Over the course of my career in oncology, great strides were made in cancer care, and I am tremendously proud of this progress. Yet for me, it’s the relationships built with my patients and their families that have been most important. I’ve been blessed.
For his inspiring and unwavering dedication to cancer treatment, patient care and our hospital, we are very pleased to honor Dr. Dickerman Hollister Jr. at the Benefit for Greenwich Hospital on September 22, 2023.
Over his 40-year career, Dr. Dickerman Hollister Jr. built and shaped Greenwich Hospital’s oncology program to where it is today. At every turn, he embraced new treatments and approaches, all of which have paved the way to significant advances at Greenwich Hospital. He is widely known for his natural ability to find and gently nurture a connection with each patient, including their families, even over generations. His legacy is the curative balance of medical breakthroughs and good old-fashioned empathy.
Dr. Hollister was born at Greenwich Hospital and graduated from Yale and the University of Virginia Medical School, completing his residency at The New York Hospital and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He returned to his hometown in 1981 and served as Clinical Assistant Professor at the Yale School of Medicine and Greenwich Hospital’s Chief of Staff, Chairman of Oncology, and Medical Director of the Hospice Program. He was instrumental in developing Greenwich Hospital’s oncology program and, once part of Yale New Haven Health, growing it at Smilow Cancer Hospital.
Beyond his medical profession, Dr. Hollister was a past president of both the Fairfield County Medical Association and the Connecticut State Medical Society, and a board member of multiple organizations, including local chapters of the American Red Cross, the Greenwich Health Association, the Leukemia Society, and the Breast Cancer Alliance.
Every day proves that he was born to be a doctor – a career he chose as the mere age of 10, inspired by the television melodrama “Ben Casey.” A few years later, he broke the “gender barrier” at Greenwich Hospital, becoming the first male candy striper, counting pills in the basement pharmacy. Being a doctor is in his bones, in his blood, and in his heart.
“This has been such a fulfilling profession,” he said at his retirement, “helping patients along difficult journeys, striving for cures if possible, but support and love always. I can imagine no greater calling.”
