William H. Dieffenbach, M.D. (1865-1937), a member of the Class of 1900 at New York Medical College, was a pioneering radiation oncologist and a dedicated alumnus trustee whose fundraising efforts saved the College from bankruptcy during the difficult years following the First World War.
A bas relief plaque honoring Dr. Dieffenbach is undergoing restoration and will be displayed at a location on campus to be determined.
Birth: 1865, Jersey City, New Jersey
Death: January 13, 1937, New York, New York
Education:
At New York Medical College (Faculty):
At New York Medical College (Board of Trustees):
William Hermann Dieffenbach, M.D. was a pioneering radiation oncologist and a dedicated alumnus trustee whose fundraising efforts saved the College from bankruptcy during the difficult years following the First World War.
A native of Jersey City, New Jersey, Dr. Dieffenbach received his M.D. from New York Medical College in 1900. He joined the faculty of the College the following year as an instructor, and by 1909, he had risen to become a full professor. As Professor of Physical Therapeutics, Dr. Dieffenbach taught elements of what would now be called radiation therapy and electrotherapy.
Dr. Dieffenbach was an early pioneer of radiation oncology. In 1902, four years after the discovery of radium by Marie and Pierre Curie, Dr. Dieffenbach acquired a supply of the element for clinical use. In 1905, he represented the United States at the First International Congress of Radiology and Ionization, held in Belgium, where he presented several successful case reports in a paper titled “A New Method for the Application of Radium in Neoplasms.”1 Dr. Dieffenbach left the faculty of the College in 1913 to focus on private practice, but he remained an active member of the alumni association. He joined the College’s Board of Trustees in 1923 and became Vice President of the Board in 1926.
The early 1920s were a time of crisis for New York Medical College. The college frequently renovated and expanded its laboratory facilities to keep pace with the development of medical science, and its two main teaching hospitals, Flower and Metropolitan, afforded an unparalleled range of clinical experiences for M.D. students. The cost of maintaining the laboratories and staffing the hospitals, however, was not met by the income they brought in, and the College relied on ad hoc fundraising to stay afloat.
These problems came to a head during the First World War. Faculty physicians, house staff and medical students went overseas to serve in the U.S. Army, leaving the College and its affiliate hospitals badly understaffed. Student enrollment, staff and budgets all shrank even as the patient population at the affiliates continued to rise. The crisis culminated in the loss of the College’s “Class A” accreditation from the American Medical Association’s Committee on Medical Education. By the early 1920s, some Trustees argued that the time had come for the College to close.
Into this crisis stepped Dr. Dieffenbach. He became the Board’s leading fundraiser and threw himself into the work of soliciting donations to establish a permanent endowment for the College. Colleagues described him as a tireless letter-writer who stayed up late corresponding personally with potential donors, willing to reach out to anyone who might have an interest in the survival of the College and its transformation into a modern academic medical center. Helped in large part by Dr. Dieffenbach’s efforts to secure more funding for full-time faculty, the College regained full Class A accreditation in 1929. A further fundraising success came in 1931, when the reclusive real estate heiress Ella Wendel, whose family once owned much of Manhattan, left a substantial share of her estate to the College.
By the early 1930s, New York Medical College had an endowment fund of over $1 million. This sound financial footing allowed it to thrive despite the Great Depression. In 1935, the College merged with Fifth Avenue Hospital, located on 106th Street, and the renamed Flower-Fifth Avenue Hospital replaced the old Flower Hospital as a teaching hospital. In 1939, teaching and laboratory facilities at the College moved to a new, fully modern building on the Fifth Avenue site. Dr. Dieffenbach passed away in 1937 and did not live to see the opening of the new College building.
1. "First Suggestion for Radium Use." Glens Falls Post-Star, February 24, 1914, p. 9; William H. Dieffenbach, "Radium in the Treatment of Cancer," Medical Record, December 13, 1913, pp. 1068-1072.
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