Obituary

John Mislow, Neurosurgery Resident, 39

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, 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.

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, and graduated from Princeton University 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.

In addition to his wife, children and parents, Dr. Mislow is survived by one brother, attorney Christoher Mislow, of Charlottesville, Va.

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.