Harold Mancusi-Ungaro Honored by Yale Medical School

Earlier this month our own Harold Mancusi-Ungaro, M.D. (’69, ’73 MD) was honored by the Yale Medical School with the

The citation is very detailed and quite illuminating:

The Yale School of Medicine is proud to count you, Harold Mancusi-Ungaro Jr., among its graduates and bestows upon you the Distinguished Alumni Service Award.

As Secretary, Vice President and eventually President of the Association of Yale Alumni in Medicine, you provided consistent leadership and unstinting support for the best and most beloved traditions of the School. Your service continued as a Delegate to the Yale Alumni Association. On the 50th anniversary of your graduation, those traditions remain strong because of the work you and your colleagues have done to shine a light on the Yale System’s enduring value.

“Every effort must be made not to stifle the opportunities for learning b building up a great machine for teaching,” Dean Milton C. Winternitz said, laying out his vision for what would become The Yale System. As a first-year medical student, you authored Michelangelo: The Bruges Madonna and the Piccolomini Altar, a volume that grew out of your undergraduate thesis at Yale College and combined art history with detective work. You realized that this achievement would have been impossible in a traditional medical school that regulated how students spent every waking minute. You also recognized that when students take responsibility for their own learning and have the freedom to pursue their own passim-Ls,the result is an extraordinary line of leaders who push the boundaries of medicine to better serve humanity.

A lifelong learner, you have always welcomed opportunities to explore the work going on at the School. While living in Texas and later California, you frequently returned to New Haven to be of service to the Association. You knew that if your fellow alumni could become similarly involved with the ongoing work of the School that they would, like you, be strong voices for the Yale System. While serving on the AYAM Executive Committee, you promoted reunion programming that highlighted the achievements o f outstanding School of Medicine graduates and illuminated how their unique experience at Yale contributed to their success. Beyond reunion programming, AYAM recorded oral histories of returning alumni who reflected on how the Yale System affected their personal and professional lives. This serves as a perpetual tribute to – and case for – the Yale System. This system shaped you; and in a real way, you have had a profound impact on it.

Today your friends, family and classmates salute you for your service to the Yale School of Medicine and its ideals. You are a true son of Yale.

In addition to Harold’s service to YSM, he has served for many years as our class rep to the YAA and now serves as a member “at large” of the YAA.   He was one of the 17 of our classmates who went on to YSM.  Sadly, Bob Bucholtz, John Neil, and Robert Polackwich have passed away, but many others are still active, such as Lee Goldman, David Johnson, John McQuade, Claes Nilsson, and Bruce Volpe.

Harold became involved with AYAM in 2001 while his son Temy ’02 and later his daughter Marianna ’04 were at Yale. He served as a member at large for three terms until 2006. In 2010 when the secretary resigned, Harold stepped in — and then finished out the term and another one.

In 2015, he was elected VP and served as president from 2017 to 2019.  Considering his service as payback for what Yale had given me, he became active in helping the School with curricular evolution.  The medical school historically has had a flexible curriculum. The only real sine qua non is a MD thesis with independent research. In many ways, medical school was similar to Harold’s senior year as a Scholar of the House, namely, composed of independent research with good mentors.

During his years as an officer at AYAM, he noticed a rising restriction within the curriculum, adding qualifying tests and required classes.  Working with the students and alumni, he and some colleagues focused some of the YSM reunion programs on the successes of the Yale System of Education.  Harold even prevailed upon classmate Lee Goldman, then Dean of Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, to be one of the speakers.

Since then, YSM has a new Dean, Nancy Brown, who recognizes why Yale creates physician-scientists and leaders.  It’s likely that the alumni leaders, mobilized by Harold, made a difference.

Harold has also agreed to help our with OUR Reunion — the 55th — to be held next year!