We are especially fortunate to have the support of the
John B. Goetsch Endowment for
Medical Education and Service
A generous gift from John Allen Jones, the endowment will provide support to the clinic for years to come.
John B. Goetsch, M.D.
April 30, 1914 - August 8, 1982
Dr. Goetsch was born in Chicago and raised in Oak Park, Illinois. He graduated from the University of Rochester in 1935 and in 1938 received his medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine. In 1943, at the conclusion of his residency training at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, he was drafted into the United States Army Medical Corps, where he served as a Captain and orthopedic surgeon in the Fortieth General Hospital. After staging in England, his unit was the first Hospital Group to enter Paris after the Invasion of Normandy, and he remained in the Army until 1946.
After a fellowship at the Yale University School of Medicine, in 1948 Dr. Goetsch opened a private practice in New Haven specializing in urological surgery that continues to this day as The Urology Group PC. Dr. Goetsch was known for his expert surgical skills and his warm bedside manner, making him respected by his peers and beloved by his patients and the nursing staff. Dr. Goetsch married Miriam Finkeldey (Mimi) in 1942, and together they raised four sons at their home in Woodbridge, Connecticut, which was always open to an extended network of friends and family.
I had the great fortune to be one of those friends. I first met Dr. Goetsch in 1952, when as a teenager I moved to Connecticut. He offered me more respect and warmth than I had ever before encountered. Many evenings at dusk we would sit on his porch--in rocking chairs--and talk. I asked the type of questions that teenagers ask, and in his quiet, warm way he helped me to understand things about growing up and being “me” I never before understood. He smoked (didn’t all doctors smoke in the ‘50s?) and I will never forget seeing the slow arc of his burning cigarette as he rocked back and forth during our evening talks. That friendship lasted for 30 years, with so many times shared, so many fond memories.
Dr. Goetsch was a passionate birder and fly fisherman, and in August of 1982 he died at the age of 68 while salmon fishing on the Restigouche River in New Brunswick, Canada.
Written by John Allen Jones from material kindly supplied by Charles C. Goetsch
May 2011