Obituaries

While he was chairman from 1951 to 1978, the UB Department of Psychiatry grew from a handful to about 140 and secured more than $8 million in grants.

A founder of the Muscular Dystrophy Association in the 1950s, he was national president from 1980 to 1989 and served until his death as chairman of MDA's executive committee. He also was chairman of the group's scientific advisory committee and worked with patients who had emotional problems resulting from muscular disease. Robert Ross, MDA's executive director, noted in the Buffalo News that Small "made huge contributions to the association's development as one of the nation's most effective and efficient health agencies."

Among his awards were UB's Stockton Kimball Award for outstanding work in community health, the E.B. Bowis Gold Medal from the American College of Psychiatrists and the Distinguished Service Citation from the American Psychiatric Association.

Small was a graduate of City College of New York and the Cornell University Medical College. Neuropsychiatric consultant to the surgeon general of the U.S. Army for 25 years, he taught clinical psychiatry to Army physicians, trained thousands of social workers to act as medical field agents during World War II and was co-author of a paper on the psychological aspects of chemical warfare.

He wrote more than 100 articles and book chapters, including "A Handbook of Psychiatry," a 1943 publication widely viewed as an authoritative guide to psychiatric theory and practice. Small was also a consultant to the Defense Department, the Peace Corps and the United States Information Agency.

In the mid-1950s, he helped organize the Erie County Mental Health Board, serving as its first director. In that post he obtained funding for Buffalo General Hospital's Community Mental Health Center and was instrumental in establishing the state Alcoholism Research Center in Buffalo.

He was a member of the psychiatric committee of the National Board of Medical Examiners and served as a director, vice president and director emeritus of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

Small was a life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, emeritus fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists and a fellow of the American College of Psychoanalysts, the American Medical Association, the American Association for Social Psychiatry and the New York Academy of Medicine.

FAWZY F. ABDELMESSIH, 70, PHYSICIAN, PROFESSOR
Funeral services were held at St. George Orthodox Church, Buffalo, for Fawzy F. Abdelmessih, who practiced rehabilitation medicine and was an associate professor of rehabilitation medicine at the UB medical school. Abdelmessih died Dec. 25 in DeGraff Memorial Hospital, North Tonawanda, after a brief illness.

A native of Port Said, Egypt, he received his medical degree from the University of Cairo in 1952. In 1970, he came to the Buffalo area, joining the staff at Deaconess Hospital.

Abdelmessih was a member of the American Medical Association, New York State and Erie County Medical societies, and the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States.

GINGER BURKE, 82, TEACHER, FOUNDER OF BALLET COMPANY
Ginger Burke, 82, founder and director of the Royal Academy of Ballet in North Buffalo for five decades and a teacher for 14 years in the Department of Theatre and Dance at UB, died Dec. 29 in her Buffalo home after a long illness.

Burke was also a co-founder of the Buffalo Regional Ballet Company, a professional dance troupe that performed in the Katharine Cornell Theater at UB in the 1980s. Burke also performed in vaudeville before opening her ballet school, which continues today.

Among her students were Michael Bennett, famed Broadway creator of "A Chorus Line," and Maris Battaglia of the American Academy of Ballet. Other students went on to dance with the New York City Ballet, the American Ballet Theater and the ballet corps of Radio City Music Hall.

Linda Swiniuch, chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance at UB described Burke to the Buffalo News as "one of the best teachers I've ever seen anywhere" and one of the few who were personally "endorsed by the one and only George Balanchine." Burke was invited by the George Balanchine School of American Ballet in New York City to participate in seminars sponsored by the Ford Foundation and Balanchine provided a letter of recommendation for her to the University at Buffalo.

IRWIN FELSEN, 89, PHYSICIAN, MEDICAL SCHOOL INSTRUCTOR
Irwin Felsen, 89, a longtime physician who had served as a clinical instructor in family practice at the UB medical school, died Jan. 2 in Highland Health Care Facility, Wellsville. Felsen, who practiced medicine in New York State for more than 50 years before retiring in 1986, helped to create Jones Memorial Hospital in Wellsville.

Among Felsen's many honors was the State Medical Society President's Citation for distinguished community service, and family members noted his many community contributions including efforts to build a modern hospital in Wellsville and placement of the National Health Service Care Physicians in Allegany County. Members of that group now make up more than 50 percent of the primary-care doctors in that area. Other honors included the Selective Service System Medal, the Federal Aviation Administration Professional Service Citation for 40 years of service, and the Wellsville Chamber of Commerce Person of the Year award in 1983.

A graduate of City College of New York and the University of Glasgow Medical School in Scotland, he was a past president of the Lakes Area Regional Medical Program, the Health Organization of Western New York, the Eighth District of the Medical Society of New York and the Jones Memorial Hospital medical staff.

LOUIS L. JAFFE, 90, FORMER UB LAW SCHOOL DEAN
Louis L. Jaffe, a former dean of the University of Buffalo Law School, died Dec. 11 at a nursing home in Norwood, Mass. He was 90.

Jaffe received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1932 and served as a clerk to Justice Louis D. Brandeis.

He became a professor at the UB Law School in 1936 and was named dean of the school in 1948.

Jaffe joined the Harvard Law School faculty in 1950, where he served as Byrne Professor of Administrative Law. He was one of the school's most widely known analysts and writers in tort law and administrative law, particularly on the role of the courts in reviewing administrative agencies like the Federal Communications Commission.

He wrote "Judicial Control" (Little Brown) in 1965 and was co-author of "Administrative Law: Cases and Materials" (Little Brown) in 1976, both texts widely adopted by law schools.

A resident of Cambridge, Mass., for more than 40 years, Jaffe retired in 1976.

DOROTHEA NISBET, 75, EDUCATOR, WOMEN'S ACTIVIST
Dorothea D. "Peggy" Nisbet, 75, an educator, researcher in gerontology and women's activist, died Dec. 20 in Roswell Park Cancer Institute after a long illness.

A co-founder of the Women's Studies College at UB, she started the first Buffalo Women's Community Day in association with the YWCA. As a faculty member at the university, she taught courses on the cross-cultural aspects of women and aging. At UB she became known as an innovator in developing multi-media approaches to teaching comparative gerontology.

Her research in that area had worldwide focus and over 20 years, it took her from Russia to the Siberian Arctic and to previously closed areas of Tibet and to the Gobi Desert. As a guest of the People's Republic of China, she was one of the first Americans invited into the country following President Richard Nixon's diplomatic initiatives in the early 1970s. She was given access to parts of China that had been closed to foreigners for decades.

She was a charter member of the National Association of Scholars and was a founding member of the Independent Women's Forum. She received bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in gerontology from the University of Buffalo and completed post-doctoral work at Oxford University, the University of Hawaii, the University of Southern California and University of Michigan.

HILDEGARD POECH PINAK, 70, LIBRARY EMPLOYEE
A Mass of Christian Burial was held Jan. 11 in Queen of Martyrs Catholic Church, Cheek-towaga, for Hildegard Poech Pinak, 70, a former employee of Lockwood Memorial Library, who died Jan. 8 in Mitchell Campus of Hospice Buffalo, Cheektowaga.

She earned an associate's degree from Villa Maria College and a bachelor of arts in history at UB in 1980, after which she worked at Lockwood Library.

CHARLES R. WEST, 62, NEUROSURGEON, RESEARCH ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
Charles R. West, chief of the Department of Neurosurgery at Roswell Park Cancer Institute for 22 years, died Dec. 6 in Millard Fillmore Hospital after a short illness. West, a research associate of neurosurgery at UB, was 62.

He received his bachelor's degree in 1959 from Roosevelt University, Chicago and in 1964 received his medical degree from Howard University School of Medicine, Washington D.C.

West was assistant neurosurgeon and researcher at the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke in Bethesda, Md., before his appointment as associate chief of the Department of Neurosurgery at Roswell in 1971. Three years later, he was promoted to chief of the department, a position he held until his retirement in 1996.

He was a member of the New York State Neurosurgical Society, the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Association of Cancer Research. West authored or presented more than 74 scholarly papers and received four U.S. patents for the development of drugs used to treat brain tumors.

Private funeral services will be held.