Richard (Dick) Whittington, emeritus professor of radiation oncology in Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, died June 29 from acute myeloid leukemia. He was 67.

Born in Shaker Heights, Ohio, Dr. Whittington attended Rice University for his undergraduate degree and then Jefferson Medical School. After completing his residency in 1981, he served as a staff radiotherapist for the Naval Hospital in Bethesda and was head of the radiation oncology branch 1982-1984.

He joined Penn in 1985 as a lecturer of radiation oncology at HUP and was promoted to assistant, then associate and then full professor in 2002. He was listed in the second edition of The Best Doctors in America, 1994-1995. He held a number of appointments at Penn, including radiation oncology chair for PSOM, Penn Cancer Center Clinical Trials Group; head of the department of radiation oncology clinic committee; member of the committee to review department of surgery; member of the search committee for director of medical physics; consultant for the PSOM nuclear regulatory commission; and vice chairman of the radiation oncology GI committee and chairman of the radiation oncology committee for the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group.

He retired as an emeritus professor in 2010. In 2012, he earned his master’s in bioethics and clinical ethics mediation from Penn.

He also served as chief of radiation oncology at the Philadelphia VA Hospital beginning in 2004. He was the director of palliative care at Crozer-Chester Medical Center starting in 2017 and served for several years on Crozer-Keystone Health System’s patient safety committee and institutional review board. Dr. Whittington also worked at New Jersey’s VA Medical Center-East Orange.

Dr. Whittington is survived by his wife, Jane L. Coleman; three sisters, Kathryn Enchelmayer, Linda Ferguson and Anne; sons, Richard C. (Shanna) and Daniel Scullington (Carolyn), daughter, Sarah (Patrick Doyle); and grandson, Gabriel Richard.