Internist

Dr. Glendon E. Rayson, a retired Baltimore internist who had worked at Johns Hopkins Hospital, died July 12 of internal bleeding at Memorial Hospital South in Hollywood, Fla. He was 96. Glendon Ennis Rayson, the son of a schoolteacher and a homemaker, was born and raised in Oak Park, Ill. He was a graduate of the University of Rochester and enlisted in the Army in 1943, which sent him to medical school at Temple University in Philadelphia, where...

Dr. Robert E. "Bob" Mason, a Baltimore internist and cardiologist who developed the standard stress test that has saved countless lives worldwide, died Wednesday of pneumonia at the Brightwood retirement community in Lutherville. He was 95. "He was always wonderfully good-natured, upbeat, mild, self-retiring and there was never any braggadocio about him. He was intellectual beyond compare," said Dr. E. Hunter Wilson, a retired internist who lives in Cross Keys. "He developed the stress test in the early 1960s, and was known for diagnosing and treating unusual cardiac problems," said Dr. Wilson.

Dr. Stanley Roy Steinbach, a retired internist, died of a stroke May 22 at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The Pikesville resident was 89. Born in Baltimore and raised on East Baltimore Street, he attended the Talmud Torah, a Hebrew school, and was a 1938 City College graduate. He earned a bachelor's degree from the Johns Hopkins University and a medical degree from the University of Maryland. He was a captain in the Army Medical Corps and did an internship at Sinai Hospital, a residency at Fort Howard Veterans Hospital and was chief resident at the old Lutheran Hospital in West Baltimore from 1950 to 1951.

Dr. Carlton Lasley Sexton, a retired Baltimore internist who was also a member of the clinical faculty of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, died July 20 of pneumonia at the Blakehurst retirement community in Towson. The former longtime Stevenson resident was 87. The son of a businessman and a homemaker, Dr. Sexton was born and raised in Pensacola, Fla., where he graduated from Pensacola High School. He combined his undergraduate and medical school education in the Navy's V-12 program, an accelerated course of study during World War II that was designed to prepare physicians for military service.

A Pasadena internist was sued yesterday in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court for $1 million by a man who alleges that the doctor's misdiagnosis of his mother's breast cancer led to her death in 1992.Charles A. Rigsbee of Lisle, Ill. alleges in the wrongful death suit that Dr. Michael F. Garahy failed to detect carcinoma in his mother, Alice Jane Rigsbee, while treating her from May 1989 to May 1992.The suit says that by the time the cancer was detected on June 5, 1992, tests at North Arundel Hospital showed it had spread to other areas of her body.

Dr. Martin L. Singewald, an internist who became known as a doctor's doctor because of the medical professionals who were his patients, died in his sleep Tuesday at Charlestown Retirement Community of circulatory disease. He was 86.Dr. Singewald maintained a practice in downtown Baltimore from 1946 until his retirement in 1986.He also taught at the Johns Hopkins University medical school, retiring as an associate professor in 1988.The Rev. Clyde R. Shallenberger, a patient and former chaplain at Johns Hopkins Hospital, often walked with Dr. Singewald on 6 a.m. tours of the hospital.

Dr. Joseph Deckelbaum, a Northwest Baltimore internist whose 50-year practice of medicine was defined by a caring and easygoing concern for his patients, died Saturday at Sinai Hospital of complications from a fall. The Pikesville resident was 75. Dr. Deckelbaum's interest in medicine began as a youth in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he was born the son of Jewish immigrant parents from Russia and Poland. "He had injured his knee and it was slow in healing. A neighbor, an Italian woman, made a salve of potato skins, which she wrapped around the wound and told him not to take it off for a week," said Marlene Judith Shapiro, a daughter who lives in Gaithersburg.

Dr. Seymour Howard Rubin, a retired Baltimore internist and world traveler, died of prostate cancer Thursday at his Park Heights Avenue home. He was 81. Dr. Rubin was born and raised in Baltimore. He was a 1941 graduate of City College, and interrupted his studies at the Johns Hopkins University by enlisting in the Army in 1943. He served as an infantryman and interpreter in Europe. He participated in the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp and the battle of Berlin. After returning to Baltimore, he completed his undergraduate education at Johns Hopkins and earned his medical degree from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1950.

Dr. Ingeborg W. Fromm, a retired Parkville internist whose nearly 40-year family practice earned her praise from patients and colleagues, died of pneumonia Sunday at Ocala Regional Medical Center in Ocala, Fla. She was 79. Ingeborg Kathe Wehrmeyer was born and raised in Oldenburg, Germany. During World War II, she was drafted into the German army and assigned to a munitions factory. "She had been ill as a child and suffered from chronic asthma. She also had polio and couldn't walk for a year.

Dr. J. Alan Baldanza, a well-known Baltimore County internist and former medical educator, died of a heart attack Saturday while playing tennis at the Springdale neighborhood tennis courts in Cockeysville. He was 58. For the past 27 years, Dr. Baldanza, who lived in Cockeysville, had practiced medicine in a 100-year-old York Road shingled, tan-colored house he had purchased and converted into a medical office. Born in Passaic, N.J., and raised in Clifton, N.J., Dr. Baldanza was the son of a milkman and grandson of immigrants from Sicily.

Dr. William Allan Dear Jr., an internist and former head of the division of nuclear medicine at Mercy Medical Center who also was a practicing magician, died July 20 of heart disease at Union Memorial Hospital. The longtime Guilford resident was 80. "He was the father of nuclear medicine at Mercy," said Dr. Louis E. Grenzer, a Baltimore internist and cardiologist who had known Dr. Dear since they both were residents at Mercy. "In the early 1970s, when they were new, he was doing the first echocardiograms and ultrasounds at Mercy.

Dr. Glendon E. Rayson, a retired Baltimore internist who had worked at Johns Hopkins Hospital, died July 12 of internal bleeding at Memorial Hospital South in Hollywood, Fla. He was 96. Glendon Ennis Rayson, the son of a schoolteacher and a homemaker, was born and raised in Oak Park, Ill. He was a graduate of the University of Rochester and enlisted in the Army in 1943, which sent him to medical school at Temple University in Philadelphia, where...

Dr. Howard S. Williams, a former staff physician at Father Martin's Ashley, a Harford County alcohol and substance abuse treatment center, died May 20 of meningoencephalitis, or inflammation of the brain, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at Gilchrist Hospice in Towson. The Stoneleigh resident was 54. "We think about Howard every day. Everyone here loved him, " said Dr. Bernadette Solounias, a psychiatrist who is vice president and medical director at Father Martin's Ashley. "He was very compassionate and took very good care of our patients and was unfailingly patient with them," said Dr. Solounias.

Dr. Jamshid Hamed, a retired internist whose specialty was rheumatology, died Nov. 8 of cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. He was 81. "Jim made no distinction between his patients and friends. He was a wonderfully caring doctor and a great diagnostician, and for years had been a prominent member of the Greater Baltimore Medical Center family," said Dr. Thomas F. Lansdale III, a Baltimore internist who cared for Dr. Hamed in his final illness. The son of a merchant and a homemaker, Dr. Hamed, who was known as "Jim," was born and raised in Smarkand, Uzbekistan, which is on the Silk Road, family members said.

Dr. Stanley Roy Steinbach, a retired internist, died of a stroke May 22 at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The Pikesville resident was 89. Born in Baltimore and raised on East Baltimore Street, he attended the Talmud Torah, a Hebrew school, and was a 1938 City College graduate. He earned a bachelor's degree from the Johns Hopkins University and a medical degree from the University of Maryland. He was a captain in the Army Medical Corps and did an internship at Sinai Hospital, a residency at Fort Howard Veterans Hospital and was chief resident at the old Lutheran Hospital in West Baltimore from 1950 to 1951.

Dr. Lester Aubrey Wall Jr., a retired Baltimore internist who during his professional career personified the virtues of the old-fashioned general practitioner, died Tuesday of complications from Alzheimer's disease at a daughter's home in The Woodlands, Texas. The longtime Guilford and Towson resident was 94. The son of a banker and homemaker, Dr. Wall was born in Baltimore and raised on Kenwood Avenue. He was a 1933 graduate of City College and earned a bachelor's degree in 1937 from St. John's College in Annapolis.

Dr. Charles E. Carr Jr. was known as "the good doctor" by both his patients and fellow physicians.Dr. Carr, a retired Baltimore internist, died Thursday of a massive heart attack at St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 78 and lived in Lutherville."He was the most compassionate man I've ever known," said lifelong friend, Dick Hook of Roland Park."He was an old-fashioned doctor, who came to your house day or night, and if it were on a weekend, he'd see you at his home. He saw me through a lot of illnesses, including two double bypasses," Mr. Hook said.