Hugh D Auchincloss

Hugh Auchincloss, a retired surgeon long associated with Columbia University and Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, N.J., died on Sunday at his home in Westwood, Mass. He was 83. The cause was Alzheimer's disease, his family said. Dr. Auchincloss, who retired in 1992, also had a private practice in Ridgewood. He was an associate clinical professor of surgery at Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons and an attending surgeon at Valley Hospital. He was an early advocate of using a lumpectomy and radiation where feasible instead of a radical mastectomy to treat breast cancer. Born in New York, Dr. Auchincloss graduated from Yale University in 1938 and from Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1942. He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Katharine Lawrence Bundy Auchincloss; three daughters, Katharine A. Corbin of Phoenix, Margaret A. Strachan of London and Dr. Elizabeth L. Auchincloss of New Rochelle, N.Y.; a son, Dr. Hugh Auchincloss Jr. of Newton, Mass.; two sisters, Maria A. Look of West Tisbury, Mass., and Barbara A. Thacher of New Canaan, Conn.; 11 grandchildren, and a great-grandson.