Walter Clement Alvarez (July 22, 1884 - June 181, 1978) was an American medical doctor of Spanish descent. He practiced medicine in California from 1913 to 1925 and later became Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota in 1934 eventually serving as Consultant in Medicine Emeritus. After his retirement in 1951, he wrote a medical column that became syndicated throughout North America. The Walter C. Alvarez Memorial Award is named in his honor and presented to honor excellence in communicating health care developments and concepts to the public. Alvarez\' syndrome, hysterical abdominal bloating without any excess of gas in the digestive tract is named after him as well as Alvarez-waves which are painless uterine contractions during the length of pregnancy. He is the father of Nobel Prize winning physicist Luis Walter Alvarez and the grandfather of geologist Walter Alvarez.?,adult