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Award Winning Members!
Dyson National Resident Advocacy Award from the AAP for his work helping to
Dyson National Resident Advocacy Award from the AAP for his work helping to
prevent AIDS in Zimbabwe and Bob Greenberg, MD who was awarded the AAP
Senior Section's Child Advocacy Award and finally, our "Local Hero in
Community Pediatrics" George Bunch, MD was selected by the AAP Section on
Community Pediatrics Local Heroes program which recognizes pediatricians who
are leaders through action and advocacy for children in the local communities.are
leaders through action and advocacy for children in the local communities.
attainment of optimal physical, mental, and social
health for all New Mexico infants, children,
adolescents and young adults. To this end, the
members of the New Mexico Pediatric Society
dedicate their efforts and resources.
PREAMBLE: Children are our most enduring and
vulnerable legacy. For nations as well as individual
families, they represent the link between the past and
the future, between experience and promise. The
nurturing of future generations is a basic, and most
important human activity.
The New Mexico Chapter of the American Academy of
Pediatrics is dedicated to the principle of a
meaningful and healthy life for every child. As an
organization of physicians and allied health
professionals who care for infants, children,
adolescents and young adults, the New Mexico
Chapter seeks to promote this goal by encouraging
and assisting its members in their efforts to meet the
overall health needs of children and youth; by
providing support and counsel to others concerned
with the well being of children, their growth and
development; and by serving as an advocate for
children and their families within the community at
large.
The objectives and purposes of this society shall be
to improve health and welfare of all infants and
children in the state of New Mexico; to further the
policies and objectives of the American Academy of
Pediatrics at the state and local levels; to encourage
and foster the highest professional understanding
among pediatricians and other providers of children's
health services in New Mexico by offering an
opportunity for exchange of ideas regarding social,
scientific and socio-economic phases of the practice
of this specialty and by promoting clinical pediatric
meetings.
THE EARLY YEARS
Although the history of the New Mexico Pediatric Society begins in 1945, the history of pediatrics in
New Mexico stretches back another decade and a half. The American Academy of Pediatrics was
founded in 1930, with the country divided into 4 regions. Region IV consisted of the entire West and
listed 56 members to start. By 1934, there were four physicians listed as practicing pediatrics in New
Mexico: two in Albuquerque (Dr. Wylder and Dr. Adier), one in Santa Fe (Dr. Lathrop), and one in
Clayton (Dr. Mulligan).
The genesis of the New Mexico Pediatric Society occurred on December 20, 1945 at the home of
Meldrum K. Wylder, M.D. There were now eight pediatricians in the state and Dr. Wylder invited them
to outline the principles of the new society. Committees were formed to draft by-laws and a
constitution, and they agreed to meet again in two months. The eight founding members were Drs.
Adier, Fishback, Hotopp, Lathrop, Service, Trombley, Werner, and Wylder.
Stuart Adier was born in Yonkers, NY in 1892. He attended Lafayette College in Easton, PA and
received his M.D. from Harvard, in 1919. After an internship and pediatric residency at Boston City
Hospital and a pediatric fellowship at the Mayo Clinic, he came to work for the Lovelace Clinic in
Albuquerque in 1933. Dr. Adier became the first board-certified pediatrician in the state in 1936. As a
consequence of this, he attracted patients from all over New Mexico. In 1941, Dr. Adier became a
public health officer in Santa Fe. In this role, he learned that Bernalillo County was the least safe
place in the US to have a baby, with an infant mortality rate of 130 per 1000 births vs. a national
average of 20 per 1000. He instituted a training program for midwives, which by 1948 had lowered
the mortality rate dramatically to 69 per 1000 births. Dr. Adier returned to private practice in
Albuquerque in 1944.
Over the years Dr. Adier received numerous awards, including Man of the Year from the NM Chamber
of Commerce in 1951, Physician of the Year from the NM Medical Society in 1956, and the A.H.
Robins Community Service Award in 1964. He retired in 1964 and died in 1987, having survived 31
years after a pulmonary malignancy had been accidently detected and subsequently removed.
Charles Fishback was born in Terre Haute, IN in 1907. He attended the University of Illinois and
received his M.D. from Northwestern University. Dr. Fishback interned in Ann Arbor, did general
practice in Wisconsin, and then undertook a three-year pediatric fellowship at the Mayo Clinic. He
joined the Lovelace Clinic in 1941 to replace Dr. Adier, practicing there until retirement in 1972.
Dr. Fishback became interested in dancing while a teenager and actually was a professional dance
instructor during college and medical school. He and his wife, Katherine, founded the Fishback
School of Dance in Albuquerque and, forever after, he was known as "the dancing doctor.” He died in
1990.
Marion Hotopp was born in New Jersey in 1900. She attended Mount Holyoke College and received
her M.D. from Cornell in 1934. She interned at the Medical Center of Jersey City and did residencies
at three different hospitals. Dr. Hotopp then earned a Masters of Public Health from Harvard and
accepted the directorship of the Maternal and Child Health Division of the NM Health Department.
Except for 9 months in private practice assisting Dr. Service in Roswell, Dr. Hotopp worked for the
Health Department until her retirement in 1967.
The achievements of Dr. Hotopp are legend. She was instrumental in improving the mortality rate of
infants in rural New Mexico, especially among the Navajos, by emphasizing the health and nutritional
benefits of breastfeeding. After retirement she became a medical missionary in Central America. Dr.
Hotopp never married and she passed away in 1976.
The information on Albert Lathrop is rather sparse. He was born in 1894 and received his M.D. from
Columbia in 1920. In the 1920's his medical prac tice was limited to treating tuberculosis at a
sanitarium in Connecticut. Dr. Lathrop was licensed to practice medicine in New Mexico in 1931 and
practiced pediatrics in Santa Fe until the early 1970's. He served as president of the NM Medical
Society in 1953-1954.
Allen Service was born in Firton, NJ, in 1907. He attended Penn State University and received his M.
D. from Hahnemann in 1933. In 1939, he pursued a pediatric residency at the Children's Hospital of
Philadelphia. He was board-certified in pediatrics in 1942 and became an Associate Professor of
Pediatrics at the Women's Medical College in Philadelphia.
Dr. Service joined the Lovelace Clinic in 1945 as head of their pediatric department. In 1949, he
moved to Roswell, practicing pediatrics there until 1969 when he left private practice to go to
American Samoa. There he helped establish programs to address some of the problems causing
their high infant mortality rate. After 4 years. Dr. Service returned to Capitan, NM, retiring in 1979. He
died in 1991.
Robert Trombley was born in Minnesota in 1901. He received his M.D. from the University of
Minnesota and interned in Duluth. His pediatric training was obtained at the University of Chicago
and the Milwaukee Children's Hospital. He was licensed in New Mexico in 1939 at which time he too
joined the Lovelace Clinic. Shortly thereafter Dr. Trombley served in WWII as a Captain in the US
Navy. When he returned to Albuquerque, he entered private practice and remained an active
pediatrician until his retirement in 1974. Dr. Trombley died in 1977.
Ly Werner was born Frida-Wally Brandenburg in Berlin, Germany, in 1893. She obtained her M.D.
from the University of Erlanger, Bavaria, Germany, in 1920, and did her pediatric training at the Kaiser
& Kaiserin Frederick Kinder Krankenhaus in Berlin until 1922. The records are unclear as to when
she came to the US or when she married Dr. Walter Werner. She did postgraduate work at the
Children's Hospital in Milwaukee and was licensed in New Mexico in 1934. Dr. Werner was board
certified in Pediatrics but was also a Fellow in the American College of Allergists. She was the first
secretary/treasurer of the New Mexico Pediatric Sodety. Dr. Werner retired in 1967 and died in 1973.
Meldrum Wylder was born in Illinois in 1877. He was the son of a pioneer Methodist minister. He
attended Marion College in Indiana and received his M.D. in 1901 from Washington University
Medical School. He interned in St. Louis and practiced there for a year. He contracted TB and, as a
result moved to Albuquerque by way of El Paso in 1903. Dr. Wylder had studied under some
pediatric specialists at both St. Louis Children's Hospital and Boston Children's Hospital and was
accepted into the newly formed American Academy of Pediatrics in 1930.
Over the years, Dr. Wylder delivered and cared for more than 15,000 babies. He was instrumental in
the formation of the NM Department of Public Health and introduced legislation to require
immunization against diphtheria in order to be enrolled in public school. Dr. Wylder was the catalyst
for the New Mexico Pediatric Society, and served as its first president. He authored many scientific
medical papers and wrote a most enlightening and entertaining book, Rio Grande Medicine Man.
The Society's annual spring meeting is named after Dr. Wylder. Dr. Wylder died in 1964.
The New Mexico Pediatric Society's first order of business was petitioning the State Legislature for
workable laws for the licensing and control of all child-caring institutions in the state. Thus began a
close working relationship with lawmakers on issues affecting the children of New Mexico. The
Society has continued to grow, with emphasis on improving healthcare by disseminating information
to physicians and the public. Fellowship with other healthcare professionals has been a spin-off
benefit.
It is difficult in this short history to mention all the physicians who contributed to better the healthcare
of New Mexican children as members of the New Mexico Pediatric Society. A few names from the
earlier years come to mind: Dr. Catherine Armstrong, who was the first pediatrician in Carlsbad in
1950, and one of only two women physicians in the entire southern half of the state, Dr. Frank
Nordstrom, the first pediatrician in Farmington, who overcame prejudice against his youth and his
specialty, Dr. Carol Smith of Santa Fe, who contracted paralytic polio while a pediatrician, but
continued her practice from a wheelchair, Dr. Alice Cushing, a native New Mexican, who trained at the
old BCMC and went on to become a professor, an expert in infectious disease, and chairman of the
UNM Pediatric Department, Dr. Evelyn BasileGay, the first pediatrician in Las Cruces in 1951, Dr.
Robert Tully, who contributed his time and resources to furthering the education of aspiring
physicians at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and Dr. Valerie McNown, who
pioneered pediatrics from Espanola north to the Colorado border.
The New Mexico Pediatric Society has been honored three times with national awards of excellence.
In 1981, in 1995, and again in 2003 it has received the Outstanding Small Chapter Award of the
American Academy of Pediatrics. The current membership stands at roughly 350 including
pediatricians, physician assistants, nurse practioners, public health workers, pediatric nutritionists
and child psychiatrists.