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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Dr. Leslie T. McClinton was a research assistant at the University of Chicago Met Lab.

After three months of working at the Met Lab, McClinton was transferred to Oak Ridge in 1943. At Oak Ridge, he worked as an analytical chemist and his wife, Kathleen, was a librarian. In 1945, he signed a petition based on the Szilard Petition calling for the atomic bomb to be demonstrated to the Japanese.

 

Early Years

Leslie Theodore McClinton was born in Loveland, Colorado on September 26, 1919. He graduated summa cum laude from Monmouth College with a B.S. in chemistry. McClinton pursued his Ph.D. at the University at Champaign Urbana, where he also met his future wife, Kathleen “Kay” Ferne Bates. The couple married at Northwestern University’s chapel in 1942.

 

Later Years

Following World War II, the McClintons returned to Chicago and began to study at the University of Illinois Medical School. In 1949, he graduated from medical school and joined the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS). With the PHS, he interned a year in San Francisco before going to Hawaii. 

McClinton decided to do his surgical residency at the U.S. Public Health Hospital in Baltimore, MD. After his residency, he continued to work at this hospital and eventually served as the head of the cancer surgery department for three years.

The family moved to Seattle in 1957 for McClinton’s new job as deputy chief of surgery at the Public Health Hospital. The following year, he left the PHS to open a private practice in Bellevue, WA. Besides maintaining his private practice, McClinton was a founding staff member of Overlake Hospital in Bellevue. 

At the age of eighty-nine, Dr. Leslie Theodore McClinton died in Bellevue, Washington on December 22, 2008.

 

For more information about McClinton, please see the following reference:

Leslie T. McClinton’s Timeline
1919 Sep 26th Born in Loveland, Colorado.

1942 Joined the Manhattan Project as a research assistant at the University of Chicago Met Lab.

1942 Married Kathleen “Kay” Ferne Bates.

19431945 Worked at Oak Ridge as an analytical chemist.

1949 Graduated from the University of Illinois Medical School. medical school and joined the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS).

1957 Moved to Seattle for job as deputy chief of surgery at the Public Health Hospital.

1958 Left the PHS to open a private practice in Bellevue, WA.

2008 Dec 20th At the age of eighty-nine, died in Bellevue, Washington.

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