William M. McCormack: Sexually Transmitted Diseases Editor 1976–1986

After a 20-year hiatus, the American Venereal Diseases Association reintroduced the Journal of the American Venereal Diseases Association in 1974 with Dr. Rudolf Kampmeier as its editor. Kampmeier was then professor emeritus at Vanderbilt University, and he agreed to the position for 2 years in order “to get the show on the road.” He relinquished the role as editor in 1976. That position was taken up by a then 38-year-old Associate Professor of Medicine at the Channing Laboratory at Boston City Hospital, William M. McCormack. William “Bill” McCormack was born in Winchester, Massachusetts, in 1938. He attended Fordham University in the Bronx, NY, and graduated in 1959 with a bachelor's degree in science in pharmacy. He entered the class of 1963 at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York. There he became president of the local AOA chapter and graduated summa cum laude. Following this, he spent his intern year at the Bronx Municipal Hospital before starting internal medicine residency at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. This training was interrupted by a assignment to the Epidemic Intelligence Service serving in the Cholera Research Laboratory in Dacca, East Pakistan. There he studied cholera transmission and host response, and conducted field vaccine trials. Upon his return to the United States, Bill picked up where he left off and joined the staff at the Massachusetts General Hospital as a senior resident and then a research fellow. Between 1969 and 1971, he trained in Infectious Diseases at Boston City Hospital under the supervision of Maxwell Finland and Edward Kass and stayed in the Harvard system as an assistant and then an associate professor of medicine until taking over as director of the diagnostic laboratories at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health in 1978. In 1982, he was recruited by the Chair of Medicine at SUNY Downstate to return there as the Chief of the Infectious Diseases Section, a position he then held for 29 years until his retirement in 2011. For his many years of service as a teacher, researcher, and leader in the field, Bill was named a Distinguished Professor of the State University of New York in 2005 (Fig. 1).Figure 1: Dr. William McCormack.It was at the Channing Laboratory in the early 1970s that Bill first became engaged in sexually transmitted disease (STD) research. During that time, he coauthored numerous studies on the epidemiology, diagnosis, and clinical impact of genital mycoplasmas including Mycoplasma hominis and Ureaplasma urealyticum. With time his work broadened to address the nature and management of chlamydia and gonorrhea as well. He published some of the first articles on the microbiology of pelvic inflammatory disease, the vaginal microbial flora, and STD epidemiology in college students. He solidly established himself as a national leader in clinical research and rose to become President of the AVDA in 1976 serving for 2 years. He also assumed the role of the AVDA's journal editor. Perhaps seeking a new start, the editorial staff rechristened the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases. The volume of manuscripts submitted to the journal was smaller in those early years than it is today and Sexually Transmitted Diseases appeared only as a quarterly. The content also differed from today's journal articles. As a discipline defining itself in an era of modern research, articles tended to focus on an elaboration of basic diagnostics, clinical manifestations of disease, and studies of treatment regimens. Photographs of clinical conditions commonly appeared. Dr. Kampmeier regularly supplied historical reviews. Clinical debates, editorials, and book reviews were often included. Given the somewhat limited circulation, advertising for publishers and pediculocides helped pay the bills. In 1981, the journal became the official publication of the Dutch Society of the Study of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and of the Latin American Union Against Venereal Diseases. Shortly thereafter, the Phillipine STD Association and the Scandanavian Society of Genitourinary Medicine also adopted the publication. The editorial board expanded commensurately. As the 1980s dawned, Bill assumed new duties as the chief of the Infectious Diseases Division at Downstate as well as the fellowship program director. Almost simultaneously HIV swept over the Infectious Diseases field like a “tsunami.” Downstate and its sister institution Kings County Hospital quickly became epicenters of this devastating health crisis. Bill worked tirelessly to martial the clinical resources needed to meet this challenge. Despite that overwhelming set of circumstances, Bill continued his stewardship of the journal and productive work as a researcher. He studied genital mycoplasmas and Chlamydia trachomatis, pelvic inflammatory disease, and vaginitis. In 1986, he handed over the journal leadership to Michael Rein, who, after a brief tenure, was succeeded by Julie Schachter. Because of Bill's effective tenure through those early years, Sexually Transmitted Diseases established itself as an important and well-run publication, the quality standard bearer for important work on a discipline increasingly recognized as a unique field of study. On a personal note, I had the very good fortune to study and train with Bill starting in the late 1980s. I knew I wanted to be in New York, and I knew I wanted to work with someone of Bill's caliber. What he taught me at SUNY Downstate first as a fellow and then as a faculty member was invaluable. He was then and continues to be a man of few words, but this economy only lent weight to his pronouncements. There has always been something “rabbinic” about him. He exuded a gravitas that calmed and disciplined all the Brooklyn frenzy that swirled around him. He commanded great respect and loyalty from those around him especially the generations of ID fellows he trained. He was known for the methodological rigor he brought to clinical care and to his research. He taught me many, many things not only about sexually transmitted diseases but also critical reasoning skills, how to effectively collect data, how to analyze it, how to write, and how to read the literature. I think I try to pass on these lessons myself to a new generation of trainees and so, although he is happily retired with his wife Jo Ann half the year in Florida and the other half on his beloved Cape Cod, Bill continues to contribute. A scholarship fund in his name has been set up at SUNY Downstate to encourage medical students to become engaged with infectious diseases study. The journal and we, his students and colleagues, are lucky to have had his leadership.