Archie Arthur Hoffman was born in Boston, Mass., in 1913. He graduated from Revere High School (Revere, Mass.,) in 1930, Massachusetts State College in 1934 and the Medical College of Virginia in 1938, standing second in his class. He spent the next two years as a medical house officer at the Boston City Hospital on the V & VI Medical Services. He was the first house physician on the latter service.
In September 1940, he came on duty with the Army Air Corps at Westover Field as a first lieutenant. He spent 22 months there in a variety of medical positions, was made an aviation medical examiner in August 1941 and a captain in 1942.
After receiving his training in tropical and military medicine, he was assigned to the Sixth Air Force from July 1942 to April 1944 where he ran hospitals in Guatemala, Peru and Panama. He was rated as a flight surgeon in October 1942 and flew several long-range anti-submarine patrols in tactical B-17s and LB-30s from his bases. In February 1943, he was promoted to grade of major.
Between June 1944 and November 1946, he was assigned to the Army Air Forces Personnel Distribution Command with the first 17 months spent at Redistribution Station #1 at Atlantic City and the following 12 months at the Overseas Replacement Depot #5 at Greensboro, N.C. In both stations, he started as a flight surgeon, became the base surgeon and closed out the medical facilities. In Atlantic City, he was the personal physician to the cast of the Winged Victory show.
Major Hoffman went overseas again in November 1946 as the command surgeon of the Antilles Area where he operated six hospitals and acted as consultant in internal medicine. In 1947, he reported evidence of a factitious extrinsic asthma in the Antilles Area due to an indigenous grass, chloris petrea, the pollen of which affected children and adults. He was rated as an aircraft medical observer in August 1948.
In August 1949, he entered the Army Medical Residence Program in which he remained until August 1951. The last year was spent in charge of the Peripheral Vascular Service at Walter Reed Army Hospital. He performed significant work on traumatic vascular and cold injuries resulting from the Korean conflict. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in this period.
In August 1951, Colonel Hoffman was assigned as chief of medicine at the USAF Hospital, Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, where he established a proficiency training program for physicians, produced a series of monographs in basic science subjects and set up a cardiovascular center and a poliomyelitis center. In January 1953, he was reassigned to Headquarters Technical Training Air Force as deputy surgeon and director, Professional and Aviation Medicine divisions. He was certified the following month by the American Board of Internal Medicine. He supervised 10 hospitals ranging from 125 to 1,100 beds in size.
After 22 months, Colonel Hoffman was reassigned to the Office of the Surgeon General as consultant in internal medicine and later as chief of the Consultants Group. In April 1955, he was promoted to colonel. He participated in the formulation of Air Force directives on tuberculosis, poliomyelitis, acute renal failure, the central electrocardiographic repository and the hospital professional library. He stimulated a research study at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology to determine the amount of covert coronary artery disease in a relatively young military population. On July 1, 1956, he was rated as a senior flight surgeon.
In November 1958, Colonel Hoffman was assigned to Headquarters Command U.S. Air Force as director of professional services, USAF Hospital Andrews, and deputy command surgeon. He assumed command in August 1958. Under his tenure the following teaching programs have been instituted at USAF Hospital Andrews: medical internship, dental internship, general practice residency, dietetic training, Phase II Medical Laboratory Specialist Training and Foreign Observer Medical Training. The hospital Cancer Detection Program has been approved by the American College of Surgeons and a formal course in Medical Technology has been accredited by the American Society of Clinical Pathologists. He was selected by the surgeon general to present lectures on Aviation Cardiology to the Annual AIRCENT Medical Conference in France in 1960. In May 1961, his unit was given the Air Force Outstanding Unit Award.
General Hoffman has kept active in internal medicine, aerospace medicine, cardiovascular diseases; in teaching and clinical research. He has published a number of scientific papers in the field of internal medicine and at present is engaged in several cardiac research areas. He has contributed a number of managerial and professional aspects of hospital operation. In 1961, he was given an A rating in internal medicine by the surgeon general and that of command flight surgeon.
Source: US Air Force Biography, www.af.mil
Gen. Archie Hoffman Obituary
Archie Arthur Hoffman, 73, a retired major general in the Air Force Medical Corps and founding member of the Society of Air Force Physicians, died June 19 at Malcolm Grow Medical Center at Andrews Air Force Base, where he was commanding officer from 1958 to 1967. He had had a stroke.
Gen. Hoffman, who lived in Bethesda, was born in Boston. He graduated from Massachusetts State College and took his medical degree at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond.
In 1940, he was commissioned in the Army Medical Corps and was assigned to the old Army Air Corps. During World War II, he was a hospital commander and flight surgeon in Central and South America.
He went into the Air Force when it became a separate service in 1947. He took a residency in internal medicine at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the early 1950s and also specialized in injuries caused by the cold in Korea during the war there.
Subsequent assignments included a tour in the Office of the Surgeon General of the Air Force. He also conducted studies on heart problems afflicting the relatively young and active members of the Air Force and on tuberculosis and poliomyelitis.
Gen. Hoffman received the star of a brigadier general during the years he commanded what is now Malcolm Grow Medical Center at Andrews Air Force Base. In 1967, he again was assigned to the Office of the Surgeon General of the Air Force and he was promoted to major general. He retired in 1968 for health reasons.
In retirement, he was a consultant to the American College of Cardiology and a senior consultant in aviation medicine to the Federal Aviation Administration. He continued this work until about 1975.
Gen. Hoffman's military decorations include the Air Force Commendation Medal. The Society of Air Force Physicians, which he helped found, is the professional group of internists in the Air Force. It is a chapter of the American College of Physicians.
Gen. Hoffman's survivors include his wife, Gertrude S. Hoffman of Bethesda; two children, Heidi R. Hoffman, also of Bethesda, and Col. Peter F. Hoffman, the deputy commander of the Malcolm Grow facility and a resident of Andrews Air Force Base, and five grandchildren.
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