Alvan Feinstein | |
|---|---|
| Born | Alvan Richard Feinstein December 4, 1925 |
| Died | October 25, 2001 (aged 75) |
| Alma mater | University of Chicago |
| Occupation | epidemiologist |
Alvan R. Feinstein (December 4, 1925 – October 25, 2001) was an American clinician, researcher, and epidemiologist who had a significant impact on clinical investigation, especially in the field of clinical epidemiology that he helped define.[1] He is regarded as one of the fathers of modern clinical epidemiology. He died at the age of 75 in Toronto on 25 October 2001, survived by his wife and two children.[2]
Born in Philadelphia, Feinstein received his bachelor's degree (BSc 1947) and master's degree (MSc, 1948) at the University of Chicago. Feinstein received his medical degree (MD, 1952) at the University of Chicago School of Medicine. He completed his residency training in Internal Medicine at Rockefeller Institute. He was Board Certified in Internal Medicine in 1955 and became the medical director of Irvington House Institute).[3] While there, he studied patients with rheumatic fever and challenged the belief that proper treatment after an early diagnosis kept those patients from developing severe heart disease later in life. He demonstrated that the disease had different forms including one which causes joint pain and seldom progresses to heart disease. The other, which does result in heart disease, has no symptoms to evoke early detection. Thus, diagnosis of the disease at an early stage leads to a favorable outcome not because of early treatment but because those patients tend to have a less-virulent form.[2]
In 1962, Feinstein joined the Yale University School of Medicine faculty and became the founding director of its Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program in 1974. Under his direction, the program became recognized as one of the leading centers for training in clinical research methods.[4] He was widely known for his gift for mentoring, bringing passion to academic medicine and the art of becoming an academic.[5]
He published his first paper as a medical student in 1951 and more than 400 throughout his career. He wrote six major textbooks, two of which, Clinical Judgment (1967) and Clinical Epidemiology: The Architecture of Clinical Research (1985) are among the most widely referenced books in clinical epidemiology. He completed the last one, Principles of Medical Statistics (2002), just before his death. At the time of his death he was the Sterling Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology, the Yale School of Medicine's most prestigious academic position.[6][7] His editorial work included founding the Journal of Chronic Diseases (1982–1988) which he edited and which he along with co-editor Walter O. Spitzer re-titled as Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, which he continued to co-edit with Spitzer until his death.[8]