Mary Yun-Chen (Kao) Chin, 90, passed away at her Princeton home on June 19, 2014. Born in Zhejiang, China, on June 12, 1924, Dr. Kao graduated from St. Mary's Hall, an Episcopal senior high school in Shanghai (now called Shanghai No.3 Girls High School) in 1941. She attended the Université Aurore for two years, majoring in chemistry before transferring to Shanghai Medical College. Completing their medical curriculum and a one-year rotating internship, she graduated second in her class and received her M.D. in spring of 1948.

Dr. Kao came to the United States for further training and started a rotating internship at St. Francis Hospital (La Crosse, WI), now part of the Mayo Clinic Health System, in July 1948. From July 1949 to June 1953, she did pediatric residency at Hospital for Women and Children (New York, NY), postgraduate work at Harvard Medical School, and further pediatric residency years at Children's Memorial Hospital (now called Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago) and St. Louis City Hospital. Among her scholarly contributions was the third case report in the English literature of nephrogenic diabetes insipidus, a genetic disorder that causes life-threatening dehydration and hypernatremia in infants. In the midst of her residency years, the Communists announced their takeover of China in October 1949. This great and generous nation called America, the "Shining City on a Hill", not only welcomed her to stay but also provided a path to citizenship.

After staying home for many years to raise her children, she reentered the workforce and did another year of residency at Martland Hospital (Newark, NJ) prior to becoming a staff physician at Willets Health Center, at Douglass College (now part of Rutgers University). Practicing adolescent medicine there, she retired in 1989.

Dr. Kao married Te Ning Chin in 1953 in St. Louis, MO. They moved to Princeton in 1958. Her husband preceded her in death. She is survived by sons Alvin of Wynnewood, PA, and Gilbert of Olney, MD, two grandchildren Fiona and Meredith, and sisters Rose Chang, Florence Shen, Evelina Loke, Miranda Linne, and Judith Ng.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you make donations to either Princeton First Aid and Rescue Squad (www.pfars.org) or to http://www.PACTforanimals.org, a non-profit organization which gives peace of mind to families of long-term inpatients in children's hospitals as well as to military personnel deployed overseas by placing their pets in temporary foster homes until their owners can be reunited with the companion animals they love.