- Date Of Birth: April 4, 1929
- Date Of Death: October 5, 2022
- State: Connecticut
James M. Dowaliby II, M.D., F.A.C.S., 93, passed away at Yale New Haven Hospital on October 5, 2022.
Dr. Dowaliby was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in Roswell, New Mexico. He was educated in the public schools of Roswell and at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Drafted in 1950, he spent three years in the army, taking his commission at the Infantry School, Fort Benning, Georgia and serving as an infantry and counterintelligence officer. Upon release from active duty he returned to Roswell, where he first owned a small bookstore and art gallery, then worked as an oilfield scout and a petroleum Landman in New Mexico, California, and Utah.
In 1963, at the age of 34, he had the great good fortune to be accepted as a student at Yale Medical School and he moved to New Haven, where he spent (all, most of) the rest of his life. More than a decade older than his classmates, he was nonetheless accepted graciously by them and was elected by the, to be class president for the third and fourth years, an honor that he frequently said was the highest he ever received.
Upon graduation from medical school in 1967 he remained at Yale for five years of postgraduate surgical training, completing the program in otolaryngology/head & neck surgery under Dr. John A. Kirchner in 1972. He joined the staffs of Yale-New Haven Hospital and the Hospital of Saint Raphael and was a member of the voluntary faculty at Yale Medical School for 37 years, retiring as Associate Clinical Professor of Surgery (Otolaryngology). Although he came to medicine late, it was the great adventure of his life and one of his greatest loves. He practiced his specialty in New Haven until his retirement in 1998. Also, he was able, during this time, to make three trips to Mexico and three to Ethiopia to work for short periods in medically underserved villages in those countries.
Dr. Dowaliby was a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and a fellow of the American Academy of Otolaryngology/Head & Neck Surgery. He was a member of the New England Otolaryngological Society, the American Medical Association, the Connecticut State Medical Society, and the New Haven County Medical Association.
Upon his retirement from surgical practice, Dr. Dowaliby studied photography at the Paier College of Arts in Hamden and then joined the Paier faculty, teaching the basic darkroom photography, which by then was an historical process.
He is survived by his wife, JoAnne Thompson; son, James M. Dowaliby III; daughters, Cole Dowaliby Riley and her husband, John, and Shana Janos Gauvrit and her husband, Nicolas; three grandsons, Max Dowaliby, Milo Gauvrit, and Simon Gauvrit; as well as many friends. He was preceded in death by his son Brice.
