Joseph F. Boyle; Ex-Head of AMA, CMA

Joseph F. Boyle, former president of the American and California Medical Assns., died Thursday in Williamsburg, Va. He was 67.

Boyle died of cancer, the American Society of Internal Medicine announced. The Los Angeles internist had served as chief executive officer of the society from 1985, when he left the American Medical Assn. presidency, until his retirement in March.

“Although few physicians have influenced medical policy more than Joe Boyle, there was a personal and caring side of Joe that touched each of us, leaving enduring memories of warmth, strength and guidance,” AMA President Eugene S. Ogrod II said.

Boyle, a native of Jersey City, N.J., who earned his medical degree at Temple University, was a fixture in organized medicine throughout his career. He moved to California to complete his training at Long Beach Veterans Administration Medical Center and was licensed by the state in 1952. He practiced internal medicine, with an emphasis on diseases of the chest, in Los Angeles for 30 years.

Boyle moved through all the chairs of office of the Los Angeles County Medical Assn., including president in 1967-68, before moving on to the state and national organizations, which he headed, respectively, in 1980-81 and 1984-85. He also served on the AMA Board of Trustees from 1975 until 1983.

“There is going to be some sort of limitation put on resources (available for health care) in the future,” he told The Times as president of the national group in 1984. “But we don’t have to have a collision that will lead to services just not being available to some people at some times.

“It will be important for us to return to something people have given up, or had taken away from them,” he said, “and that is the responsibility for the consequences of their actions.”

Ironically, Boyle smoked throughout the interview.

“It is not a very smart thing to do,” he told the reporter. “It is a very dumb thing, as a matter of fact. It is something that I need to stop, no question about it. I am probably relying on my ancestors (a cancer-free family) more than I should.”

Known by his colleagues as a remarkably fine communicator, Boyle told the LACMA Physician magazine last spring that he never set out to become president even of the county medical group, much less the state or national one. Somebody nominated him as a delegate to the California Medical Assn., he said, while he was on vacation.

A Catholic, Boyle said he became a medical activist partly because of the edict of a Catholic priest who was upset with him because he would not enter the Jesuit seminary.

“He said: ‘Joe, you have a certain amount of talent that God has given you, and if you don’t use it for the good of other people, you’ll go to hell,’ ” Boyle recalled.

Boyle is survived by his wife, Marilyn, of Williamsburg, Va., and 10 children from their previous marriages.

The family has asked that any memorial donations be made to the Internal Medicine Center to Advance Research and Education, 2011 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Suite 800, Washington, D.C. 23185.