A surgeon, in 1964 Reemtsma tried to solve the problem with the shortage in donor organs by transplanting a chimpanzee’s kidney into a human. The first patient lived for nine months, but ultimately the experimental procedure was declared a failure and abandoned.
In more orthodox practice, he was the chair of the surgical department at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, and helped create a leading heart transplant center there. But Reemtsma perhaps is better known for his prior experience: he was in the Navy and Marine Corps during the Korean War, and was the model for the M*A*S*H movie and television series character Dr. Hawkeye Pierce. Dr. Reemtsma died June 23. He was 74.