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Obituary
John M. K. Mislow, MD, PhD, a highly-regarded fifth-year resident and rising star in Neurosurgery remembered as a skilled surgeon, superb scientist and willing teacher, died June 11, 2009, in a mountain climbing accident in Alaska. He was 39.
Family, friends and colleagues from BWH, Children’s Hospital and Brown University, where he completed the research portion of his residency, remembered Dr. Mislow as extraordinary, dedicated and brilliant. Hundreds posted remembrances to his Facebook page.
“The outpouring of love and support from the BWH community has been overwhelming,” said his wife, Linda C. Wang, MD, JD, a BWH dermatologist and clinical director of the Center of Cutaneous Oncology, Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center.
“He had an incredible passion and boundless enthusiasm for life, a deep sense of service and wonderful sense of humor,” she said. “John’s warm, generous and joyous personality endeared him to many. He was a devoted father, husband and son.”
Dr. Mislow routinely expressed his love for his family by calling across the OR when he couldn’t come to the phone and enjoyed hiking and other outdoor activities with his boys, Max, 3, and Jack, almost 2. Dr. Wang said she’ll always remember his loving moments with their boys, including the three playing instruments and singing in their “rock and roll band” and taking “spaceship” rides in their laundry basket.
“He could make me laugh no matter what kind of a day I was having,” she said.
Dr. Mislow was an experienced climber who had scaled Mount Everest. He and Andrew Swanson, a medical school friend and orthopedic surgeon in Minneapolis, died while climbing Mount McKinley in Alaska’s Denali National Park. In 2000, they received the Denali Pro Award for safety, self-sufficiency and for assisting fellow climbers.
Dr. Mislow grew up in Princeton, NJ. His father, Kurt Mislow, PhD, the Hugh Stott Taylor Professor of Chemistry, emeritus, of Princeton University, and his mother, Jacqueline Mislow, MD, PhD, is a retired internist.
He graduated from Princeton with a BS in geophysical sciences and earned his MD and PhD in Pathology from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, where he and his wife met. Both entered medical school after other careers, Dr.Wang as a lawyer and Dr. Mislow as a researcher in geophysics and environmental conservation. They married in 2000, and upon graduating medical school in 2004, he came to BWH to complete his residency in Neurosurgery.
“He chose BWH because of its excellent reputation and, in large part, because of the professional regard he had for Art Day,” Linda Wang said of her husband’s esteem for Arthur Day, MD, BWH’s chief of Neurosurgery.
That high regard was mutual. “He was a rising star in academic neurosurgery, and he had it all going for him,” Day said. “He loved being married, loved his children and loved surgery and science; he had it figured out.”
Dr. Mislow met his own very high standards in everything he did, Day recalled. Early in his residency, he helped develop a database allowing the Neuro ICU to track patient data better, and he was dedicated to his patients in the OR and on inpatient units.
Dr. Mislow’s patient care and surgical experience, coupled with his basic science background, proved an asset in the two-year research portion of his residency, which he completed this spring in the lab of John Donoghue, PhD, director of the Brown University Institute for Brain Science.
Leigh Hochberg, MD, PhD, a neurologist at BWH and MGH and neuroengineer at Brown University, said, “John’s neurosurgery expertise and scientific insights contributed enormously to the design of a system to help people with paralysis and other neurologic disorders.” Dr. Mislow often found himself skillfully leading impromptu teaching moments with Brown students or colleagues at BWH, Hochberg added.
Dr. Mislow would have excelled in any specialty, recalled medical school friend Peter Sadow, MD, PhD, a pathologist at MGH. “John immersed himself in each field, excelling in each rotation with boundless enthusiasm and humor.”
In addition to his wife, children and parents, Dr. Mislow is survived by one brother, attorney Christoher Mislow, of Charlottesville, Va.
The departments of Neurosurgery and Dermatology are holding a service to celebrate his life on Thursday, June 25, at 5 p.m. in the NRB amphitheatre. A reception will follow in the rotunda.
Two funds have been established in Dr. Mislow’s memory.
One fund will support an annual neurosciences lectureship program that will alternate between Brown University and BWH. Checks can be made out to Brown University, with a note that they are to go to the John Mislow Memorial Fund, and sent to: Brown University, Gift Cashier, Box 1877, Providence, RI 02912.
The second is the John Mislow and Andrew Swanson Denali Pro Award Memorial Fund to recognize mountaineers who reflect the highest standards in the sport for safety, self sufficiency, assisting other mountaineers and “leave no trace” environmental practices. Checks may be made out to the Denali National Park and Preserve, with a memo note that the funds are directed Mislow & Swanson fund, and sent to: John Mislow & Andrew Swanson Denali Pro Award Memorial Fund, Talkeetna Ranger Station, PO Box 588, Talkeetna, AK 99676.
3 Comments
I joined Brigham as an emergency department volunteer back in 2004, and at the time, Dr. Mislow was a VERY busy resident. Nevertheless, he welcomed me to shadow him as he did emergency department consults, and he explained the correspondence between radiological imaging and patient histories to me, a curious pre-medical student. He was a natural teacher and a generous physician. I am deeply saddened by this loss and feel great regret for his loved ones.
My heart and prayers go out to his family, sons, and Dr. Wang.
I had the privilege of working with John during his time as the consulting neurosurgical resident for the emergency department. He always ensured the right thing was done for the patient, and was a true professional. His death leaves an enormous void in many places. My thoughts go out to his family, friends, and colleagues.
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