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Show John O. Susac, MD (1940-2012) It is with great sadness to note the passing of John O. Susac, MD. He was a mentor and friend who passed away on February 23, 2012, at age 71, due to complications from lung cancer. He was several days shy of his 72nd birthday and never smoked. John graduated valedictorian of Powhatan Point High School in Ohio and married his high school sweetheart, Lois. He earned academic scholarships to Ohio State University's undergraduate and medical school programs and graduated cum laude from both. John also earned membership in the Phi Beta Kappa Society and was named to the Land Acre Medical Honor Society at the Ohio State Medical School. After graduating from medical school, he entered the Army, completing his internship and residency at Letterman Army Medical Center in San Francisco and spent time with William F. Hoyt at the University of California, San Fran-cisco. He was Chief of Neurology at William Beaumont General Hospital in El Paso, Texas, and he completed a neuro-ophthal-mology fellowship at the University ofMiami, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, with J. Lawton Smith. He was then appointed as Assis-tant Chief of Neurology and Neuro-Ophthalmology at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, and served as Associate Professor of Neurology with Uniformed Services Uni-versity of Health Sciences. During his career in the Army, he rose to the rank of Colonel. In 1978, John decided to forgo an aca-demic university practice and joined Neurology and Neurosurgery Associates in Winter Haven, Florida. It was from this office that he conducted all of his future scholarly works. In 1975, John saw a young woman with a previously unreported clinical triad of encephalopathy, branch retinal artery occlusions, and deafness. This patient was presented to him at a conference in Albany, New York. Shortly thereafter, John Selhorst referred a 40-year-old woman with an identical set of clinical findings. They published these cases in 1979 as microangiopathy of the brain and retina and since then there have been many additional patients reported. In 1986, John presented a 26-year-old woman with this syndrome at the San Francisco Neuro-Ophthalmological Symposium, held in honor of William F. Hoyt. John relayed Dr. Hoyt's response as "Well, this is just another case of Susac's syndrome!" Robert Daroff, then Editor-in-Chief of Neurology, asked John to write a brief review for neurologists using the eponymous monicker, Susac syndrome. John often told me that his phone would ring at least once a week with a newly diagnosed case somewhere around the world from physicians asking for advice. He created the designation "Gass plaques" in honor of J. Donald Gass, MD, for the pseudoemboli found in the retinal arterioles of his patients with the syndrome. He also clarified the magnetic resonance imaging findings of this disorder. John was passionate about the syndrome that he described and educated others about it. I remember clearly the day that he called me up and exclaimed "Let's take the show on the road!" This led to international lectures in Portugal and Spain and he was in-strumental for organizing a conference on his syndrome at Ohio State University. He had a tie designed with a large number of corpus callosums on them and of course the callosum had the distinctive "holes" that are found so commonly in the condition. The tie colors were of his alma mater and he would pass these out to people who had diagnosed cases of his syndrome. John is survived by his wife, 2 daughters, 2 sons, 4 grandchildren, 1 brother, and 2 sisters. I believe that he will be best remembered for his brilliance, humility, and exuberance about life. Simmons Lessell once said, "He is a brilliant man," and followed it by saying, "He hides it well." Those who knew John understood his low-key manner. However, I will never forget an incident showing a more fiery side of his personality when he was being introduced to a gathering in Portugal. He walked around the partition, opened up his coat, and exclaimed "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Johnny!" He will be sorely missed. Robert Egan, MD St. Helena Hospital, St. Helena, California eganr8@gmail.com 292 Egan: J Neuro-Ophthalmol 2012; 32: 292-292 In Memoriam Copyright © North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. |
