In Memoriam
Douglas W. Hershey
Doug Hershey ’64 passed away on July 18, 2026. Here are the following remembrances:
Obituary
Doug Hershey
1964 Yale graduation
Doug's obituary will be reproduced here when it has been published.
Essay, 50th Reunion Book
by Doug Hershey
May 2014
Doug Hershey
in 2014
There was a young man from Trinity,
who took the square root of infinity.
But when he counted the digits,
he got the fidgets,
dropped math and took up divinity.
Memories of my struggle with differential equations in my second year of calculus at Yale bring to mind Gamow’s limerick. After dropping math I took Philosophy of Science, which led to medical school (Cornell New York Hospital) and finally a career in reproductive genetics. I was not cut out to be an engineer.
During the formative career years, I managed to survive a short stint on a medical school faculty at the Univ. of Colorado and as a practicing gynecologist in Aspen, where office doors were closed on those winter mornings when there was more than six inches of “champagne powder” on the slopes. Life in the Colorado mountains led to climbing adventures in the Pacific Northwest on Mt. Rainier, Alaska on Mt. McKinley, and Nepal.
With my life having settled down following two years of studying genetics at UCLA, I was swept along by the dramatic changes in prenatal diagnosis and fetal ultrasound that were occurring in the 1980’s and 1990’s. I participated in the introduction of molecular testing of fetal cells, new diagnostic techniques such as a biopsy of the placenta, called chorionic villus sampling, that detects the same genetic makeup as the baby, and the ever improving ultrasound image resolution of the unborn baby. How exciting to see all this happen, and to contribute to its implementation.
While I am not still going as strong, I remain a member of the working class, with my own genetics lab and clinical medical practice. Over the years I took part in some clinical research and teaching, and now spend most of my time, along with a staff of genetic counselors and ultrasonographers, doing prenatal diagnosis and counseling patients. Nearly every week I seem to run into an ex-patient along with her teenage daughter who says “Say hello to Dr. Hershey. He did mommy’s amniocentesis when you were still inside mommy’s tummy.” Such encounters were endearing, but, like the house call of doctors in times past, they will all but disappear. Now, I can counsel a pregnant patient to avoid invasive procedures like amniocentesis by doing a blood test that gives the same information by analyzing fragments of fetal DNA that have worked their way into the mother’s circulation.
During this exciting professional journey, I managed to luck out by snagging a bright, beautiful, and talented lady with whom I belatedly became a proud father of two still teenage boys. I thought I had set the record of being the oldest of the class of ’64 to become a father, only to learn of Jim Rogers’ own later-in-life reproductive accomplishments.
What lies ahead? Lowering my golf handicap? Still more Yale reunions? Bicycle trips and mountain hikes to be sure. In less than a year my wife and I will become empty nesters, so we would welcome any classmate information on how to deal with this life-changing event.