Thomas E. Gaffney, M.D.

Thomas Edward Gaffney, M.D. passed away at home in Cayce, SC in his 94th year. He is survived by his wife, Edith Anne, sons John, David, and Michael of Columbia, SC, Cayce, SC, and Charlotte, NC, daughter-in-law Margaret Woodbridge Gaffney, granddaughter Carson Leete and grandson Davis Merrick.

Tom was born in East St. Louis, Ill to Leola Julia and John Vincent Gaffney. He attended elementary and high school in the small, mining town of Bonne Terre, Missouri and grew up working a variety of part time jobs, hunting, fishing, and playing drums while in high school and college. His father was a wholesale grocer and immigrant from Hamilton, Scotland. His grandfather and great grandfather were underground coal miners in Hamilton, Scotland. Tom knew he wanted to be a physician and was inspired by discovery after reading Microbe Hunters by Paul De Kruif and Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis and Paul De Kruif while in high school. He obtained a B. A. and M.A. from the U. of Missouri in Columbia, and an M.D. on a performance scholarship from the U. Cincinnati in 1957. After medical school he trained in Internal Medicine on the Harvard Medical Service at Boston City Hospital, the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and the Cardiology Branch of the National Heart Institute in Bethesda, Maryland where he was a Clinical Associate and Senior Asst. Surgeon in the United States Public Health Service. Tom began his medical career in the Departments of Pharmacology and Medicine at the U. Cincinnati in 1962. In 1972, he joined the faculty at the Medical University of South Carolina as a Professor of Pharmacology, Professor of Medicine, Chairman of the Dept. of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology and Director of the Medical University Hospital General Clinical Research Center. While at MUSC, he founded and was President of the Drug Science Foundation. In 1986, while at MUSC, he was awarded the Health Science Foundation First Distinguished Professorship Award. While at MUSC, he was also President of the Charleston Museum, the oldest Museum in the United States, a Member of the C & S Bank Advisory Board, and a member of the Charleston Development Board. From 1989 until 1992, with support from the National Heart Institute and the National Science Foundation, he was a Visiting Scientist at Merck in Rahway, N.J. From 1992 until 2014, he was a near full time Volunteer General Internal Medicine Primary Care Provider in economically challenged communities in North and South Carolina and pursued his interests in barriers to Preventable Hospitalizations, and the devastating effects of poverty, willful and unconscious bias on education, health, and economic development in high risk, high poverty level, predominantly African American Communities, i.e., Bamberg County, Williamsburg County, and Columbia, SC 29033. In his Memoirs of a Clinical Pharmacologist and Physician, Tom said, “Our lives are multi-generational gifts of life, personhood, love, and opportunity.”

Tom and Edith Anne cherished their visits back home in Illinois and Missouri, as well as their visits to Blue Hill, Brooklyn, Stonington, and Arcadia National Park in Maine, Scotland, Ireland, England, Germany, Netherlands, France, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Egypt, and Israel. In honor of Tom a donation may be made to the Souls Grown Deep Foundation in Atlanta, GA, founded by William Arnett who discovered Thornton Dial, one of America’s greatest self-taught artists.

The family would like to thank Dawn Breeland for her knowledge, kindness, and selfless assistance as a caregiver. The family would also like to thank Kendall Harris, Crystal Priester and Morgan Webster with Prisma Hospice for their guidance and support.

Funeral arrangements will be shared at a later time.