Harry Chinchinian M.D. died Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, at age 99 of heart failure complications due to coronary artery disease. In 1993 he underwent a successful 5-coronary by-pass. He was born of Christian Armenian immigrants, Ohanness and Armen Chinchinian, on March 7, 1926, in upstate New York. His older brother Levon died almost thirty years earlier.
On Sept. 11, 1944, he entered the U.S. Army and became a private in the Infantry. After basic training, he went through the Battle of the Bulge in Germany from January to May, 1945, ending up in Leipzig. Infantry soldiers became a surplus when Germany surrendered and he was sent to California to enter the battle in Japan. While awaiting in California to ship out, the atom bomb was dropped, and after almost two years of military service, he was honorably discharged as a staff sergeant. The G.I. Bill allowed him to attend any college, so in his third year, he selected the University of Basel, Switz., where he pursued pre-med courses in German and French. Skiing became a passion. On returning, he chose the University of Colorado in Boulder to earn the B.A. degree. There he met and proposed to his beautiful, wonderful Mary Corcoran. The paid, regular Ski Patrol at Winter Park, Colo., offered him a short break, after which he went to Mary’s home in Milwaukee, Wis., and they married in August 1952. At Marquette University, he earned an M.S. degree in biology, and an M.D. at the medical school. Two children, Armen and Marjorie, accompanied them for a Rotating Internship at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Youngstown, Ohio. While there, in 1960, a third child, Matthew, was born.
They returned to Milwaukee, and chose pathology, a specialty that required an additional four years training, to certify in both anatomical and clinical pathology. These two board certifications allowed him to select a practice in St. Joseph’s and Tri-State hospitals, because attending pathologist, Dr. Don Merkeley was leaving. His fellow resident Dr. Carl Koenen agreed to join him in practice, and arrived earlier in 1963, holding a position that required much traveling and consulting to a hospital in Pullman and to Idaho hospitals in Moscow, Orofino, Cottonwood and Grangeville.
In 1967, with the blessing of Hospital Administrators Sister Helen Francis and William Yeats, the two doctors formed the independent “Pathologists’ Regional Laboratory” located in St. Joseph’s Hospital. Tissue analysis and some forensic work were moved to a building next to Tri-State Hospital. Computer analysis of blood components was just beginning, and as an independent lab in St. Joseph’s, the two doctors had no budget constraints. They purchased the most up-to-date medical equipment, assisted greatly by the extraordinary trust and kindness of a local bank manager, Neil Dammarell. Their medical prestige was augmented by appointments as lab inspectors for the College of American Pathologists. This office required formally inspecting and certifying other laboratories, for quality of blood tests and tissue analysis. Without this certification, Medicare and insurance companies would be reluctant to compensate. As a result of their appointments, the doctors became well known as fair and capable Inspectors, and earned the respect of fellow pathologists in the Pacific Northwest.
In 1972, in addition to their medical practice, they were both appointed associate professors by Dean White, at the College of Pharmacy, Wash. State University. For over 30 years, they taught a mandatory (for pharmacy students) 3-credit course, in Human Pathology. After semi-retirement, as a professor, for years, Dr. Chinchinian continued to teach a mandatory 3-credit Human Pathophysiology course at the College of Pharmacy, until the College moved to Spokane. He insisted learning was fun, and tried to project his enthusiasm and deep love of medicine. The students say he succeeded. A few years before he retired, he was given a gift, a gold-framed maxim, by an insightful student, who titled it: “To the Old, Wrinkled One,” which he treasured and shared at his wife’s funeral. It read: “They may see the good you do as self serving. Continue to do good. “They may see your generosity as grandstanding. Continue to be generous. They may see your warm and caring nature as a weakness. Continue to be warm and caring. For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It never was between you and them anyway.”
During practice, Dr. Chinchinian was honored to be elected by his fellow doctors as chief of staff at St. Joseph’s and a few years later, by Doctors at Tri-State Hospital as well. He chaired and participated in multiple hospital committees, including promoting and procuring blood for the independent Lewis-Clark Blood Bank, which served the valley.
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