Asa Greenwood YANCEY Sr. M.D.

Family-Placed Death Notice

YANCEY, Sr., M.D., Asa Greenwood Asa Greenwood Yancey, Sr., M.D. August 19, 1916 - March 9, 2013 Asa Greenwood Yancey, Sr., M.D. died peacefully at his home in Atlanta on March 9, 2013 at the age of 96 years. Dr. Yancey married Carolyn E. Dunbar on December 28, 1944 in Detroit, Michigan and together, they raised twin daughters and two sons. Dr. Yancey was a loving, faithful, and caring husband to Carolyn "Marge" Dunbar Yancey (deceased on November 11, 2010) and father to their four children. Dr. Yancey had a long and distinguished career as a nationally recognized surgeon, educator, and public servant to the greater Atlanta community. Dr. Yancey was born in Atlanta, Georgia on August 19, 1916 to Arthur H. Yancey and Daisy Lois Sherard Yancey. He was raised in Atlanta on Beckwith Street and received his secondary education in the Atlanta Public Schools. Dr. Yancey graduated valedictorian from Booker T. Washington High School in the Class of 1933 and received his Bachelor of Science degree with high honors from Morehouse College, Class of 1937. He graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School, as one of four African Americans in the Class of 1941. Dr. Yancey completed a Medical Internship at City Hospital, Cleveland, Ohio (1941-1942). General surgery was chosen as a specialty and a general surgery residency was completed under Charles R. Drew, M. D. Sc at Freedmen's Hospital, Howard University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C. (1942-1944). A surgical fellowship was completed at the U.S. Marine Hospital (Boston) under Richey Waugh, M.D., Chief of Department of Surgery, and additional general surgery and gynecological surgery experience was completed at Meharry Medical College (1945-1948) under Matthew Walker, M.D., Chief of the Department of Surgery. Dr. Yancey became a Diplomate of the American Board of Surgery on December 16, 1948 and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons in 1950 ranking among the top in examination scores for that group of examinees. In 1948, he was appointed Chief of Surgery at the Tuskegee Veterans Administration Hospital and later established the first fully accredited Type II general surgical training program at the Tuskegee V.A.. He trained general surgeons at the Tuskegee V. A. Hospital and the John A. Andrew Hospital, Tuskegee, Alabama (1948 to 1958). While in Tuskegee, Dr. Yancey completed animal research at the Tuskegee Veterinary School of Medicine and published a paper in The Journal of National Medical Association, September 1952 entitled, "A Modification of the Swenson Technique for Congenital Megacolon" 10 years before Soave published the identical work in 1962. In 1958, he was the first African American invited to join the faculty at Emory University School of Medicine and retained the appointment as Chief of Surgery at Hughes Spaulding Pavilion of Grady Memorial Hospital from 1958 to 1972. Dr. Yancey established the first accredited surgical graduate medical education program for African American surgeons in the State of Georgia. This training program included a fully accredited senior residency program in general surgery plus an additional year under the sponsorship of the Fulton DeKalb Hospital Authority and the Emory University School of Medicine. Across the two surgical graduate medical education programs in Tuskegee and Atlanta, approximately 57 surgical residents completed partial or full three-year accredited education in surgery under his leadership. (continued in next column)