Sydney "Sid" Martin Finegold (August 21, 1921,

Far Rockaway, Queens Far Rockaway is a neighborhood on the eastern part of the Rockaway peninsula in the New York City borough of Queens. It is the easternmost section of the Rockaways. The neighborhood extends from Beach 32nd Street east to the Nassau County li ...

, New York City – September 17, 2018, Los Angeles) was an American physician, medical school professor, and medical researcher, specializing in anaerobic bacteriology.

Biography

Born in New York City to Russian, Jewish immigrant parents who worked as pharmacists, Sydney Finegold had a sister and an older brother. The family moved to Los Angeles in the early 1930s. Sydney Finegold graduated in 1943 from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

(UCLA) with a bacteriology major and served from 1943 to 1945 in the

US Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines or simply the Marines, is the Marines, maritime land force service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is responsible for conducting expedi ...

. After WWII ended, he matriculated at the

University of Texas Medical Branch The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) is a Public university, public Academic health science centre, academic health science center in Galveston, Texas, United States. It is part of the University of Texas System. UTMB includes the olde ...

Galveston Galveston ( ) is a Gulf Coast of the United States, coastal resort town, resort city and port off the Southeast Texas coast on Galveston Island and Pelican Island (Texas), Pelican Island in the U.S. state of Texas. The community of , with a pop ...

, where he graduated in 1949 with an M.D. In 1947 he married Mary Louise Saunders, a fellow medical student. From 1949 to 1950 he was a

medical intern A medical (or surgical) intern is a physician in training who has completed medical school and has a medical degree, but does not yet have a license to practice medicine unsupervised. Medical education generally ends with a period of practical tr ...

in internal medicine at the

US Public Health Service The United States Public Health Service (USPHS or PHS) is a collection of agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services which manages public health, containing nine out of the department's twelve operating divisions. The assistant se ...

in Galveston. From 1950 to 1952 he was a

resident Resident may refer to: People and functions * Resident minister, a representative of a government in a foreign country * Resident (medicine), a stage of postgraduate medical training * Resident (pharmacy), a stage of postgraduate pharmaceut ...

in internal medicine at the

University of Minnesota Medical School The University of Minnesota Medical School is a medical school at the University of Minnesota. It is a combination of three campuses located in Minneapolis, Duluth, and St. Cloud, Minnesota. The medical school has more than 17,000 alumni as of 2 ...

, where he was mentored by Wesley W. Spink and Wendell H. Hall. From 1951 to 1952 Finegold held his first faculty appointment at the University of Minnesota Medical School. During the

Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...

he was recalled to military service. From 1952 to 1953 he was a regimental surgeon in the US Army in Japan and Korea. From 1953 to 2000 he was a physician at the Wadsworth VA Hospital, Los Angeles. During the beginning of his career there he was mentored by William L. Hewitt. From 1968 to 2000 Finegold was Professor of Medicine, Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics at the

UCLA School of Medicine The UCLA School of Medicine (also known as the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA) is the accredited medical school of the University of California, Los Angeles. Founded in 1951, it is the second medical school in the University of Califor ...

. From 1990 to 2000 he was the editor-in-chief of the journal ''

Clinical Infectious Diseases ''Clinical Infectious Diseases'' is a peer-reviewed medical journal published by Oxford University Press covering research on the pathogenesis, clinical investigation, medical microbiology, diagnosis, immune mechanisms, and treatment of disease ...

'' (which before 1992 was named ''Reviews of Infectious Diseases''). Dr. Finegold was in 1963 a founding member of the

Infectious Diseases Society of America The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) is a medical association representing physicians, scientists, and other health care professionals who specialize in infectious diseases. It was founded in 1963 and is based in Arlington, Virginia. ...

(IDSA), in 1981–1982 the IDSA's president, and in 1987 the recipient of the IDSA's Alexander Fleming Award for Lifetime Achievement. In 1971 he was elected a Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

. In 1999 he received the Becton-Dickinson Award in Clinical Microbiology. He was predeceased by his first wife. They had two sons and daughters. In 1994 he married Gloria Helene Weiss. Upon his death he was survived by his three children, four grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and a longtime companion.

Eponyms

Genus

* '' Finegoldia''

Species

* '' Alistipes finegoldii''

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Finegold, Sydney M. 1921 births 2018 deaths University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of Texas Medical Branch alumni David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA faculty American infectious disease physicians American medical researchers American microbiologists Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Physician-scientists