James Frenkil, a 1937 graduate who will be remembered as one of the medical school’s most loyal alumni, passed away on February 7.

Born in Baltimore on September 16, 1912, Frenkil attended Forest Park High School where he won the Mid-Atlantic Pole Vaulting Championship during his senior year. He enrolled at Johns Hopkins University, accelerating his studies and graduating in three years. Frenkil then attended medical school, graduating in 1937. He interned at Gallinger Municipal Hospital in Washington, D.C., and was a resident at the Casualty Hospital, also in Washington.

Entering the military in 1943 during World War II, Frenkil completed training in courses at various Army Hospitals and received an aviation medicine degree. A captain, he was assigned as squadron medical officer for a B-29 Superfortress command in Calcutta, India, where he conducted research on tropical diseases and participated in the testing of sulfaguanidine to prevent dysentery among the troops.

Frenkil received his military discharge in 1946 and returned to Baltimore where he built Central Medical Centers, the largest pure occupational medical practice on the Eastern Seaboard and one of the largest in the United State. At its height, Central Medical Centers employed 100 medical personnel and treated 600 patients a day at five locations. He sold the practice to Dunn & Bradstreet in the late 1960s, only to buy it back a few years later. Frenkil’s affiliations included Proctor & Gamble, Chessie Systems, Pan American Airlines, Bethlehem Steel, General Motors, and the Maryland Mass Transit Authority. He was a member of the staffs of North Charles General, Sinai, South Baltimore General, and Lutheran hospitals, and he was recruited by Maryland’s governor to serve as chairman of the Maryland Occupational Disease Board and as a member of the Governor’s Health Conference during the 1960s.

Working with a faculty member at Johns Hopkins University, Frenkil established a course in occupational medicine for students studying public health. He was a lecturer there, as well as at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Frenkil also served as the occupational editor for the Southern Medical Journal, and he authored numerous articles related to his specialty.

Never straying far from his medical school, Frenkil was a frequent lecturer in the departments of pathology and oncology. He called his classmates each year during a phonothon in support of the medical school, and he helped organize a class reunion every five years. Frenkil was elected president of the alumni association in 1987 and for several years was a member of the medical school’s board of visitors. In 1995, he donated his five-story office building on Eutaw Street to the medical school. The Medical Alumni Association honored him in 1997, granting Frenkil honorary lifetime board status. This recognition has been bestowed just twice in the association’s 134-year history.

The Maryland Boy Scouts, Baltimore Goodwill Industries, the Baltimore Rotary Club, and Catholic Youth Organization also benefitted from Frenkil’s organizational skills and generosity. Survivors include wife Carolyn, two children, two step-children, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.