Ferdinand C. Valentine Medalists

FERDINAND C. VALENTINE, 1851–1909. Dr. Ferdinand C. Valentine was born on March
22, 1851 on board a vessel belonging to his grandfather, in the North Sea and his birth was registered
in the little town of Leer, East Friesland, German. In early infancy he was brought to the US, which
remained the home of his parents. Dr. Valentine’s father was a banker. His mother’s maiden name as Van
Biema, a prominent Dutch family whose ancestors emigrated to Holland from Portugal in the
14th or 15th century.

Dr. Valentine received his medical education in the MacDowell Medical School in St. Louis (years
afterwards called The Missouri Medical College), and was graduated in 1876. His first inclination
was become a specialist in diseases of the eye, and his initial studies were with Professor Michel
of St. Louis and later with Professor Herman Knapp of New York.

He later went to Central America, where he became the Surgeon General of the Army of Honduras. It
was there he first developed his interest in the field of urology and genitourinary diseases. After
nine years with the Army of Honduras, he returned to the US and after a few years of general
practice, went to Europe to study the subject of genitourinary disease and urological surgery. Dr.
Valentine was one of the early pioneers in defining the specialty of urology and establishing the
role of the American Urological Association in medicine.

Dr. Valentine was elected a Fellow of The New York Academy of Medicine on January 2, 1896. He was a
founder of the American Urological Association and its first secretary and third President. Dr.
Valentine was also a member of many other medical organizations, including the American Medical
Association, the Association Francaise d’Urologie, Societe Belge d’Urologie and Deutsche
Gesselschaft fur Urologie.

He was Professor of Genitourinary Diseases at the New York School of Clinical Medicine and made many
contributions to the medical literature. His clinical appointments included Consulting Genitourinary
Surgeon to the Manhattan State Hospital, to the West Side German Dispensary and the Red Cross
Hospital.

In the memoir of Dr. Ferdinand C. Valentine, reported in the Transactions of the American
Urological Association, Vol. 3, 1909
, it stated: “Dr. Valentine was a very talented man,
and a linguist of several tongues. Personally, he was a man of charming temperament, a big heart,
infinite human understanding and sympathy, a man of whom one may truly say that to him nothing human
was foreign.” Dr. Valentine died on December 13, 1909, at his home in Belle Harbor, Long Island.

Award Recipients

Year Recipient(s) Program
2023 Dr. Cheryl Lee 72nd Ferdinand C. Valentine Essay Medalist
2022 Peter T. Scardino, M.D., F.A.C.S.
2021 Arthur Burnett, M.D. 70th Ferdinand C. Valentine & Resident Essay Meeting
2019 Allen F. Morey, M.D., F.A.C.S.
2017 Robert C. Flanigan, M.D.
2016 Linda M. Dairiki Shortliffe, M.D.
2015 Jerry G. Blaivas M.D., William C. deGroat M.D.
2014 Dr. Gerald Jordan
2013 Dr. Tom Lue
2012 Dr. Demetrius Bagley
2011 Dr. Alan Wein
2010 Dr. Jack W. McAninch
2009 Dr. Shlomo Raz
2008 Dr. Andy Novick
2007 Dr. William J. Catalona
2006 Dr. Carl A. Olsson
2005 Dr. Joseph W. Segura
2004 Dr. Jean B. deKernion
2003 Dr. Donald Coffey
2002 Dr. Lowell R. King, Dr. Alan B. Retik
2001 Dr. Patrick C. Walsh
2000 Dr. E. Daracott Vaughan, Jr.
1999 Dr. Donald Skinner
1998 Dr. William R. Fair
1997 Dr. Emil Tanagho
1996 Dr. Paul Peters
1995 Dr. Frank Hinman, Jr.
1994 Dr. John P. Donohue
1992 Dr. Keith Waterhouse, Dr. Richard Turner-Warwick, 1993 Dr. C. Eugene Carlton, Jr., Dr. John T. Grayhack,
Dr. Jay Y. Gillenwater
1991 Dr. Thomas Stamey
1990 Dr. Kurt Amplatz, Dr. Wilfrido R. Castenada-Zuniga, Dr. Ralph V. Clayman, Dr. Robert P. Miller, Dr.
Arthur D. Smith
1989 Dr. Fathollah K. Mostofi
1988 Dr. Joseph J. Kaufman
1987 Dr. George R. Nagamatsu
1986 Dr. Pablo A. Morales
1985 Dr. William Hardy Hendren, III
1984 Dr. Hugh Judge Jewett
1983 Dr. John Kingsley Lattimer
1982 Dr. Willet Francis Whitmore, Jr.
1981 Mr. William P. Didusch
1980 Dr. Willard E. Goodwin
1979 Dr. Meyer M. Melicow
1978 Dr. David Innes Williams
1977 Dr. Eugene Myron Bricker
1976 Dr. Reed Nesbit
1975 Dr. Sven I. Seldinger
1974 Dr. Victor F. Marshall
1973 Dr. Alfred Jost
1972 Dr. Rubin Flocks
1971 Dr. Robert Hotchkiss
1970 Dr. John Harrison, Dr. David Hume, Dr. John Merrill, Dr. Joseph E. Murray
1969 Dr. William Kolf
1968 Dr. Terence Millin
1967 Dr. Alexander B. Gutman
1966 Dr. Theodore McCann Davis
1965 Dr. Moses Swik
1964 Dr. Harry Goldblatt
1963 Dr. Meredith F. Campbell
1962 Dr. Charles B. Huggins