2009 ASCP Master

Early in his career, Raymond Gambino, MD, MASCP was drafted into the US Navy during World War II, training in electronics and physics. When the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan, Dr. Gambino questioned whether he wanted to stay in those fields. He then turned to a career in medicine.

He studied at the University of Rochester and interned at Bellevue Hospital in New York. He was appalled at the quality of laboratory tests at that time. “I knew we could make better tests,” said Dr. Gambino, who decided to become a lab director.

He did his residency in pathology at Columbia-Presbyterian in New York City in the early 1950s, and soon had an opportunity to be a clinical chemist and assistant pathologist at St. Luke’s Hospital, Milwaukee, WI. There, he was able to conduct pH and blood gas experiments measuring pH and PCO2 on blood collected routinely in heparinized Vacutainer tubes. Some said it wouldn’t work, but his research soon led him to share his newly gained knowledge of accurate blood pH measurement at the 1957 ASCP Annual Meeting in New Orleans. He went on to present workshops for the Society for almost two decades.

Dr. Gambino began his work with the ASCP’s Check Sample Program in 1961 and became a member of the Council on Clinical Chemistry. He was coordinator of the program from1961 until 1970 and served as Chair from 1966 to 1969.

He then served as editor-in-chief of the ASCP Check Sample program (1969-1992), was Clinical Editor of the Medical Laboratory Observer (1969-1978), and held many other principal positions with such institutions as St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center, New York City, and MetPath (now known as Quest) in Teterboro, NJ.

Over the years, he has performed more than 1,000 autopsies and, in 1990, he received the ASCP’s prestigious Ward Burdick Award.

Dr. Gambino now lives in Boca Raton, FL, with his wife. He has two children and four grandchildren.