PAUL CUSHMAN

CUSHMAN--Paul, Jr., MD, born NYC in 1930, attended Buckley, Exeter, Yale, and Columbia Medical School. Trained in endocrinology, he began his career at St. Luke's Hospital in NYC. A founder of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, he became an early champion of methadone for management of intractable opiate addiction and ran one of the best regarded methadone clinics in New York in the 1970s. Methadone was initially an unpopular and misunder-stood treatment but with which he helped hundreds of people, including the incarcerated. Contributed more than 80 articles to the medical literature on substance abuse medicine, and worked to integrate its teaching into medical schools. Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry, Pharm- acology and Therapeutics at the Medical Colleges of Wisconsin and Virginia in the 1980s. In retirement, he wrote biographies of two Dutch colonial ancestors: Richard Varick, first mayor of NYC, and silversmith William Gilbert. He had a voracious mind and loved ballet, opera, medical history, crossword puzzles, chess, backgammon and cards (Ruby Life Master in duplicate bridge). While a captain in the USAF in England he met and married Paulette Bessire, who enriched his life for 61 years. She survives him as does his daughter, Clare Cushman, and two grandchildren. Member of The Union Club, The Century Association.