Andrew Blinn Larkin, M. D., 76, died on August 11, 2023, at his home in Northampton, MA, following a long illness. He was born in New Britain, CT, on September 20, 1946, the son of John C. Larkin, II, M.D., a radiologist, and Alice Blinn Larkin, a former nurse. His father served on the first team of U.S. scientists allowed into Nagasaki to study the medical consequences of the devastation following the second atomic bomb dropped on Japan at the end of World War II. Stories of that devastation would spark profound antiwar sentiments in his son.
Around the age of six Andy was diagnosed with polio. Fortunately he did not develop paralysis (his walking was only temporarily impaired). Remarkably he became a distance runner as a schoolboy at the Taft School in Watertown, CT.
After Taft, Andy attended Harvard College, graduating in 1968. His competitive running and his 6’ 5” height combined with an interest in Harvard’s rowing tradition made Andy a prime candidate for crew. He distinguished himself on Harvard’s varsity heavyweight eight that went undefeated in college competition throughout the mid-1960’s. His crews won the Eastern Rowing Championships (1966, ’67, ’68); a gold medal at the 1967 Pan American Games; a silver medal at the 1967 European Championships in Vichy, France; and won the 1968 Olympic Rowing trials at Long Beach, CA, earning the right to represent the United States in Mexico City, where they reached the finals but fell short of a medal. Andy rowed several times in Boston’s Head of the Charles Regatta (including in the very first “Head”). He also rowed in the U.S. eight-oared entry in the 1966 World Rowing Championships in Bled,Yugoslavia (now Slovenia). All those rowing experiences—as well as his life-long enjoyment of recreational rowing in a single or double shell along the Connecticut River and elsewhere are documented in his 2018 book, My Life in Boats, Fast and Slow.
While in Mexico competing at the Olympics in the autumn of 1968, he was concurrently a first year Harvard Medical School student, therefore having to study conscientiously between workouts. At the same time, he was one of six members of the 1968 Olympic eight who publicly declared support for the Olympic Project for Human Rights/OPHR, organized by Professor Harry Edwards, the Reverend Martin Luther King, and other civil rights leaders to highlight injustices around the globe. Original OPHR goals included an ultimately successful demand to expel South Africa from participation in Olympic competition until their system of apartheid was abolished.
After medical school, Andy served three years in the National Health Corps and briefly practiced as a primary care physician in Ithaca, NY. Wanting to provide better care for his patients, he opted for additional training, completing a residency in internal medicine at the Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre, PA, and a fellowship in pulmonary diseases at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester. With Board Certification in those specialties in hand, he moved in 1983 to Western Massachusetts, where he remained for the rest of his life.
He worked long hours, with great dedication, as an Internal Medicine physician at several practices in Amherst until his retirement in 2005. His home throughout his time in the Pioneer Valley was in Northampton, a spot he chose so he could be near patients who needed to be admitted to Cooley Dickinson Hospital. In the 1990s, he served for a time as Chief of Medicine at Cooley Dickinson and also as the first chairman of the hospital’s newly formed Ethics Committee. In that role, he drew attention to the need for protocols around patients’ rights, including the right not to be resuscitated.
Andy was a free spirit whose finely honed sense of injustice provided him with a lifetime of causes. He was an antiwar activist, an advocate for the homeless, an adversary of nuclear power and a believer in truly amateur sports.
He bemoaned that most obituaries omit the cause of death, a notation he felt would help in tracking diseases. His own death was from congestive heart failure. A struggle with mental illness marked his final years.
He is survived by his daughter Sarah Larkin of Northampton, his son Daniel Larkin of St. Paul, MN, his stepdaughter Elizabeth Larkin of Northampton, two of his three former wives, five grandchildren, his brother Timothy Larkin and sister Margot Larkin plus five nieces and nephews.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Holyoke Rows, a non-profit dedicated to bringing rowing to non-traditional populations, including youth and people with disabilities (holyokerows.org). Memories may be shared through the website ahearnfuneralhome.com.