Edward Viner, MD, retired acting chief of medicine at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia and chief of medicine emeritus at Cooper University Hospital in Camden, N.J., died of acute myeloid leukemia at his home Dec. 1, according to a Dec. 10 obituary published in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Dr. Viner specialized in hospice and inpatient care, as well as hematology and oncology. He was the physician for the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Philadelphia Flyers. He earned his bachelor's degree from Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., and his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He also served in the Army Reserve for nine years.
During his 22-year tenure at Pennsylvania Hospital, Dr. Viner served as acting chief of medicine, head of the hematology and oncology section and director of the internal medicine residency program and fellowship training.
He served as codirector of the hospital's research oncology laboratory, where he and his colleagues performed early research on mice that led to "groundbreaking treatments for human cancer patients," according to the Inquirer.
He founded the hospice program at Pennsylvania Hospital in 1975 after facing a "catastrophic" medical situation in 1972 and spending four months in the hospital at the University of Pennsylvania.
As chief of medicine at Cooper University, he formed an academic department of medicine, developed the university's suburban practice network and served as senior vice president of institutional advancement. Cooper University named its intensive care unit after him in 2008.
He served on numerous boards at Cooper and in local chapters of the American Cancer Society, among other medical societies. He was honored by U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross in the House of Representatives as a "trailblazer and leader" in 2023.