Joseph V. Fisher

Dr. Joseph V. Fisher ST. JOSEPH — Dr. Joseph Vincent Fisher, prominent Michigan physician and early contributor to the Family Practice movement, died Saturday, Feb.1, 2003, in St. Joseph. He was 89 years old. Dr. Fisher was born on Aug. 6, 1913, in Huntington, Ind. He was a graduate of University High School in Ann Arbor and subsequently received undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Michigan. While at the University of Michigan he was a member of the track and football teams and Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. During World War II, Dr. Fisher was commissioned as a captain and served in the China India Burma Theater, where he ran a portable surgical hospital attached to the Chinese Army. For his contributions in treating war casualties, Captain Fisher was decorated by both the U.S. and Chinese governments. After World War II, Dr. Fisher and his wife, Helen Beatrice (nee Hopkins), settled in Chelsea, Mich., where he was engaged in general practice for 27 years. Impressed with the psychosomatic aspects of disease, Dr. Fisher took a postgraduate Fellowship in Psychiatry at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco in 1964-1965. From that point on Dr. Fisher was increasingly associated with the emerging Family Medicine discipline. He was influential in establishing Family Medicine as a Board Certified Specialty and was a Charter Diplomate in 1971. He was active in the medical community and was president of the Michigan Chapter of the American Academy of Family Physician in 1971-72 and Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine in 1978. Dr. Fisher joined the Family Practice Department of the Medical University of South Carolina in 1972, where he was a professor and taught for 13 years. After he retired in 1985, Dr. Fisher was a consultant in substance abuse issues for the South Carolina Commission on Alcohol and Substance Abuse and the World Health Organization. Dr. Fisher was an avid tennis player and collector of rare books. He is survived by his children — Barrie Dewane of St. Joseph, Ellen Thompson of Warwick, R.I., Joseph C. Fisher of Sanibel, Fla., Joanne Bordage of Naperville, Ill.; his brother Dr John Fisher of Goldsboro, N.C.; nine grandchildren; and one great-grandson. Memorials may be made to St. Christopher Episcopal Church in North Port, Mich. Arrangements entrusted to Starks & Menchinger Family Funeral Home 2650 Niles Road, St. Joseph Mich., 49085; where the memorials may be sent. Friends wishing to send a condolence message may do so at the family guest book at www.starks-menchinger.com