a captain of the medical corps and was stationed in France from 1917 until 1919. It was at this time that he met his future wife.

After returning to the states in the spring of 1919, Dr. Phillips did graduate work in serology with Dr. Kolmer at the University of Pennsylvania. The following year he took a professorship in pathology at Wake Forest College in Wake Forest, North Carolina and stayed there until 1924. In 1924, he returned to Richmond to become professor of pathology at the Medical College of Virginia, a post he held for seven years.

In July 1931, Dr. Phillips joined the staff of Scott and White Hospital in Temple, Texas as the director of surgical and clinical laboratories. He continued in that capacity until 1940, when Dr. William Powell became head of the clinical division.

While serving as head of surgical pathology, Dr. Phillips developed a classification system of departmental records that eventually became the Scott and White Tumor Registry. The program was approved by the American College of Surgeons in 1933, and he actively directed the program until it finally required a full-time director. During World War II, Dr. Phillips served as chairman of the Military Affairs Committee for the Bell County Medical Society.

Dr. Phillips was a member of various professional organizations. Among these were the American Medical Association and the American Board of Pathology. He served on the Board of Directors of the Texas Division of the American Cancer Society. Much of his scientific research was on skin cancer. He won a prize for an exhibit on the topic from the American Medical Association.

From 1951 until his retirement from Scott and White Hospital, Dr. Phillips was professor of surgical pathology for the Temple Division of The University of Texas Postgraduate School of Medicine. Upon his retirement, Dr. Phillips accepted a position with M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute in Houston, Texas. He also practiced in Houston with Dr. C.B. Sanders.

Texas Society of Pathologists
Dr. Phillips is one of the charter members of the TSP when it was reinstated on May 21, 1934. He worked with Dr. Bohls and others to formulate laboratory standards including an approval system for qualified laboratories. He also served as the first chairman of the Texas Board for Standardization of Clinical Laboratories.

Dr. Phillips was president of the TSP in 1950, and received the George T. Caldwell, MD Award in 1962.

Notable Publication(s)

Phillips, C. (1941). The relationship between skin cancer and occupation in Texas. Texas State J. Med, 36, 613-616.
Phillips, C. (1942). Multiple skin cancer: A statistical and pathologic study. Sth. med. J.(Bgham, Ala.), 35, 583.

John F. Pilcher, MD (1937, 1949)


Background
Dr. John Fuller Pilcher was born on November 16, 1904 in Streator, Illinois to Benjamin L. and Katherine Fuller. He married Etta Mae Williams in 1931, and they had three children, Wayland, Jeanette, and Benny.

Dr. Pilcher passed away on February 1, 1969 at the age of 64.

Medical Education & Practice

Dr. Pilcher received his AB degree from Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio in 1925. From 1925 to 1926 he attended graduate school at The University of Texas in Austin, but transferred to The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. He graduated with his MD degree in 1931. Dr. Pilcher was board certified by the American Board of Pathology in 1941.

After graduating, Dr. Pilcher served six years as professor of pathology at UTMB. Then, in 1937, he moved to Corpus Christi where he founded Pilcher Laboratory. Dr. Pilcher was the first pathologist in the region. He served several of Corpus Christi’s hospitals, including Memorial and Spohn, as well as several hospitals in the surrounding areas. In 1954, a second pathologist was hired by the chairman of the board of the newly built Driscoll Children’s Hospital to come to the area. Dr. Joseph Pasternack was given part of Dr. Pilcher’s workload, covering Driscoll and Spohn while Dr. Pilcher served Memorial Hospital.

Among his work in organized medicine, Dr. Pilcher served as president of the Nueces County Medical Society, and from 1946 until 1952 he served as vice councilor of the Texas Medical Association Sixth District. He was a member of the American Medical Association and a fellow of the American Society of Clinical Pathology, the College of American Pathologists, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the International Academy of Pathology, the Texas Academy of Science, and the American Chemical Society.

Dr. Pilcher also served as a consultant to the U.S. Naval Hospital in Corpus Christi, The University of Texas MD Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute at Houston, and the Robstown Riverside Hospital in Robstown, Texas.

Texas Society of Pathologists

Dr. Pilcher served two terms as president of the TSP. One term was in 1937, and a second term was in 1949. He was also chairman of the Committee on Scientific Awards.

Notable Publication(s)

Bodansky, M., Pilcher, J. F., & Duff, V. B. (1936). Concerning the relation of environmental temperature to resistance to thyroid and thyroxine, and the creatine content of the heart and other tissues in experimental hyperthyroidism. The Journal of Experimental Medicine, 63(4), 523-532.

William N. Powell, MD (1962)


Background
Dr. William Nottingham Powell was born in Smithville, Texas on January 24, 1904 to Dr. John H. E. Powell and Rachel Jones. He attended Smithville High School and graduated as valedictorian of his class. He met Evelyn Higgins while attending the University of California, Berkeley. She had completed her fifth year and was teaching at a nearby high school. They married after his internship and had two children, Evelyn May and Cynthia Anne.

Dr. Powell passed away on September 19, 1990.

Medical Education & Practice

After high school, Dr. Powell attended Rice University in Houston, Texas where stayed for a fifth year and received a scholarship for further studies in science. Dr. Powell did his graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley where he studied zoology under Dr. Charles Kofoid, working on a project dealing with termites. He eventually received an MA in protozoology.

Dr. Powell, following in his father’s footsteps, decided to go to medical school. He spent two years at The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and transferred to The University of Pennsylvania Medical School in Philadelphia. He was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha honor society and graduated with the highest marks for a transfer student. He received his MD degree in 1931.

Dr. Powell turned down a coveted internship at Philadelphia General Hospital to take one from Stanford University at San Francisco General Hospital where he could live closer to Evelyn Higgins who was living in Berkeley. They married after his internship.

Dr. Powell took a teaching position in the Department of Pathology at The University of Texas Medical Branch, where Dr. Paul Brindley was head of the department at the time. After a year of teaching, Dr. Powell took a fellowship at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

After completing his year-long fellowship at the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Powell accepted a position in the Department of Pathology at Scott and White Clinic in Temple, Texas. He was only there a year when he was offered a staff position in clinical pathology at the Mayo Clinic. While he enjoyed his work there, the harsh winters as well as living near family encouraged him and his family to move back to Texas. Dr. Powell moved to Temple and took a position at Scott and White, where he eventually became director of the division of clinical pathology. He remained at Scott and White until his retirement in 1968.

One of Dr. Powell’s notable achievements is devising a simple method for testing bilirubin, which is an important indicator for disease.

Texas Society of Pathologists

Dr. Powell served as president of TSP in 1962. He had also served as president of the Texas Association of Blood Banks, with which many members of TSP interacted.

Notable Publication(s)

Dr. Powell has several publication and patents.
Powell, W. N. (1944). A method for the quantitative determination of serum bilirubin with the photoelectric colorimeter. Am J Clin Pathol, 14(Suppl 8), 55-88.
Powell, W. N., Rodarte, J. G., & Neel, J. V. (1950). The occurrence in a family of Sicilian ancestry of the traits for both sickling and thalassemia. Blood, 5(10), 887-897.