The physicians and staff of BMA want to pay tribute to our colleagues
who have recently died.
VARANT HAGOPIAN, MD
2013
2013
KARL SORGER, MD
2012
It is with great sadness that we share with you the passing of Dr. Karl Sorger in his 83rd year. Dr. Sorger joined the Mount Auburn Hospital Medical Staff in September of 1962 as a staff Pathologist. He was born in Graz, Austria in 1929, and earned his Medical Degree in 1954 at the University of Graz Medical School. While a Resident at the University of
Glasgow in Scotland, he met his wife Elizabeth. In 1957, Dr. Sorger relocated to Canada and worked as an Assistant Professor of Pathology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
At the invitation of Dr. H. Edward MacMahon in 1962, Dr. Sorger came to Mount Auburn Hospital. He served as Assistant Chief of Pathology from 1963 until he was appointed Chairman of Pathology at Mount Auburn Hospital in 1978, and became a Clinical Professor of Pathology at Tufts University School of Medicine in 1980. He was Board Certified in
Anatomic and Clinical Pathology, and served as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and a Fellow of the College of American Pathologists. He was also appointed Lecturer in Pathology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Sorger served as President of the Mount Auburn Hospital Medical Staff in 1984 and subsequently served as a Trustee on the Mount Auburn Hospital and Foundation Boards.
Dr. Sorger is survived by his wife, two sons, Peter and Martin and four grandsons.
ROGER F. LANGE, MD
2012
Rather than seek acclaim within his specialty, Dr. Roger Lange focused on treating one cancer patient at a time. Then, at the end of the day, he went home and spent time with his family.
“The work that he did was untainted by external rewards,’’ said Dr. Glenn Bubley, who started working with Dr. Lange in the early 1980s. “He was well known amongst the cancer community but not among hoity-toity specialists worldwide.’’
In the community of the seriously ill, Dr. Lange sported a Groucho Marx mustache that made him instantly recognizable, and he offered unhurried compassion each time he spoke with a patient.
“He never rushed you,’’ said Julie Korostoff, an attorney who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001 and was his patient until his death. “He really talked to you and listened to you and didn’t talk over you. He addressed every question with a mix of honesty and seriousness.’’
Dr. Lange, who had been chief of the division of hematology-oncology at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge and also was on the staff of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, died Jan. 19 in Beth Israel of complications of multiple myeloma. He was 68 and lived in Brookline.
Bubley said it wasn’t that Dr. Lange had more time than other doctors to spend on his patients. He just made sure to answer all their questions thoroughly and let the conversation unfold without patients feeling rushed.
“He would calm them down, get them to have a realistic, but more positive view of their illness,’’ he said.
Korostoff said that when she was first diagnosed, she was given plenty of advice on what to eat or drink. When a colleague told her green tea would help, she asked Dr. Lange.
“He said the only thing that green tea will do is make your pee green,’’ she said. “It’s a typical kind of comment: Frank, but funny and honest.’’
Dr. Lange, who also taught at Harvard Medical School, loved to make jokes, Bubley said, but they were almost always at his own expense.
“He came from nothing,’’ said Bubley, who added that no question would prompt Dr. Lange to pass judgment on his patients.
“It was well known in our medical center that he had this capacity, this incredible patient-centered approach to medicine,’’ he said.
Born and raised in Chicago, Roger Frederick Lange went to South Shore High School, where he played baseball and basketball.
He met Lois Platt when she sat behind him in a seventh-grade classroom. In eighth grade, they worked together on the student council, and remained close friends until their senior year, when he asked her to the prom. She had turned down another offer, hoping he would ask her.
“I think his friends said ‘What are you waiting for?’ ’’ she recalled, laughing.
In 1961, when they graduated from high school, Dr. Lange went to Harvard College and she went to Brown University in Providence. They wrote letters two or three times a week and visited frequently.
“By senior year I think we were committed to being together,’’ she said. “We were just good friends, and that carried us along until we were old enough to start thinking about getting married.’’
When they both graduated, she went to Columbia University in New York City for a graduate degree in social work, and he attended Harvard Medical School, graduating in 1969.
In 1967, after she finished graduate school, they married and lived in Boston while he finished medical school and a residency.
They moved to Maryland for two years while he worked at the National Institutes of Health, then lived in St. Louis for a year before returning to Boston.
Dr. Lange began growing his thick mustache around the time their son, David, was born. Soon after, their daughter, Nancy, was born.
“Once he grew the mustache we were a family,’’ she said. “I don’t even think of him without it.’’
David said that for his wedding, the family stocked plenty of Groucho Marx masks, and guests who donned them wanted to pose for photos with Dr. Lange.
Throughout his life, Dr. Lange made exercising a priority. During summers, he and his wife rode bikes and in the winters they went cross-country skiing.
“He was always one to say, ‘Just a few more miles,’ ’’ she said.
When their children were in high school, the family, along with her sister, went to France and biked throughout the country.
“One time in France we were lost in fields of sunflowers, and we had to get to the place we were staying before they stopped serving dinner,’’ his wife said. “I just followed him, and we pulled into the place about 10 minutes before the dining hall closed.’’
Dr. Lange and his wife also played tennis, and he coached his son’s Little League baseball team in Brookline.
For Thanksgiving each year, Dr. Lange made a barbeque turkey on the grill on the back deck of the Brookline house where his children grew up and where he and his wife were living when he died.
“It could be snowing, but we’d go out there and have a drink and bring in the turkey,’’ Bubley said.
“He was such a family man,’’ Bubley said, adding that Dr. Lange “never missed the kids’ soccer and basketball games. He was there for them and his wife through all their pursuits. When I had my children, who are about a decade younger, I tried to emulate that style.’’
Throughout Dr. Lange’s career, his wife said, grateful patients sent him gifts by way of saying thanks.
About 10 years ago, the Langes awakened to find their driveway clear of snow that fell the night before. A few snowsotrms passed before they realized the driveway was cleared by a patient who knew where they lived and wanted to repay Dr. Lange for his help.
During the holidays, Dr. Lange’s daughter said, he always received “more gifts than he could handle.’’
A service has been held for Dr. Lange, who in addition to his wife, Lois, his son, David, of New York City, and his daughter, Nancy, of Jamaica Plain, leaves his brother, Paul of Rehoboth Beach, Del.; and two granddaughters.
As Dr. Lange’s health declined, his wife was overwhelmed by the response from the cancer community.
“One man said that he saw cancer as an excuse to go see Dr. Lange,’’ she said, recalling the response of her husband’s patients. “They consider him a close personal friend. With my own loss, my heart goes out to them, too.’’
Boston Globe : February 12, 2012
“The work that he did was untainted by external rewards,’’ said Dr. Glenn Bubley, who started working with Dr. Lange in the early 1980s. “He was well known amongst the cancer community but not among hoity-toity specialists worldwide.’’
In the community of the seriously ill, Dr. Lange sported a Groucho Marx mustache that made him instantly recognizable, and he offered unhurried compassion each time he spoke with a patient.
“He never rushed you,’’ said Julie Korostoff, an attorney who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001 and was his patient until his death. “He really talked to you and listened to you and didn’t talk over you. He addressed every question with a mix of honesty and seriousness.’’
Dr. Lange, who had been chief of the division of hematology-oncology at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge and also was on the staff of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, died Jan. 19 in Beth Israel of complications of multiple myeloma. He was 68 and lived in Brookline.
Bubley said it wasn’t that Dr. Lange had more time than other doctors to spend on his patients. He just made sure to answer all their questions thoroughly and let the conversation unfold without patients feeling rushed.
“He would calm them down, get them to have a realistic, but more positive view of their illness,’’ he said.
Korostoff said that when she was first diagnosed, she was given plenty of advice on what to eat or drink. When a colleague told her green tea would help, she asked Dr. Lange.
“He said the only thing that green tea will do is make your pee green,’’ she said. “It’s a typical kind of comment: Frank, but funny and honest.’’
Dr. Lange, who also taught at Harvard Medical School, loved to make jokes, Bubley said, but they were almost always at his own expense.
“He came from nothing,’’ said Bubley, who added that no question would prompt Dr. Lange to pass judgment on his patients.
“It was well known in our medical center that he had this capacity, this incredible patient-centered approach to medicine,’’ he said.
Born and raised in Chicago, Roger Frederick Lange went to South Shore High School, where he played baseball and basketball.
He met Lois Platt when she sat behind him in a seventh-grade classroom. In eighth grade, they worked together on the student council, and remained close friends until their senior year, when he asked her to the prom. She had turned down another offer, hoping he would ask her.
“I think his friends said ‘What are you waiting for?’ ’’ she recalled, laughing.
In 1961, when they graduated from high school, Dr. Lange went to Harvard College and she went to Brown University in Providence. They wrote letters two or three times a week and visited frequently.
“By senior year I think we were committed to being together,’’ she said. “We were just good friends, and that carried us along until we were old enough to start thinking about getting married.’’
When they both graduated, she went to Columbia University in New York City for a graduate degree in social work, and he attended Harvard Medical School, graduating in 1969.
In 1967, after she finished graduate school, they married and lived in Boston while he finished medical school and a residency.
They moved to Maryland for two years while he worked at the National Institutes of Health, then lived in St. Louis for a year before returning to Boston.
Dr. Lange began growing his thick mustache around the time their son, David, was born. Soon after, their daughter, Nancy, was born.
“Once he grew the mustache we were a family,’’ she said. “I don’t even think of him without it.’’
David said that for his wedding, the family stocked plenty of Groucho Marx masks, and guests who donned them wanted to pose for photos with Dr. Lange.
Throughout his life, Dr. Lange made exercising a priority. During summers, he and his wife rode bikes and in the winters they went cross-country skiing.
“He was always one to say, ‘Just a few more miles,’ ’’ she said.
When their children were in high school, the family, along with her sister, went to France and biked throughout the country.
“One time in France we were lost in fields of sunflowers, and we had to get to the place we were staying before they stopped serving dinner,’’ his wife said. “I just followed him, and we pulled into the place about 10 minutes before the dining hall closed.’’
Dr. Lange and his wife also played tennis, and he coached his son’s Little League baseball team in Brookline.
For Thanksgiving each year, Dr. Lange made a barbeque turkey on the grill on the back deck of the Brookline house where his children grew up and where he and his wife were living when he died.
“It could be snowing, but we’d go out there and have a drink and bring in the turkey,’’ Bubley said.
“He was such a family man,’’ Bubley said, adding that Dr. Lange “never missed the kids’ soccer and basketball games. He was there for them and his wife through all their pursuits. When I had my children, who are about a decade younger, I tried to emulate that style.’’
Throughout Dr. Lange’s career, his wife said, grateful patients sent him gifts by way of saying thanks.
About 10 years ago, the Langes awakened to find their driveway clear of snow that fell the night before. A few snowsotrms passed before they realized the driveway was cleared by a patient who knew where they lived and wanted to repay Dr. Lange for his help.
During the holidays, Dr. Lange’s daughter said, he always received “more gifts than he could handle.’’
A service has been held for Dr. Lange, who in addition to his wife, Lois, his son, David, of New York City, and his daughter, Nancy, of Jamaica Plain, leaves his brother, Paul of Rehoboth Beach, Del.; and two granddaughters.
As Dr. Lange’s health declined, his wife was overwhelmed by the response from the cancer community.
“One man said that he saw cancer as an excuse to go see Dr. Lange,’’ she said, recalling the response of her husband’s patients. “They consider him a close personal friend. With my own loss, my heart goes out to them, too.’’
Boston Globe : February 12, 2012
STEVE KARIAN, MD
2011
We are so very sorry to report that Dr. Steve Karian died May 11, 2011 at his home after a courageous battle with pancreatic cancer. Steve was with his family at home and had just recently returned from a trip to his beloved Paris, France. Dr. Karian joined the Department of Surgery, Division of Urology, on October 26, 1979. He was on the active staff at Mount Auburn as well as Melrose Wakefield Hospital. For many years Dr. Karian and his partners maintained urology offices in Cambridge at Mount Auburn, and in Waltham, Somerville and Melrose. In addition to his excellent clinical skills as a urologic surgeon in the operating room and in the office, Dr. Karian consistently showed true warmth and compassion for his patients. He deeply appreciated the nursing staff and O.R. teams with whom he worked and admired and respected his fellow physicians both in his department and throughout Mount Auburn Hospital. His sense of humor and love of life will always be remembered.
Dr. Karian graduated from the University of Montpellier in Montpellier, France and did his internship at Boston City Hospital. He completed his surgical residency and his residency in urology at Boston University Medical Center. His many professional activities included service as President of the Deaconess Waltham Medical Staff and as a member of the Deaconess Waltham Board of Trustees. He was active for many years in the Armenian Medical Association and served a term as President of the Association.
More recently Dr. Karian and his family traveled frequently to Paris where they had purchased a vacation apartment. He spoke fluent French and visited France as often as possible. His love of art and all things French was second only to his love of family. Our sympathies go out to his wife Dr. Melody Craft Karian and his two children, Laurel and Peter. He was pre-deceased by his daughter, Lily.
MADELINE CRIVELLO, MD
2011
By
Bryan Marquard
: The Boston Globe :
March 14, 2011
As it did with her mother, breast cancer entered Dr. Madeline Crivello’s life when she was young, just 40. Given a 5 percent chance of living five years, she decided she wanted to see her children grow up and endured an experimental treatment and a bone-marrow transplant before celebrating a disease-free fifth anniversary of her diagnosis.
“Many other women who’d been through this with me had not made it,’’ Dr. Crivello told the Globe in 2004, when radio station WMJX-FM in Boston honored her with an Exceptional Women award. “I asked myself, Why was I spared?’’
Cancer, it turned out, was malady and muse.
“The experience of being a patient was actually a great gift in disguise,’’ she wrote for the 25th anniversary report of her Harvard and Radcliffe class. “I treat my patients differently now. The illness also opened my mind to evaluating what is called ‘alternative treatment’; in the process, I have made many wonderful friends while pursuing nontraditional methods of healing.’’
Dr. Crivello, the first director of women’s imaging at the Hoffman Breast Center at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, died of a recurrence of cancer on Feb. 19 at Avow Hospice in Naples, Fla., near where she was staying with relatives to avoid the winter cold. She was 58 and lived in Newtonville.
“She had an internal spiritual strength that was tied up in her Catholicism and her personality, and they were intertwined,’’ said Dr. Michael J. Shortsleeve, who chairs the radiology department at Mount Auburn Hospital. “Madeline used this incredible inner strength to her advantage and to her patients’ advantage. When she would talk to you, you had a sense that she had this inner energy that was helping to heal her, and that she would transfer to other people to heal them.’’
Alice Hoffman, a novelist who lives in Cambridge, lent her name and financial support to the center at Mount Auburn Hospital after being treated there for breast cancer and encountering physicians such as Dr. Crivello.
“I was the first patient she came out to as a survivor,’’ Hoffman said. “In comforting me, she told me her own story. Then she began to do that with other people, and it was hugely comforting. She was a great caregiver as a doctor, but she was also a great caregiver as an incredibly passionate woman and a survivor.’’
Hoffman was among the writers who honored Dr. Crivello with a Rheta Foster Award in 2009 during an “Evening With Your Favorite Authors’’ gathering in Cambridge.
Hearing Dr. Crivello’s story “meant a great deal to me and to her, because she no longer had to keep those parts of her separate and could be a whole person with her patients, which was really rare in those relationships,’’ Hoffman said. “You felt cared for in a deep, almost spiritual way when she cared for you.’’
Healing was a calling Madeline Silvia Crivello first heard growing up in Milwaukee and suburban Glendale, Wis., when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at 35.
“When Mom was near death, Lena was 13,’’ said her brother Frank of Pompano Beach, Fla. “She knew at that moment that she had to be a doctor and had to serve other people.’’
Her parents were immigrants from Sicily and years later, to celebrate the fifth anniversary of her cancer diagnosis, she visited “a small fishing village where they were born and raised,’’ Dr. Crivello wrote in her 25th anniversary Harvard-Radcliffe report. “I was so touched to be able to stand in the small church where they had been baptized and look at the statues I had heard so much about.’’
She graduated in 1969 from Nicolet High School in Glendale, from Radcliffe four years later, and from the Yale School of Medicine in 1977. After further training, including as chief resident in radiology at Beth Israel Hospital, she began her career and soon joined the staff of Mount Auburn.
“Madeline was one of the most organized persons you can imagine,’’ said Dr. Rose Goldman, a physician at Cambridge Hospital who shared an apartment with Dr. Crivello at Yale. “Besides being very intelligent, she was very quick and could do many things quickly and efficiently. She just had tremendous focus to accomplish all the things she wanted to do. In between her courses, she managed to bake loaves of bread.’’
At Mount Auburn and elsewhere, Dr. Crivello was famous for her biscotti and Christmas cookies.
“Madeline was the kind of baker who would find the best of every ingredient,’’ said her friend Caren Cummings Adams, director of interactive communications at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. “She would spend the weekend searching for the best hazelnuts, the best this, the best that. And then she would spend the entire next weekend baking. She never went anywhere empty-handed, and would never go to Dana-Farber without bringing cookies. The doctors would say ‘Thank you,’ and she would say, ‘This is so you will cure me.’ ’’
Dr. Crivello, whose marriage to Dr. Edward Nardell ended in divorce, lived more than 18 years beyond her diagnosis, long enough to see her daughter, Maria Nardell, begin studying medicine and son, Anthony Nardell, approach graduation from Marquette University in Milwaukee.
“She’s always been an inspiration to all of us, and particularly me as someone who followed in her footsteps,’’ said Maria, who, like her mother, went to Harvard and now is at Yale’s medical school.
“I didn’t always want it to seem like I was doing exactly what she was doing, but as I’ve gotten older, and especially now, I feel it’s the greatest honor to be considered like her.’’
Dr. Crivello, her daughter said, “was very intuitive with people, and as her daughter, we were incredibly close. She could read a blink.’’
In addition to her daughter, son, and brother, Dr. Crivello leaves another brother, Joseph of Storrs, Conn.
A memorial service is planned for 3 p.m. Friday in the auditorium of Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge.
“She drew people to her, at events or even small dinner parties,’’ her daughter said. “She had an interest in everybody, loved learning about people, and people loved her.’’
As Dr. Crivello opened herself to healing possibilities beyond the bounds of traditional medicine, “she felt there was more on this earth than we could see or touch,’’ Adams said. During a visit to Florida when Dr. Crivello was dying, “I said, ‘This is not goodbye; if anybody in this world can communicate with me from beyond, it’s you, so don’t say goodbye.’ And she said, ‘No, this is not goodbye.’ ’’
As it did with her mother, breast cancer entered Dr. Madeline Crivello’s life when she was young, just 40. Given a 5 percent chance of living five years, she decided she wanted to see her children grow up and endured an experimental treatment and a bone-marrow transplant before celebrating a disease-free fifth anniversary of her diagnosis.
“Many other women who’d been through this with me had not made it,’’ Dr. Crivello told the Globe in 2004, when radio station WMJX-FM in Boston honored her with an Exceptional Women award. “I asked myself, Why was I spared?’’
Cancer, it turned out, was malady and muse.
“The experience of being a patient was actually a great gift in disguise,’’ she wrote for the 25th anniversary report of her Harvard and Radcliffe class. “I treat my patients differently now. The illness also opened my mind to evaluating what is called ‘alternative treatment’; in the process, I have made many wonderful friends while pursuing nontraditional methods of healing.’’
Dr. Crivello, the first director of women’s imaging at the Hoffman Breast Center at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, died of a recurrence of cancer on Feb. 19 at Avow Hospice in Naples, Fla., near where she was staying with relatives to avoid the winter cold. She was 58 and lived in Newtonville.
“She had an internal spiritual strength that was tied up in her Catholicism and her personality, and they were intertwined,’’ said Dr. Michael J. Shortsleeve, who chairs the radiology department at Mount Auburn Hospital. “Madeline used this incredible inner strength to her advantage and to her patients’ advantage. When she would talk to you, you had a sense that she had this inner energy that was helping to heal her, and that she would transfer to other people to heal them.’’
Alice Hoffman, a novelist who lives in Cambridge, lent her name and financial support to the center at Mount Auburn Hospital after being treated there for breast cancer and encountering physicians such as Dr. Crivello.
“I was the first patient she came out to as a survivor,’’ Hoffman said. “In comforting me, she told me her own story. Then she began to do that with other people, and it was hugely comforting. She was a great caregiver as a doctor, but she was also a great caregiver as an incredibly passionate woman and a survivor.’’
Hoffman was among the writers who honored Dr. Crivello with a Rheta Foster Award in 2009 during an “Evening With Your Favorite Authors’’ gathering in Cambridge.
Hearing Dr. Crivello’s story “meant a great deal to me and to her, because she no longer had to keep those parts of her separate and could be a whole person with her patients, which was really rare in those relationships,’’ Hoffman said. “You felt cared for in a deep, almost spiritual way when she cared for you.’’
Healing was a calling Madeline Silvia Crivello first heard growing up in Milwaukee and suburban Glendale, Wis., when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at 35.
“When Mom was near death, Lena was 13,’’ said her brother Frank of Pompano Beach, Fla. “She knew at that moment that she had to be a doctor and had to serve other people.’’
Her parents were immigrants from Sicily and years later, to celebrate the fifth anniversary of her cancer diagnosis, she visited “a small fishing village where they were born and raised,’’ Dr. Crivello wrote in her 25th anniversary Harvard-Radcliffe report. “I was so touched to be able to stand in the small church where they had been baptized and look at the statues I had heard so much about.’’
She graduated in 1969 from Nicolet High School in Glendale, from Radcliffe four years later, and from the Yale School of Medicine in 1977. After further training, including as chief resident in radiology at Beth Israel Hospital, she began her career and soon joined the staff of Mount Auburn.
“Madeline was one of the most organized persons you can imagine,’’ said Dr. Rose Goldman, a physician at Cambridge Hospital who shared an apartment with Dr. Crivello at Yale. “Besides being very intelligent, she was very quick and could do many things quickly and efficiently. She just had tremendous focus to accomplish all the things she wanted to do. In between her courses, she managed to bake loaves of bread.’’
At Mount Auburn and elsewhere, Dr. Crivello was famous for her biscotti and Christmas cookies.
“Madeline was the kind of baker who would find the best of every ingredient,’’ said her friend Caren Cummings Adams, director of interactive communications at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. “She would spend the weekend searching for the best hazelnuts, the best this, the best that. And then she would spend the entire next weekend baking. She never went anywhere empty-handed, and would never go to Dana-Farber without bringing cookies. The doctors would say ‘Thank you,’ and she would say, ‘This is so you will cure me.’ ’’
Dr. Crivello, whose marriage to Dr. Edward Nardell ended in divorce, lived more than 18 years beyond her diagnosis, long enough to see her daughter, Maria Nardell, begin studying medicine and son, Anthony Nardell, approach graduation from Marquette University in Milwaukee.
“She’s always been an inspiration to all of us, and particularly me as someone who followed in her footsteps,’’ said Maria, who, like her mother, went to Harvard and now is at Yale’s medical school.
“I didn’t always want it to seem like I was doing exactly what she was doing, but as I’ve gotten older, and especially now, I feel it’s the greatest honor to be considered like her.’’
Dr. Crivello, her daughter said, “was very intuitive with people, and as her daughter, we were incredibly close. She could read a blink.’’
In addition to her daughter, son, and brother, Dr. Crivello leaves another brother, Joseph of Storrs, Conn.
A memorial service is planned for 3 p.m. Friday in the auditorium of Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge.
“She drew people to her, at events or even small dinner parties,’’ her daughter said. “She had an interest in everybody, loved learning about people, and people loved her.’’
As Dr. Crivello opened herself to healing possibilities beyond the bounds of traditional medicine, “she felt there was more on this earth than we could see or touch,’’ Adams said. During a visit to Florida when Dr. Crivello was dying, “I said, ‘This is not goodbye; if anybody in this world can communicate with me from beyond, it’s you, so don’t say goodbye.’ And she said, ‘No, this is not goodbye.’ ’’
GREGORY GAUVIN, MD
2009
GAUVIN, Gregory P., M.D. Age 62, of Lincoln, formerly of Westmont, NJ, died on April 12, 2009, at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center from prostate cancer. He is survived by his devoted wife, MaryLou, and loving daughter, Michelle.
The memory of former Lincoln resident Dr. Greg Gauvin, who passed away last year of prostate cancer, will live on in the form of an art gallery at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge.
Not only was Greg a talented physician, practicing pathology at Mount Auburn for more than 30 years; he was also an accomplished artist and athlete.
Greg completed the Boston Marathon 28 times and took thousands of black-and-white photographs, many of which were exhibited in Lincoln and elsewhere.
“He really fell in love with photography and darkroom technique when he was in high school,” said Gauvin’s wife, Mary Lou. “He didn’t have a whole lot of time for photography while he was in medical school and going through his internship and his residency, although he still loved photography and would still go to museums and art galleries.”
After completing medical school at Thomas Jefferson University’s Jefferson Medical College, Greg undertook his internship at St. Elizabeth Medical Center and his residency at New England Medical Center. He did a specialty residency at the University of Vermont before finally going to work at Mount Auburn, where he worked and taught for more than 30 years, including 10 as Chief of Pathology.
During this time, he focused his lens on the New England environment, taking pictures of the woods and fields of Lincoln and surrounding areas.
“He really had a great respect for the power and beauty of nature, and that’s what he really focused his photographs on,” Mary Lou said. “He found that nature offered a visual experience that was limitless.”
Mary Lou said her husband was especially interested in the way images would change over time.
“He would often return to a site that he had been to over and over again, just to try to capture a image in a different lighting situation or a different seasonal change,” she said.
Mary Lou said noted photographer Bill Cliff, whose mother lived in Lincoln, became good friends with Gauvin and was supportive of his hobby.
“Anytime he was in town he would come here and Greg would show him his work and he would show Greg his stuff,” she said. “He thought a lot of Greg’s work, he thought Greg had a lot of talent.”
Michael O’Connell, Vice President for Planning and Marketing at Mount Auburn, knew Greg Gauvin for 28 years and said he was a very skilled physician.
“He always was able to be a calming influence,” O’Connell said. “He also had great ability to just listen and not react, and then take all the information that he had gathered to come back with a solution or idea or suggestion on how to better the situation.”
O’Connell said Gauvin was known within the organization for being generous with his artwork.
“When someone was leaving or got a promotion or some landmark experience in your life, he would give you one of his black-and-white photographs,” he said.
This lasting reputation led to the decision to honor him with a permanent art space.
“We built a new building … [and] there were lots of places that had empty wall space,” O’Connell said. “We started an art program to fill that space and give warmth and health for people who were sick to be nurtured by the arts around them.”
The gallery, which was unveiled in June to a crowd of over 100 people and will officially open in August, will display two exhibitions of Gauvin’s photographs before beginning to display other artists’ work.
Lincoln Cemetery in Snow. Photograph by Greg Gauvin
....we will miss you and will cherish your memory.
May their memories be a blessing.
