In Memoriam
Benjamin Eleonu, MD
From: Aviva Lee-Parritz, MD, Chair of Obstetrics & Gynecology
It is with great sadness that I am writing to inform you that Dr. Benjamin Eleonu passed away June 9,2023. 
Dr. Eleonu was 67 years old, and was born in Ubima Rivers, Nigeria. Dr. Eleonu received his bachelor’s degree from George Washington University and MD degree in 1989 at the Medical College of Virginia. He completed his residency in Obstetrics & Gynecology at Boston Medical Center (formerly Boston City Hospital) and has been on faculty here since. He had a busy clinical practice in several of our community health centers and was a pillar of our medical student clinic (PACES). He was beloved by students, who wrote pages and pages of accolades about his teaching, and by the ambulatory staff—who he cared for, encouraged, protected and mentored. Dr. Eleonu retired from clinical practice in June 2022.
Dr. Eleonu was a foundational member of our department. He was part of a core group of physicians that were on the front line of this department in the early rocky days and during the hospital merger. He had a critical role in shepherding our residents through becoming surgeons, educating our medical students and caring for our patients in the community. Stories abound from our faculty about his patience during their first cases with him. He was a vital role model for many as a Black physician, laying the groundwork to help us build a diverse faculty.
People in our department who knew him the longest and trained with him reflect that he was always kind and fair to his junior residents, the nurses and staff always loved him, and that his fantastic laugh will stay with them. He will be deeply missed.
There are wonderful pictures of Dr. Eleonu that span his life here:
https://www.forevermissed.com/benjamin-chelem-eleonu/about
Jerome S. Brody, MD
From: Karen Antman, MD, BUMC Provost and Dean, Chobanian & Avedisian SOM
With sadness I share that Jerome S. Brody, MD, professor emeritus of pulmonary, allergy, sleep & critical care medicine, and an inspirational visionary in pulmonary medicine and medical education, passed away peacefully Sunday night, Jan. 22, at his home surrounded by his wife and children. He was 88
A member of our faculty since 1973, Jerry was the longest serving director of the Pulmonary Center, overseeing its growth and accomplishments for more than 20 years. In addition, he was chief of the Section of Pulmonary, Allergy, Sleep & Critical Care Medicine from 1973-86 and the first vice chair for research in the Department of Medicine, from 1993-2001. He had a scientific passion for lung development and made seminal contributions relating to cigarette smoking-induced lung disease, including lung cancer and COPD.
In 1975, Jerry along with Gordon Snider, MD, and Carl Franzblau, PhD, began our Biology of the Lung: A Multidisciplinary Program T32 training program, which has been continuously funded by the NIH through its 50th year, based on the principles of research training that he outlined half a century ago. Jerry also was one of the founding editors and helped establish the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology in 1989. In addition, in 2007, he co-founded a BU start-up company called Allegro Diagnostics, Inc., with Avi Spira, MD, MSc, which ultimately led to commercialization of the lung cancer detection test, Percepta, in 2015.
Jerry was a renowned and valued advisor to fellows and students. In tribute to him, the Pulmonary Center has hosted the annual Jerome S. Brody, MD, Lectureship since 2017 and an endowed professorship was established in his name. In September 2021, Joseph Mizgerd, PhD, was named the inaugural Jerome S. Brody, MD, Professor of Pulmonary Medicine.
We send our sincere condolences to Jerry’s wife Anne d’Avenas, MD (’80), his family, friends and colleagues. A celebration of his life will be held in the spring.
Marcelle W. Willock, MD
From: Rafael Ortega, MD, Chair, Department of Anesthesiology
With sorrow I share that Marcelle W. Willock, MD, professor emerita of Anesthesiology and former chair of the department from 1982-98, passed away today from complications after emergency surgery while visiting relatives in Toronto, Canada. She was 84.
Dr. Willock remained vibrant and engaged with our department, attending lectures and interacting with residents and faculty before falling ill. She was among the first women of color to lead an academic and clinical department in the United States and the first Black woman to achieve emeritus status at the School.
While serving in the former Boston University Medical Center Hospital and Boston City Hospital (now Boston Medical Center), Dr. Willock had a number of noteworthy accomplishments, including accrediting the anesthesia residency program and modernizing the administration of anesthetics from a professional and technological standpoint. She was responsible for standardizing guidelines related to patient safety and for the introduction of pulse oximetry, capnography and transesophageal echocardiography, among other innovations, into operating rooms. In the early 1980s, there still were dentists providing anesthesia care at Boston City Hospital. One of her most remarkable actions was to end this practice and to assure that only qualified physician anesthesiologists could provide anesthesia care following the care team model promulgated by the American Society of Anesthesiologists.
She served on innumerable committees on the Medical Campus, was president of the Massachusetts Society of Anesthesiologists, president of the Society of Academic Chairs, and held a variety of leadership positions within the American Society of Anesthesiologists. She also served as president of the Louis and Martha Deveaux Foundation, a charitable organization in the Republic of Panama.
Dr. Willock also was a consultant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a member of the Board of Directors for the Boston Police Athletic League, worked in the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in New York City and served as a trustee for the College of New Rochelle. After leaving BU, Dr. Willock became the first female Dean of Charles Drew University College of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles, where she retired in 2005. An advocate for civil rights and diversity, she collaborated with many programs addressing health care disparities and the fair treatment of minorities.
Dr. Willock generously supported two important funds at BUMC – the Violeta Martinez and Rafael Ortega Anesthesiology Research Fund, which she graciously named after my parents, and the Marcelle W. Willock, MD, Faculty Development & Diversity Program, a longitudinal leadership and career development program for BUMC faculty from under-represented racial and ethnic groups.
In 2020 she was featured in an article in Bostonia, which can be found here. Dr. Willock is survived by nieces and nephews Jason, Yvette, Dominic and George. We will celebrate her life at a future event.
Charles M. Bliss, Sr., MD, (MED’63)
From: David Coleman, MD, Wade Professor and Chair of Medicine
With sadness, I share that Mike Bliss passed away peacefully at Boston Medical Center (BMC) after a brief illness on June 14, 2022.
Mike grew up in Lincoln, Mass., and received his bachelor’s degree from Amherst College in 1958. A member of the BUSM Class of 1963, he completed his internship at Boston City Hospital, was drafted into the U.S. Army in the middle of his residency, and served in Vietnam as a physician. Upon his return, he completed his residency in Colorado and entered the BU gastroenterology fellowship program, which at that time was run by Dr. Franz Ingelfinger. Mike joined the BUSM faculty and the medical staff at Boston City Hospital upon completion of his fellowship.
A dedicated and beloved attending at Boston City Hospital, he was committed to his patients. His initial research work was with Dr. Donald Small who founded the Biophysics Institute. He served his entire career at BUSM and what became BMC after the merger of University Hospital and Boston City Hospital. He served on BUSM’s Admissions Committee for many years and was a beloved friend and colleague as well as a mentor to many medical students, residents and gastroenterology fellows. Mike received the 2001 Distinguished Clinician Award from the American Gastroenterology Association.
Upon his retirement, he spent his remaining years with his wife Barbara. Our deepest condolences to Barbara and their sons Chip and Dan, and grandchildren Ariel, Matthew, Mary, Hannah and Tucker.
John Noble, MD, Emeritus Professor of Medicine
From: David Coleman, MD, Wade Professor and Chair, Department of Medicine
I am writing to share that John Noble, MD, Emeritus Professor of Medicine, died Oct. 3, 2021, at home. He was 84.
From his obituary: Born in Boston, Dr. Noble received his undergraduate degree from Harvard and his MD from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He completed his residency in Internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Dr. Noble’s career began with his service as an officer in the United States Public Health Service, National Communicable Disease Center, specializing in viral infections. From 1967-69 he was Director of the World Health Organization Regional Reference Laboratory for Smallpox and a consultant to the WHO Smallpox Eradication Program.
In the early 1970s, Dr. Noble held the position of Superintendent and Medical Chief of Staff at the Middlesex County Hospital in Waltham and Lexington, Mass. He spent five years as Director of Primary Care at North Carolina Memorial Hospital prior to joining the BUSM faculty in 1978 as Professor of Medicine and beginning a 20-year tenure as Chief of General Internal Medicine and Director of the Primary Care Center at Boston City Hospital (now Boston Medical Center). He was named Emeritus Professor of Medicine in General Internal Medicine in 2013.
Over the course of his career, Dr. Noble received countless honors and accolades for his accomplishments and creative program development. He initiated and oversaw programs to improve health outcomes for persons with smallpox, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, homelessness and frail elders, and helped establish clinics providing specialized services to members of the Haitian and Hispanic communities, for young Black men, for the diagnosis and assessment of HIV infection, and a home care program for homebound seniors, among many other initiatives. Dr. Noble was a lifelong champion of general internal medicine as an academic discipline and for primary care as a career for physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants.
Dr. Noble was a seminal force in academic medicine at the local, national and international levels. He was among a small group of colleagues who created the organization now known as the Society of General Internal Medicine, for which he served as President from 1989-90. He also served as Commissioner and ultimately Chair of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations. Dr. Noble authored more than 50 publications and two leading textbooks on primary care and the practice of medicine.
His guidance and passionate support for his students, trainees and junior faculty helped mold countless careers of service in public health, clinical medicine, health care research, medical education, administration and advocacy. In each domain of service he insisted on excellence and purpose, always demanding attention to the health and hope of the neediest among us. Given his stature in the field, an endowed professorship was created in his honor in 2016, the John Noble Professor of General Internal Medicine.
Dr. Noble held many interests beyond medicine. He had deep knowledge and passion for the visual arts, classical music, rare books and travel. He and his beloved wife Ewa Kuligowska, MD, professor of radiology at BUSM and BMC, traveled often and spent as much time as possible in her native Poland. For half a century, Dr. Noble was an active member and leader of the Dorchester Medical Club, an organization of physicians from in and around Boston which has met monthly for fellowship and ongoing education since the Civil War.
He will be remembered by family and friends for his warmth and good humor, for his unusual combination of humility and dignity, for his unfailing curiosity in all things and always for his sense of style.
The services were private. A celebration of his life will be held at a later date.
Our sincere condolences to Dr. Noble’s family, friends and colleagues.
Dolores Murrell, Assistant to the Registrar
Robert Joseph Szarnicki, MED’69
Born October 29, 1943 in the steel mill town of Natrona Heights, PA to Frank and Xaviera Szarnicki. Raised within a strong Polish Catholic family tradition, Bob attended The Pontifical College Josephium seminary prior to finishing his high school career at Har-Brack High School. He attended Columbia College in the city of New York, finding great friends and the intellectual challenge that inspired his desire to become a doctor. Receiving his M.D. from Boston University, he completed his surgical residency at Boston City Hospital, followed by residency at St. Luke’s Hospital in New York City (1970) and University Hospital in Boston (1971). He then served as Exchange Registrar at University Hospital of Wales, in Cardiff and Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport Wales (1972). Falling in love with heart surgery, Bob returned to Boston as Chief Resident at University Hospital, followed by Chief Cardio Thoracic Resident at Harlem Hospital and Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. His training then led him to serve as Senior Registrar of the Thoracic Unit at The Hospital for Sick Children in London, England. This final post deepened his love for pediatric heart surgery, a developing field, serving and saving babies born with congenital heart defects. In 1977, Bob came to San Francisco to build the adult and pediatric heart program at Pacific Presbyterian Medical Center which eventually became California Pacific Medical Center(CPMC), and now Sutter Health. With more than 200 regional, national, and international publications and more than 100 lectures on adult and pediatric cardio-thoracic surgery, he ended his career as a pioneer and leader in a field that decreased patient morbidity from 95% to 5% within a 20 year period. What brought his heart joy was his family and friends. Bob is survived by his wife, Mary, and children Anna and Tim, and daughter in law, Megan. His friends from The Guardsmen, The Garfield, CPMC, The Janet Polmeroy Center, St. Ignatius College Prep, and The Presidio Golf Club brought out his distinctive laugh, showcased his smile, and all felt the power of his love. Bob was a big man who had a larger than life impact on the lives he touched. When Bob touched your heart, literally or figuratively, you were changed forever because your life’s expectancy improved. Bob will be missed and never forgotten because he gave his life to others in a spirit of service and vocation. In lieu of flowers or gifts, Bob asked we consider making a contribution to either The Guardsmen, P.O. Box 29250, San Francisco, CA 94129-0250 or Coming Home Hospice, 115 Diamond St., San Francisco, CA94114. Per Bob’s request, private services were held with immediate family and close friends. As Bob did, he asks us to: mend broken hearts, find your passion, and be your best.