James Sanford Ketchum ’52

James Sanford Ketchum ’52, M.D., passed away at home in Peoria, Arizona, on May 27. Jim was a career officer in the U.S. Army and a medical doctor with a specialty in psychiatry. Jim was born in New York City on November 1, 1931, and graduated in 1948 from Forest Hills High School. He attended Dartmouth for three years and then graduated from Columbia University. At Dartmouth he was a member of Kappa Kappa Kappa. He then received his medical degree from Cornell University in 1956 and began his medical career in the U.S. Army. After initial training assignments in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., Jim joined the medical research volunteer program at the Edgewood Arsenal in Aberdeen, Maryland, where he served for a number of years. He was a firm believer in nonlethal chemical warfare, a controversial program that received much publicity. He started as a researcher and moved up to head of clinical research and chief of behavioral sciences at Edgewood. After retiring from the Army in 1976, he entered the civilian practice of psychiatry, including teaching at UCLA. He retired in 2001 and lived for several years in Santa Rosa, California, before moving to Arizona. His career was profiled in The New Yorker magazine in 2012. Jim was married five times. He is survived by his wife, Judith, children Kevin and Robin, and one grandson.