Chester M. Southam

Southam earned a Bachelor of Science degree and a master's degree from the University of Idaho and his medical degree from Columbia University, graduating in 1947. He became an intern at Presbyterian Hospital in New York City in 1947. ==Career==

In the following year Southam was promoted from clinical fellow to attending physician at the Memorial Hospital for Cancer and also received a promotion from research fellow to full member at the Chief Division Virology/Immunology. He joined the faculty of Cornell's medical college in 1951 and was eventually promoted to full professor. In 1963, doctors Avir Kagan, David Leichter and Perry Fersko of Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital objected to the lack of consent in his experiments and reported him to the Regents of the University of the State of New York which found him guilty of fraud, deceit, and unprofessional conduct, and in the end he was placed on probation for a year. and declared highly unethical. West Nile Virus In the 1950s, Southam also tested the West Nile Virus as a potential virotherapy; he injected it into over 100 cancer patients who had terminal cancer and few treatment options. In 1971, he left his positions at Memorial Sloan Kettering and Cornell to become the head of The Division of Medical Oncology at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and a professor of medicine at Thomas Jefferson University Medical College; he held these positions until the end of his career in 1979. ==References==