Lawrence Chaffin; Prominent Surgeon, Hospital Official

Dr. Lawrence Chaffin, 103, nationally recognized surgeon and educator who was a leader in Los Angeles hospitals. A native of Farmington, Utah, Chaffin studied at Brigham Young University, the University of Utah and Harvard University School of Medicine. After surgical training at Massachusetts General Hospital and service in the Medical Corps during World War I, Chaffin established his general surgery practice in Los Angeles in 1922, when the city had a population of 500,000. He later served as chief of staff at Good Samaritan Hospital and Los Angeles Childrens Hospital as well as chief surgeon at County-USC Medical Center and Santa Fe Employees Hospital Assn., where a surgical wing was named in his honor. He was president of the Western Surgical Assn., a vice president of the American Surgical Assn., and president of the Los Angeles Academy of Medicine and the Los Angeles Surgical Society. In 1954, the American College of Surgeons gave him a special award for creating a technical medical film. In addition to his medical practice and teaching at USC, Chaffin managed a farming operation in Blythe for six decades. On Monday in Los Angeles.