In Memoriam
John Hutton, MD
Passionate. Smart. Supportive. Admired. Inquisitive. Insightful.
These were just a few of the adjectives used by colleagues to describe John Hutton, MD, the College of Medicine’s third-longest tenured dean, who passed away Sunday morning, June 19. Hutton served as the college’s 42nd dean from 1987 until 2002. He was 79 and had been diagnosed in March with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Sandra Degen, PhD, former UC vice president for research and now an emerita professor of pediatrics, remembered her first interaction with Hutton when she and her husband, Jay Degen, PhD, came to Cincinnati in 1985 to interview for positions at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
"I recall a dinner during our job interview with John where he brought his daughter, Elizabeth, who was 5 years old then. Although we had not even thought about having a family, that had a big impact on me,” Degen said. "He had no hesitation including a 5-year-old at a job interview. Mixing family and work was approved of and not two separate things. And later, when our daughter, Lindsay, did come along, John could not have been more supportive of us having flexible hours so that we could always be there for our child. If I had to do my life over again, I would still have come to Cincinnati and that is all because of John.”
Hutton helped recruit many people to the college and Cincinnati Children’s, including chairs for 20 of the college’s 22 departments while he was dean. One was Thomas Boat, MD, whom Hutton helped entice to Cincinnati from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1993.
"He was supportive of Cincinnati Children’s and its rapid growth of faculty and research agendas. He was very good at connecting Cincinnati Children’s research with the College of Medicine research programs so that relationship was mutually beneficial,” Boat recalled.
"John was very bright, very inquisitive and very insightful. He was always able to diffuse tense or difficult situations, and I think people liked to work with him for that reason,” he added.
Boat also noted that Hutton continued as an important leader at the College of Medicine and Cincinnati Children’s after stepping down as dean in 2002, providing high-level leadership for the burgeoning biomedical informatics program, which became a department within the college in 2013.
"I will always remember Dr. Hutton as a true Renaissance man: a scientist, humanist, leader, and father of the highest distinction,” said Peter White, PhD, chair of biomedical informatics. "As the founder of both the Divisions of Developmental Biology and Biomedical Informatics, his spirit of curiosity, intellectual rigor, and compassion has led both divisions to greatness. That spirit will continue to shine brightly through our halls as it inspires new generations of clinicians and scientists.”
Hutton was raised in Ashland, Kentucky, attended Harvard College and was a graduate fellow at Rockefeller University for two years before entering Harvard Medical School, where he graduated in 1964. Hutton completed his internship at Massachusetts General Hospital, was a staff associate at the National Heart Institute for two years and then completed a residency at the University of Kentucky Medical Center. He also was on staff at the Jackson Laboratory and Roches Institute of Molecular Biology before joining the faculty of the University of Kentucky School of Medicine in 1971. Hutton remained in Lexington until 1980, rising to professor and vice chair of the Department of Medicine. He also spent two years as acting chair of the Department of Medicine.
From 1980 to 1984 Hutton served as professor of medicine and biochemistry and director of the division of hematology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. He also was the associate chief of staff for research and development at the Audie L. Murphy Veterans Affairs Hospital in San Antonio.
In 1984 he was recruited to Cincinnati by William Schubert, MD, then president of Cincinnati Children’s, to become the Albert B. Sabin Professor of Pediatrics. He later was named vice chairman of basic science research.
Hutton stepped into the dean’s position on Aug. 1, 1987. He inherited a school budget of $104 million and just over $30 million in annual research funding. By the time he left, the college had broken the $100 million mark in research funding fulfilling his goal of turning the college into a medical research powerhouse.
On June 21, 2001, Hutton announced plans to step down as dean of the college. At the time, he was one of the five longest-tenured medical school deans in the country. He would serve until June 30, 2002.
After stepping down, Hutton returned to research at Cincinnati Children's. He focused his efforts on bioinformatics and served as the principal investigator of a research grant awarded to UC by the National Library of Medicine to develop Integrated Advanced Information Management Systems (the IAIMS award). Hutton continued to author numerous scientific papers, served as a member and chair of the National Institutes of Health Biochemistry Study Section, and received awards for distinguished service from both the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the American Society of Hematology.
In 2003 he received the Daniel Drake Medal.
Hutton continued his work even after being diagnosed with ALS. "He was still coming in to teach medical students every week, meeting with coworkers in the Division of Biomedical Informatics and other collaborators, and leaving misdirected mail and/or supportive Post-It notes in my cubicle, editorial finishing touches on a new BMI textbook concluding only a few weeks ago,” his son, John Hutton, MD, said after his father’s death.
Hutton is survived by his wife, Mary Ellyn, three children, Becky, John and Elizabeth, and seven grandchildren. The Hutton family requests that gifts be directed to the Hutton Lectureship in Ethics Fund at the College of Medicine or Hospice of Cincinnati.
A memorial service will be held at 10 am, July 12, in Kresge Auditorium to celebrate his life.
Robert C. Strunk, MD
Robert Charles Strunk, MD, a pediatric allergist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis passed away on April 28, from cardiac arrest. The 73-year-old physician built a career that spanned nearly 30 years and brought him international acclaim.
Strunk was born and raised in Chicago. Growing up, he suffered from asthma, which influenced his decision to focus on treating patients with the disease. He was especially interested in the psychological effects of chronic illness on children. In fact, his research pinpointed the link between emotional well-being and chronic asthma – i.e., that family conflicts and parental neglect can make a child’s asthma worse.
Strunk earned his MD from Northwestern University and completed his pediatric internship and residency at Cincinnati Children’s in 1970. Afterward, he served as a pediatrician at a naval hospital in Newport, RI, during the Vietnam War until 1972.
He completed two fellowships at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital in 1974, then moved to the southwest to be an assistant professor of pediatrics at Arizona Health Sciences Center until 1978.
Strunk made several more career moves before landing at Washington University in 1987. Along with his clinical research and practice there, he was integral in getting the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to fund several national pediatric asthma initiatives.
A new study of his was recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Says a colleague, Gary Sherman, MD, from St. Louis Children’s Hospital, “Bob Strunk was yet another of the bright stars in the pediatric community who were shaped by their time at Cincinnati Children’s.
“He was my first resident when I came to Cincinnati Children’s as an intern in 1969. And he was a model of what I soon came to recognize as ‘the Cincinnati Children’s style’ – unassuming, humble, friendly, kind, hard-working and extremely capable. I didn’t realize it then, but I believe this style came from modeling the behavior of the pediatric giants around us at that time – Drs. William Schubert, Samuel Kaplan, Fred Silverman, Edward Pratt, Lester Martin and Clark West, to name just a few. Bob adhered to that model as he rose with major accomplishments in the scientific world of asthma research. And in typical ‘Cincinnati Children’s style,’ he kept his ego in his back pocket. He cared passionately for his patients and they for him.”
Strunk is survived by his wife of 18 years, Juanita, two children, Chris and Alix Strunk, two stepchildren, Rick Macivor and Ellen Royal, and nine grandchildren.
