ARLINGTON, Va., Sept. 24, 2003 -- George W. Thorn, M.D., a major figure in American medicine for 60 years and a close advisor of The Whitaker Foundation, has received the Massachusetts Medical Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

The award is presented to a member of the society who has made a lasting contribution to the practice of medicine over a lifetime and who has made significant contributions to the goals of the society.

Thorn was associated with The Whitaker Foundation from its inception through the early 1990’s and played a major role in defining its mission. For 14 years, he served as chairman of the foundation’s Scientific Advisory Committee, which reviewed all applications and progress reports in the foundation’s Biomedical Engineering Research Grant Program.

In 1993, the foundation created The George W. Thorn Award, which recognized outstanding work by a biomedical engineer in the Research Grants program. The Thorn Award carried a $10,000 grant to the recipient’s university for research support.

“We are proud and thankful to have worked with such an eminent scientist and scholar,” says Peter G. Katona, Sc.D., president of The Whitaker Foundation. “His extensive experience, guidance and leadership contributed to the distinguished history of the foundation. He is very deserving of this award.”

Thorn, who for three decades served as Chief of Medicine at Boston’s Peter Brent Brigham Hospital (now Brigham and Women’s), received the award at the Society’s annual meeting in May.

Born in Buffalo, N.Y. in 1906 and now living in Beverly, Mass., Thorn earned his M.D. from the University of Buffalo in 1929. He holds 13 honorary degrees from such institutions as Harvard, Boston University, Temple University, New York Medical College, and the University of Geneva.

Thorn was a pioneer in the use of cortisone for treating Addison’s disease; a member of the medical team that performed the worlds’ first successful kidney transplant in the 1950s; a founding editor and editor-in-chief of Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, a landmark medical publication; and a driving force behind, and then later president and chairman of, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

A world-renowned endocrinologist, Thorn is the author of more than 400 publications. He has taught at Ohio State University, Johns Hopkins and Harvard Medical Schools, and the Royal College of Physicians in Great Britain. He was named Professor at Harvard Medical School in 1942.