996
THE ENDOCRINE
SOCIETY
Endo * 1992 Voll31 . No 2
Citation
for the Sidney H. Ingbar Distinguished Service Award to Nettie Karpin
This year, Nettie Karpin is to receive the Distinguished Service Award which will carry the name of Sidney H. Ingbar for the first time. Those who knew Nettie and knew Sid will be especially pleased and will appreciate the appropriateness of this conjunction. They will be pleased not only because Nettie and Sid had worked closely and tirelessly together for many years, but because both of them shared an intense affection for The Endocrine Society and for their colleagues and respected and appreciated one another. Many elements have contributed to the success and growth of The Endocrine Society: exciting and expanding science, enthusiastic and participatory members, and collegiality and innovative leadership by devoted officers and committee members. To function optimally, these elements require an organizational structure that maintains continuity over time, and that interacts with the larger community. And, in turn, the success of the organizational structure depends on the creativity, integrity, intelligence, and charisma of its executive director. Nettie Karpin is honored this year because she exemplifies all of those qualities. In the 14 yr between 1974 and 1988 Nettie indoctrinated and gently directed presidents, vice-presidents, secretary-treasurers, council members, and committee chairpersons. She sat in on all of the important committee meetings and in her own quiet but forceful way was able to ensure that the necessary documentation was available, that the objectives of the meetings were met, and that the human consequences of the decision process were not overlooked. Eminently practical, hardheaded but also empathetic, she saw to it that committee actions were prudent, objective, and humane. During her 14-yr tenure, Nettie worked with many committees to choose a convention center and worked out programs for both scientific and social events at the annual
meeting, the postgraduate assembly, and other events. The meetings, which attract thousands of participants, ran extraordinarily smoothly, due in good measure to Nettie’s attention to detail, intimate knowledge and long experience in the hotel and catering business, and her talents for persuasion and compromise. I doubt if there has ever been an equal in the art of the gentle reminder. Under Nettie’s stewardship, the offices of The Endocrine Society were moved to Rockville, MD, and there she developed the staff and systems to handle the increasing membership of the society, the vast growth of publication activities, and the management of the society’s investments. Contracts with publishers were negotiated, new publications initiated, and liaison maintained with officers and staff of other scientific organizations. During her tenure also came the revolution in patterns of grant funding by the NIH. The Endocrine Society recognized the importance of educating the public and its representatives to the practical values of abstruse endocrine research and organized a committee for dealing with political affairs headed by Claude Migeon. Nettie was in the midst of the effort, working with lobbyists, activists from the society, arranging meetings with congress, and congressional staffers, dealing with emergency political problems. Again and again, her practical intelligence and intuition enabled her to enlist personal help from the membership and to inspire and support their activities. Surely, this activity was not in the job description originally proposed by Mort Lipsitt when he recruited her, but she was prepared to help by her knowledge of the way in which Washington worked and her special skills in dealing with people. Perhaps her bachelor’s degree
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/endo/article-abstract/131/2/996/2496347 by Duke Medical Center Library user on 11 January 2019
national meetings, and by his election to the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. He was awarded the Albion 0. Bernstein Award in 1984 and voted Virginia’s Outstanding Scientist in 1985. He has played leadership roles in endocrinology, having served on the council of The Endocrine Society, NIH Study Section, and the editorial boards of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism and Neuroendocrinology. He is President of the General Clinical Research Center Program Directors’ Association. Dr. Thorner’s career has been characterized by an innovative approach to clinical endocrinology and by a healthy scepsis scientifica where the facts were discrepant to prevailing opinion, He has achieved worldwide renown as a clinical endocrinologist, is a highly regarded lecturer and teacher, and his enthusiasm for endocrinology, both basic and clinical, inspires a highly productive cadre of endocrinologists at the University of Virginia. Dr. Thorner has truly bridged the fields of basic and clinical investigation. He is a superb example of a physican-scientist whose innovative achievements are truly embodied in the honor of the Edwin B. Astwood Lectureship.
THE ENDOCRINE
SOCIETY
997
Citation for the Robert H. Williams Distinguished Leadership Award to Claude J. Migeon The Robert H. Williams Distinguished Leadership Award honors a member of The Endocrine Society who, in the image of Dr. Williams, has served the field of endocrinology and has nurtured generations of endocrinological scholars. The 1992 recipient is Claude J. Migeon, M.D. Claude was born in Lievin (Pas-De-Calais) France and received his baccalaureate degree from Lycee de Reims and his medical degree from the University of Paris. The times were uneasy-it was World War II in occupied France. Occasionally Claude can be persuaded to share with fellows and colleagues his epic adventures as a young student working with the French resistance. And he will also relate medical adventures describing how, along with a nun, an elderly physician, and meager medical equipment and medication, he cared for a displaced Ukranian woman in need of a Cesarean section. This unusual trio also provided medical care for badly wounded soldiers, including four Americans from Patton’s army. An early turning point in his career came in 1946, when, confronted with a ward full of children with tuberculous meningitis for whom he could provide no meaningful treatment, he vividly recognized the importance of research to the progress of medicine. Having completed his pediatric training at the Hopital des Enfants Malades in Paris and postdoctoral training in biochemistry at the University of Paris, young Claude Migeon, speaking virtually no English, ventured forth to Baltimore and The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions to study with the Father of Pediatric Endocrinology, Lawson Wilkins. Lawson’s influence on Claude was profound and inspirationalas it was on every one of Wilkins’ fellows. Claude developed a life-long interest in steroid metabolism. To further expand his horizons and his training, he spent three years as a research instructor in biochemistry with Leo Samuels at the University of Utah. This was a heady atmosphere for the young French physician. The group, which included Don Nelson, Chris Eik Ness, Gene Bliss, Avery Sandberg, and others, was involved in the study
of the physiology of cortisol secretion and its relationship to stress. It was in Salt Lake City that Claude reported the isolation of the first androgen from human blood-dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate. In 1955, Claude made a decision that profoundly influenced the course of his career. When Wilkins invited him to return to Hopkins, he accepted with alacrity. Thirty-seven years later he is still there carrying on the remarkable tradition of pediatric endocrinological training that has become one of the hallmarks of this great institution. There are many tales about Claude’s elopement with Barbara Ruben, a Harriet Lane pediatric resident. The most accurate, of course, comes from Barbara and Claude themselves. Accompanied by Bill and Marty Cleveland and by the inimitable Lawson Wilkins, they went off to Arlington, VA. Wilkins provided the joie de vivre as well as the wines, champagnes, and liquors, Wilkins loved this sense of participation in his fellows’ lives, a wonderful trait that Barbara and Claude have perpetuated in their relationships with succeeding generations of endocrine fellows. In 1961, Wilkins retired. From then until 1973, Claude shared responsibility for the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology with Dr. Robert M. Blizzard. When Blizzard left Hopkins to become chairman of the department of pediatrics at Charlottesville, Claude took over the leadership of the Hopkins division. Lawson Wilkins was a great clinician and dearly enjoyed teaching his young fellows who, in those days, were known as “the boys,” even though the group included a few girls. Migeon carried on the tradition, obtaining an NIH training grant in 1961 which provided stipends for six fellows. It was the threat by the Nixon administration in 1974 to eliminate NIH training grants that drove Claude into public affairs. Helping to galvanize the scientific community to defend the
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/endo/article-abstract/131/2/996/2496347 by Duke Medical Center Library user on 11 January 2019
in early childhood education, her teaching experience in a Methodist nursery school in East Harlem, and her career as a mother of two daughters, Carolyn and Rita, prepared her for that job. When Nettie retired as Executive Director in 1988, Nick Christy, then Secretary-Treasurer, published a tribute in the Newsletter of The Endocrine Society acknowledging how Nettie had managed to cope with the long debilitating illness and then death of her husband Fred and with other personal crises. He wrote, “None of these impaired her function or interfered in the slightest with the work of the society. Through them all she maintained her good humor. She unfailingly had time, made time, to help the officers, councilors and members of the society, a society which she had taken on not as a job but a vocation. Nettie was quite literally on duty 24 hr a day. Indeed she became the mother of us all.”
THE ENDOCRINE
SOCIETY
Endo * 1992 Voll31 . No 2
Citation
for the Sidney H. Ingbar Distinguished Service Award to Nettie Karpin
This year, Nettie Karpin is to receive the Distinguished Service Award which will carry the name of Sidney H. Ingbar for the first time. Those who knew Nettie and knew Sid will be especially pleased and will appreciate the appropriateness of this conjunction. They will be pleased not only because Nettie and Sid had worked closely and tirelessly together for many years, but because both of them shared an intense affection for The Endocrine Society and for their colleagues and respected and appreciated one another. Many elements have contributed to the success and growth of The Endocrine Society: exciting and expanding science, enthusiastic and participatory members, and collegiality and innovative leadership by devoted officers and committee members. To function optimally, these elements require an organizational structure that maintains continuity over time, and that interacts with the larger community. And, in turn, the success of the organizational structure depends on the creativity, integrity, intelligence, and charisma of its executive director. Nettie Karpin is honored this year because she exemplifies all of those qualities. In the 14 yr between 1974 and 1988 Nettie indoctrinated and gently directed presidents, vice-presidents, secretary-treasurers, council members, and committee chairpersons. She sat in on all of the important committee meetings and in her own quiet but forceful way was able to ensure that the necessary documentation was available, that the objectives of the meetings were met, and that the human consequences of the decision process were not overlooked. Eminently practical, hardheaded but also empathetic, she saw to it that committee actions were prudent, objective, and humane. During her 14-yr tenure, Nettie worked with many committees to choose a convention center and worked out programs for both scientific and social events at the annual
meeting, the postgraduate assembly, and other events. The meetings, which attract thousands of participants, ran extraordinarily smoothly, due in good measure to Nettie’s attention to detail, intimate knowledge and long experience in the hotel and catering business, and her talents for persuasion and compromise. I doubt if there has ever been an equal in the art of the gentle reminder. Under Nettie’s stewardship, the offices of The Endocrine Society were moved to Rockville, MD, and there she developed the staff and systems to handle the increasing membership of the society, the vast growth of publication activities, and the management of the society’s investments. Contracts with publishers were negotiated, new publications initiated, and liaison maintained with officers and staff of other scientific organizations. During her tenure also came the revolution in patterns of grant funding by the NIH. The Endocrine Society recognized the importance of educating the public and its representatives to the practical values of abstruse endocrine research and organized a committee for dealing with political affairs headed by Claude Migeon. Nettie was in the midst of the effort, working with lobbyists, activists from the society, arranging meetings with congress, and congressional staffers, dealing with emergency political problems. Again and again, her practical intelligence and intuition enabled her to enlist personal help from the membership and to inspire and support their activities. Surely, this activity was not in the job description originally proposed by Mort Lipsitt when he recruited her, but she was prepared to help by her knowledge of the way in which Washington worked and her special skills in dealing with people. Perhaps her bachelor’s degree
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/endo/article-abstract/131/2/996/2496347 by Duke Medical Center Library user on 11 January 2019
national meetings, and by his election to the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. He was awarded the Albion 0. Bernstein Award in 1984 and voted Virginia’s Outstanding Scientist in 1985. He has played leadership roles in endocrinology, having served on the council of The Endocrine Society, NIH Study Section, and the editorial boards of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism and Neuroendocrinology. He is President of the General Clinical Research Center Program Directors’ Association. Dr. Thorner’s career has been characterized by an innovative approach to clinical endocrinology and by a healthy scepsis scientifica where the facts were discrepant to prevailing opinion, He has achieved worldwide renown as a clinical endocrinologist, is a highly regarded lecturer and teacher, and his enthusiasm for endocrinology, both basic and clinical, inspires a highly productive cadre of endocrinologists at the University of Virginia. Dr. Thorner has truly bridged the fields of basic and clinical investigation. He is a superb example of a physican-scientist whose innovative achievements are truly embodied in the honor of the Edwin B. Astwood Lectureship.
THE ENDOCRINE
SOCIETY
997
Citation for the Robert H. Williams Distinguished Leadership Award to Claude J. Migeon The Robert H. Williams Distinguished Leadership Award honors a member of The Endocrine Society who, in the image of Dr. Williams, has served the field of endocrinology and has nurtured generations of endocrinological scholars. The 1992 recipient is Claude J. Migeon, M.D. Claude was born in Lievin (Pas-De-Calais) France and received his baccalaureate degree from Lycee de Reims and his medical degree from the University of Paris. The times were uneasy-it was World War II in occupied France. Occasionally Claude can be persuaded to share with fellows and colleagues his epic adventures as a young student working with the French resistance. And he will also relate medical adventures describing how, along with a nun, an elderly physician, and meager medical equipment and medication, he cared for a displaced Ukranian woman in need of a Cesarean section. This unusual trio also provided medical care for badly wounded soldiers, including four Americans from Patton’s army. An early turning point in his career came in 1946, when, confronted with a ward full of children with tuberculous meningitis for whom he could provide no meaningful treatment, he vividly recognized the importance of research to the progress of medicine. Having completed his pediatric training at the Hopital des Enfants Malades in Paris and postdoctoral training in biochemistry at the University of Paris, young Claude Migeon, speaking virtually no English, ventured forth to Baltimore and The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions to study with the Father of Pediatric Endocrinology, Lawson Wilkins. Lawson’s influence on Claude was profound and inspirationalas it was on every one of Wilkins’ fellows. Claude developed a life-long interest in steroid metabolism. To further expand his horizons and his training, he spent three years as a research instructor in biochemistry with Leo Samuels at the University of Utah. This was a heady atmosphere for the young French physician. The group, which included Don Nelson, Chris Eik Ness, Gene Bliss, Avery Sandberg, and others, was involved in the study
of the physiology of cortisol secretion and its relationship to stress. It was in Salt Lake City that Claude reported the isolation of the first androgen from human blood-dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate. In 1955, Claude made a decision that profoundly influenced the course of his career. When Wilkins invited him to return to Hopkins, he accepted with alacrity. Thirty-seven years later he is still there carrying on the remarkable tradition of pediatric endocrinological training that has become one of the hallmarks of this great institution. There are many tales about Claude’s elopement with Barbara Ruben, a Harriet Lane pediatric resident. The most accurate, of course, comes from Barbara and Claude themselves. Accompanied by Bill and Marty Cleveland and by the inimitable Lawson Wilkins, they went off to Arlington, VA. Wilkins provided the joie de vivre as well as the wines, champagnes, and liquors, Wilkins loved this sense of participation in his fellows’ lives, a wonderful trait that Barbara and Claude have perpetuated in their relationships with succeeding generations of endocrine fellows. In 1961, Wilkins retired. From then until 1973, Claude shared responsibility for the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology with Dr. Robert M. Blizzard. When Blizzard left Hopkins to become chairman of the department of pediatrics at Charlottesville, Claude took over the leadership of the Hopkins division. Lawson Wilkins was a great clinician and dearly enjoyed teaching his young fellows who, in those days, were known as “the boys,” even though the group included a few girls. Migeon carried on the tradition, obtaining an NIH training grant in 1961 which provided stipends for six fellows. It was the threat by the Nixon administration in 1974 to eliminate NIH training grants that drove Claude into public affairs. Helping to galvanize the scientific community to defend the
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/endo/article-abstract/131/2/996/2496347 by Duke Medical Center Library user on 11 January 2019
in early childhood education, her teaching experience in a Methodist nursery school in East Harlem, and her career as a mother of two daughters, Carolyn and Rita, prepared her for that job. When Nettie retired as Executive Director in 1988, Nick Christy, then Secretary-Treasurer, published a tribute in the Newsletter of The Endocrine Society acknowledging how Nettie had managed to cope with the long debilitating illness and then death of her husband Fred and with other personal crises. He wrote, “None of these impaired her function or interfered in the slightest with the work of the society. Through them all she maintained her good humor. She unfailingly had time, made time, to help the officers, councilors and members of the society, a society which she had taken on not as a job but a vocation. Nettie was quite literally on duty 24 hr a day. Indeed she became the mother of us all.”
