Obituary

Original found at Boston Herald

Dr. Donald Sumner Greene, former chief of the New England Baptist Hospital medical staff, died March 25 at the Armenian Nursing Home in Jamaica Plain.

Dr. Green was a neurologist who succumbed to the disease he treated: Alzheimer’s. He was 78.

Dr. Greene lived in Brookline for many years before moving to Boston. He also had a home on the rural island of Culebra, Puerto Rico.

He graduated from Malden High School in 1947 where was voted “wittiest boy.” He received a bachelor’s degree from Boston University in 1952, and a master’s degree in psychology from the University of Texas in 1955. In 1956, while working on his psychology doctorate at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, he determined to become a physician. He earned his medical doctorate from the University of Tennessee in Memphis. He was known as “Dr. Mesmer” among the medical staff there for his intense interest with treating pain with hypnosis.

To finance his education, Dr. Greene worked in the laboratory of Dr. Lester Van Middlesworth, where he counted the radioactivity in cow glands. It was this lab that informed the world when Russia had detonated an atom bomb.

In 1960, Dr. Greene served his internship at the Glen Cove Community Hospital on Long Island, N.Y. There he was presented the Doctor Myron Jackson Award for possessing the qualities of skill and compassion that best exemplified the modern American physician.

Dr. Greene was a resident in psychiatry at the former Boston State Hospital, and later was chief resident in neurology at the Boston V.A. Hospital. For more than 40 years he was in the private practice of neurology in Brookline, and was on the staff of the New England Baptist Hospital, St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Malden Hospital, Faulkner Hospital and Boston Medical Center.

Dr. Greene was a member of the American Academy of Neurology. He also donated his time to work in the “Bridge over Troubled Waters” van in Harvard Square, for ten years.

Dr. Greene was also a gifted linguist. His hobbies included translating popular American songs into Latin.

He is survived by his wife of 49 years, novelist Bette Green who became internationally famous with her first book, “Summer of My German Soldier”; his daughter, Carla Green of West Newton; his son, Jordan Greene of Baltimore; and his four grandchildren.

Services and burial were to be private.

Arrangements made by Levine Chapels, Brookline.

Originally Published: April 11, 2008 at 12:00 a.m.