Ashley W. Oughterson collection

Ashley Webster Oughterson, known as “Scotty,” was born in Seneca, New York on September 28, 1895. A graduate of Harvard Medical School in 1924, after internships in Boston and New York, he served as an assistant resident under Harvey Cushing at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. He came to Yale in 1928 as the William Harvey Cushing Memorial Fellow in the Department of Surgery, after which he was appointed to the faculty. In 1943, he became a clinical faculty member. Oughterson's wife, Dr. Marion Edith Howard, was a member of the Department of Internal Medicine. During World War II, Oughterson first served with the Yale 39th General Hospital in New Zealand, and was then appointed chief surgical consultant to the American forces in the Pacific under General MacArthur. In 1945 he became Chairman of the Joint Commission for the Investigation of the Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan. As a clinician and researcher, he focused on the diagnosis of cancer and surgical treatment. In 1946, Oughterson became executive vice-president of the American Cancer Society. After visiting South America in 1955, he persuaded the Rockefeller Foundation to establish a program to aid medical education in Colombia. He was made a consultant to the Rockefeller Foundation and moved with his wife to Cali, Colombia. While in the process of visiting medical centers in Colombia, he died in a plane crash on November 18, 1956. Oughterson co-edited with Shields Warren, Medical Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan (1956). An active member of the Associates of the Yale Medical Library, he collected materials on founding Yale surgeon Nathan Smith for a possible biography.