Physician, patient care leader, traveler
Ginger Latham. (Courtesy photo)
Virginia “Ginger” Tullis Latham, M.D., succumbed to metastatic pancreatic cancer on April 21 in Harvard, surrounded by family. At age 76, she felt fortunate in having been able to live out her childhood dreams of raising a family and becoming a physician. She achieved both goals to great acclaim, raising five sons, celebrating her 56th anniversary with her husband, David, last August, and receiving numerous honors for her lifetime of service to the medical profession.
Ginger was born on May 28, 1940, in Durham, North Carolina, the first child of James Lyman Tullis, M.D., and Marjorie (White) Tullis. As a preschooler she lived in Birmingham, Alabama, with her mother and younger sister while her father served as a medical officer in the European theater during World War II.
At the close of the war, the family moved to Newton. Ginger attended Underwood School in Newton and in 1958 graduated from Beaver Country Day School in Chestnut Hill. From there she headed to Duke University, where she met David Winslow Latham, a student at MIT who grew up in Jamaica Plain. In the summer of 1960, while both were still undergraduates, David and Ginger married and moved to Boston. While David finished his undergraduate degree and began graduate school in astronomy at Harvard, Ginger completed her bachelor of arts degree in biology with a minor in chemistry at Boston University. She then began teaching general science in middle and high school.
By the early 1970s, David, Ginger, and their five young sons were settled in Harvard, and Ginger decided to fulfill a lifelong dream by going to medical school. Refusing to see any obstacle as insurmountable, she enrolled at Harvard Medical School at the age of 36. Eight years later she had graduated and finished her residency in internal medicine at the New England Deaconess Hospital. Her sons celebrated by buying her the MOMDOC license plate she proudly used until her death.
As a doctor of internal medicine, Ginger’s greatest joy was direct patient care. But, striving to improve medical care in a broader sense, she became involved in efforts to improve the teaching and mentoring of physicians by helping to set up and teach in primary care rotations at Harvard Medical School. She served as chief of medicine and then chief of staff at Emerson Hospital in Concord, and she was the hospital’s quality control medical adviser. Increasingly involved in such issues as patients’ access to care, the quality of that care, and how to improve systems of care within the state, she assumed leadership roles with the Massachusetts Medical Society and the American Medical Association, and she eventually became president of MMS.
Her roles at the AMA culminated as chairwoman of the board of the senior physicians division, working on concerns such as whether there should be mandatory competence testing of physicians as they age, and how to address the growing shortage of physicians by identifying ways in which aging doctors could continue to serve.
Dr. Latham retired gradually and reluctantly as her own health became impaired by rheumatologic and cardiac disease over the past decade. But she stayed active in other aspects of her life until recently. She took great pleasure in activities with the Garden Club of Harvard and the Harvard Woman’s Club, and she enjoyed a weekly bridge group in conjunction with the Harvard Council on Aging.
One of Ginger’s greatest joys was traveling all over the world with her husband. David was frequently an invited speaker in interesting foreign venues, while Ginger wandered the streets chatting with storekeepers, sipping teas, and navigating public transportation. She was able to communicate in most European languages—though her ear for accents was cringeworthy.
“I cannot imagine a more fulfilling life than the one I have had with the privilege of talking with very humble and very famous people from all walks of life, religions, and political beliefs,” she emailed to friends and family upon learning of her terminal cancer diagnosis. “My life has brought me such joy! My husband, our sons, and their offspring have been an incredible blessing; I have had the opportunity to have a career that gave me the greatest of pleasure—what more could one have asked?”
Ginger is survived by her husband, David, and by their their five sons and their wives: James Allen and Wendy (Doulton) Latham of Los Angeles; Peter White and Maureen (O’Connor) Latham of Acton; Andrew Scott and Karen (Bevacqua) Latham of San Francisco; Jonathan Nichols and Sarah (Sanborn) Latham of Deerfield; and David Winslow Jr. and Dawn (Gupta) Latham of Saint Louis. She was beloved by her 12 grandchildren: Christian, Nicole, Hannah, Emily, Harrison, Ian, Emma, Dean, Jamie, David, Luke, and Elizabeth Latham. She is survived by her younger sisters, Ann Tullis Pearce of Point Clear, Alabama, and Susan Gay Dane of Cohasset; and her brother James L.L. Tullis of Palm Beach, Florida. She was predeceased by an infant brother, William Stuart Tullis. She also leaves behind her brothers-in-law, Jon Dane and Thomas Latham, and her sisters-in-law, Harriet (Latham) Robinson, Linda (Altorfer) Tullis, and Tauni Sauvage.
The funeral will be held Saturday, April 29, at 2:30 p.m. in the Trinity Church in Concord, followed by a reception in the parish hall.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Virginia Tullis Latham M.D. Scholarship Fund to provide tuition assistance to deserving medical students in need. Checks may be made payable to the Middlesex Central District of the Massachusetts Medical Society and mailed in care of William Burtis, M.D., Ph.D., 25 Lowell Road, Concord, MA 01742.
Arrangements under the care of Glenn D. Burlamachi, Concord Funeral Home, A Life Celebration Home, Concord. To share a memory or offer a condolence, visit www.concordfuneral.com.
