Dr. Richard Torpin was born in 1891 in Oakdale, Nebraska and received his medical degree from Rush Medical College in 1917. After service in the US Army Medical Corps (1918-1919) and seven years of rural practice in Nebraska, Torpin was on the clinical faculty at Rush Medical College from 1931-1936.

Torpin joined the Medical College of Georgia faculty in 1936 as professor and head of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department. He served in this capacity until reaching the mandatory age for retirement in 1958. For the first year of his retirement Torpin was head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Shiraz in Iran. He returned to MCG as a professor emeritus.

Around 1940 Torpin organized the MCG Stork Club which benefited medical students and obstetrical patients. Medical students received obstetrical hands-on training and babies were safely delivered in conditions superior than if they had been born at home.

In addition to authoring numerous medical journal articles and four books, Torpin invented several devices and instruments used to facilitate obstetrical labor: the Torpin pelvimeter; the Torpin uterine packer; the Torpin insufflator; and a rubber suction device for extracting the baby’s head instead of the use of forceps.

Dr. Torpin was 84 when he died on February 6, 1976.