Fond Memories of Dave from Don Ostrow

Having been at the UW only since 1999, I have known Dave for less time than most of those attending the celebration of his life. Nonetheless, I developed a closer relationship with him than with any colleagues at my many prior institutions, partly because we shared two major passions, teaching and wildlife. During those 10 years, I worked closely with Dave, annually updating the hepato-biliary chapters in the Gut Course syllabus and leading one of the student seminar groups. The Gut Course was his pet project and the one for which he is justifiably best known. We also collaborated on a Seattle Audubon project when I was Membership Chair for that group. In both areas, Dave was the master and I the acolyte, due to his breadth of knowledge, his zeal for learning and teaching, his creativity, and his insightful questions.

Dave was a joy to know and work with, the model of a true gentleman. He was open to new suggestions, gentle but incisive when criticizing, and always “gilded the philosophic pill” with his warm humor. He radiated an infectious enthusiasm for all he did, and this was a major factor in his effectiveness and popularity as a teacher and colleague. I thought I was a really good teacher until Dave’s superior skills honed and further advanced my own.

We also shared a third interest, choral music. Dave and Donna always attended the concerts given by the Sacred Music Chorale, the choral group of which I am managing director. Annually, I joined with Dave, Chuck Pope, and Cy Rubin, in the “old GI geezers quartet”, to sing the witty, whimsical ditties Dave wrote for our GI Division parties and the final class session of each year’s Gut Course. The students ate them up, even though our harmony left something to be desired.

We all knew the outlook was grim when Dave’s upbeat attitude gave way to justifiable pessimism toward the end of his final illness. Sadly, Dave suffered a long, slow decline, with all systems ultimately failing except for his wonderful sense of humor. In his time of trial, Donna’s love and nursing skills, and the support of his four sons and their families, helped him to depart with his customary grace. There is a lot of love in the Saunders family.

It is difficult to accept the emptiness in the mezzanine office cubicle next to mine. We of the GI Division are fortunate to have Mike, his son and clone, as a living reminder of his beloved dad. We shall all miss Dave, but none more so than Donna, I am sure. May God bless her and the rest of the family.

J. Donald (Don) Ostrow
Affiliate Professor of Medicine
UW GI/Hepatology Division

Updated Letter from Doug Levine

January 8, 2007

Dear David and Donna,

After getting some news from Chris Surawicz in late Fall, I learned a bit more from Patty Blount when she called me two nights ago. This prompted a call to Cy Rubin today, and somehow I was able to also contact your very busy son, Michael. I’m sure I don’t have a complete picture, but it is enough to know the past many months have been very hard for you. For this Barb and I are deeply sorry.

I wanted to reach out with this note. I expect family, friends, and colleagues in the Seattle area have been giving their best wishes to you both. But I wanted you to know for those of us living more than a day’s drive away from the Pacific Northwest, like Barb and me, the feelings are no different. You are in our thoughts and prayers.

When Barb and I first moved to Seattle, upon my starting the GI Fellowship in 1982, we had been married for less than a year. The move took us away (far away) from family in the Northeast for the first time in our lives. And so, when we were invited to your home, as part of what was a tradition of welcoming first-year fellows with a warm, family-like social occasion with the more seasoned trainees and faculty, the stress of a challenging geographic move was greatly lessened. Barb and I were so appreciative of this, and of the atmosphere you, David, helped create and sustain in the UW GI Division in forging a collegiality that is unfortunately rare in the medical academic setting and other workplaces. Seattle and the University of Washington ultimately became home, and together with so many people are very much missed.

I need for you to know how thankful I am for the experience I was lucky enough to have in Seattle, as a trainee, faculty member, and bicyclist. I know I’ve consciously tried to adopt best practices from my teachers, mentors, and colleagues. I am certain that the way I approach my current job role has a lot to do with the discipline you promoted - the care in history-taking with patients and the rigor in experimental design. It is hard not to want to emulate intentions of kindness, which seemed at the core of your being. If ever there was a time and demand for humanitarianism in Medicine, it is now. I’m grateful for how you modeled humanity - it was something I noticed, and learned to less self-consciously embrace.

But David, how you could make us all laugh! Whether on rounds, in meetings, over lunch, and in GUT course faculty prep sessions. And how this so complemented an insistence on quality and excellence by providing a humorous perspective when other faculty might just get burdensome with strict, solemn demands. And what was great was your demeanor, obviously professional but also a bit sly, which invited like behavior – in moderation, of course – that was nicely OK with you. I recall I was just “promoted” to a 3rd year of Fellowship at a time when it seemed, to me at least, that 2 years was the usual deal. You were leading a clinical discussion, and introduced a case history – not as “This 72-year-old man” or “This 72-year-old male” presenting with some symptomatic complaint – but as “This 72-year-old fellow ….” And there was something in your eye that made me exclaim, “So just how long is this GI fellowship?”

Moving on to your supervision of trainees during endoscopy, do you recall a patient with the rather memorable name of V.B.? Well, I do. You were overseeing my performance of a flexible sigmoidoscopy and the requisite rectal biopsies. Having successfully executed the acquisition of the first biopsy, I, in my infinite wisdom supported by 1 or so years of extensive GI fellowship experience, announced to the patient that I was about to take the second biopsy. Mr. B. responded weakly, “You, you already took a biopsy???” Whereupon he, despite his horizontally oriented bearing on the procedural table, promptly fainted and had a seizure. I, of course, in my infinite wisdom supported by 1 or so years of extensive GI fellowship experience, dutifully froze while you went into action. I am, as I’m sure Mr. B. would be, eternally grateful for your institution of human restraint – not only in keeping him from falling off the table but in resisting the urge emanating from every fiber in your being to politely and gently (and, undoubtedly comically) chastise me for my unnecessary babbling with Mr. B.

Bicycles. Beloved bicycles! In the late 1980s, Barb and I were cycling on North Seattle neighborhood streets when I tried to “hop” a ledge between the street and a driveway in order to get onto the sidewalk. Unfortunately, my front wheel “bit” in the crevice between street and sidewalk, causing the bicycle to continue straight away down the street and me to catapult off onto the concrete. Barb, who was behind me, could only see me with my head bouncing several times on the pavement before finally stopping. Actually, it wasn’t my head, but my helmet on my head that was doing the bouncing. I was up and about from the fall immediately, neurologically intact, and mainly concerned about the gravel embedded in my elbows and Barb’s shaking after observing the severity of the fall.

Why do I tell you this? Well, in the summer of 1982, when I learned I lived near the Burke-Gilman Trail, there was a rather novel pro-bicycle culture in Seattle, and my much respected Chief of the GI Division pretty much bicycled to work every day, I started doing the same. One day, you, David, asked about whether I wore a bicycle helmet. I can’t recall if my negative response reflected Boston-area bravado or banal sheepishness (neither Barb nor I ever wore helmets when we cycled back East), but what I recall is that you made a rather compelling case for wearing proper headgear. I think you may have lent me a helmet until I could purchase one – which Barb and I both did do soon thereafter. And we have NEVER mounted a bicycle without helmets strapped on since that time. Fortunately, neither of us has sustained another fall like the one I took in Seattle (not counting a few episodes of “keeling over” at intersections when I can’t disengage my toe clips in time). But whatever brains I have left to make what I understand to be reasonably valued intellectual contributions at work are in large measure attributable to your support of wise preventive practice and its enforcement with me. No joke. And thank you.

From what I understand, your health circumstances are certainly no joke. But I hope you can draw strength not only from the love of those who surround you, but from your own sense of humor, your own brand of cunning wit. I pray you will be the beneficiary of better luck and again have the chance to feel much, much better in the very near future. Good luck. Godspeed.

Sincerely yours,

Doug

Doug Levine

A Letter from Harvey Sigman

Dear Donna, John and the Saunders Family

Maxine and I were so sad when we heard of David's passing. When I spoke to him a couple of weeks ago he sounded frail but I hoped that there would be a turn around for the better. David and I go back to 1953 when we both entered Medical School and we quickly became close friends. I had known Amos long before because he was a revered teacher at Baron Byng High School. David inherited many of his Dad's characteristics - his humor, his sensitivity, his keen mind. I spent many evenings at the Saunders home on Harvard Ave. David introduced me to his favourite musical group, the Kingston Trio. David and Donna spent two years in England at the Royal Free and Maxine and I were there at Hammersmith during their second year. On our arrival, David invited us up to their flat to taste some good French wines since he said that we could get a better price if we shared a case. We had some wonderful wines which then cost about $2.00 each. The memorable part of the evening and I retell this story at least once a year was as follows: Donna served several cheeses, one consisted of a firm cheese covered by a rind made of grape pits. I was a neophyte as a cheese gourmet, my only cheese experience being Kraft processed Velveeta. Faced with this cheese and wanting to appear as one of the English Gentry, I ate the cheese with the rind since I had once read that one is supposed to eat the rind. I soon had a mouth full of grape pits because there was no way I could swallow them. I hid them in my cheek pouch until David remarked "You eat the rind?" I responded "You don't ?". "Never" said he. I rushed to the lou where I evacuated a mouth load.

I always had a close relationship with David's folks, medically and otherwise and was often in contact with David particularly as they were becoming more frail. Amos would send me letters of appreciationa nd greeting that were written in the most beautiful prose, quoting from Emerson and others. I would read his letters to my children at the dinner table. I can recall calling David when the RVH was looking for a replacement for John Beck as Chief of Medicine. I said "David you would be great for this position, why don't you put your name forward". David said " There would be only two reasons why one would want to leave Seattle - one, more money and two, more rank. Neither interests me. I can leave my office and go fishing or hiking". I could understand that well.

He always told me how proud he was of his children and their accomplishments. My sympathies to you Donna, John and all the children and grandchildren. May you draw strength in this difficult time from the knowledge of how fortunate we have all been to have been touched by such a wonderful person.

Harvey

Announcement from Dr. William Bremner, University of Washington

To: Faculty, Department of Medicine

Dear Colleagues,

I am very sorry to inform you that Dr. David Saunders, professor emeritus of medicine and former head of the Division of Gastroenterology, died Tuesday night at his home in Seattle after a long struggle with lymphoma.

After obtaining his undergraduate education from Princeton University (BA, 1953) and medical education from McGill University (MD, 1957), Dr. Saunders continued on at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal as intern, resident, chief resident, and gastroenterology fellow (1957-1964), with an additional research fellowship at the Royal Free Hospital in London (1960-1962). In 1964, he joined the Gastroenterology Division headed by Dr. Wade Wolviler at the University of Washington, to work initially with Dr. Cyrus Rubin, and rose through the ranks to be Professor and Head of the Division from 1981 to his retirement in 1995. Dr. Saunders received many distinctions for his research on intestinal absorptive physiology but the dearest professional achievement for him was his legendary contribution to the Gut Course (HuBio 551), which he organized for 33 years, even after his retirement. For these efforts, he was honored with the School of Medicine Distinguished Teacher Award four times and therefore became a Teacher Superior in Perpetuity..

Former Division Head Sum Lee said of Dr. Saunders, "He was an extraordinary human being, exemplary teacher, clinician, and intellectually curious clinical investigator. He was always generous, humorous, erudite and helpful to his fellow human beings."

David Saunders was a great friend and colleague who made outstanding contributions to his field, to his students, and to his patients. It was a privilege to have him as a member of our faculty; his infectious enthusiasm will be remembered and missed for many years to come.

With best regards,

Bill

William J. Bremner, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor and Chair, Department of Medicine The Robert G. Petersdorf Endowed Chair in Medince