Francis M. Forster, MD, University of Cincinnati

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Died 14 february 2006

Dr. Francis M. Forster, Founding Father of Aan, Dies
Cajigal, Stephanie
Free Access
Francis M. Forster, MD, one of the founding fathers of the AAN, died on Feb. 23 of congenital heart failure. He had celebrated his 94th birthday on Feb. 14.
Dr. Forster's expertise was in pathophysiology and treatment of epilepsy, the role of the brain in the automatic nervous system, and the origin of human fasciculation and fibrillation in denervated muscle. His colorful neurology career included treating President Dwight D. Eisenhower following his stroke in 1957. He was also one of several physicians who examined Jack Ruby, who claimed that epilepsy caused him to shoot the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald. Dr. Foster testified at the 1964 trial that Mr. Ruby did not have epilepsy.
In the late 1940s A.B. Baker, MD, initiated discussions with his close friends, Drs. Forster, Russell N. Delong, and Adolph L. Sahs about establishing a neurology society with a broader and more inclusive membership than the then elite-oriented American Neurological Association. They concurred and the neurologists came to be known as the Four Horsemen of the AAN which was founded in 1948. Membership is now more than 20,000. Dr. Forster served as AAN President from 1957 to 1959.
Dr. Forster grew up in Cincinnati where he earned a pre-med degree from Xavier University after only two years of study and graduated from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in 1937. After completing a rotating internship at Good Samaritan Hospital and a neurology residency at Boston City Hospital, he became a Rockefeller Research Fellow at the Yale University School of Medicine. He worked as Instructor of Neurology at Boston University from 1941 to 1943.
Dr. Forster served as Chairman of the Departments of Neurology at Georgetown University (1950 to 1958) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1958 to 1978), where he created academic programs in epilepsy and several residency-training programs. During this time, he trained more than 100 neurology residents, including eight who went on to chair departments in the US and eight who did so abroad.
Ludwig Gutmann, MD, The Hazel Ruby McQuain Professor of Neurology at West Virginia University, and former Chair of Neurology there for 28 years, was one such resident. Dr. Gutmann, who became a close friend of Dr. Forster after working with him at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, described him as a very effective teacher and wonderful neurologist.
Because of his colorful personality and charisma was able to really bring neurology to life, he said.
Neurology Today Editor-in-Chief Lewis P. Rowland, MD, recalled how in 1953, when he arrived at the NIH before there was any clinical activity at the then-new National Institute of Neurological Disease and Blindness, he had no place to work and no assignment. Dr. Forster kindly allowed him to make rounds with him at Gallinger which was then the municipal hospital of Washington, he said.
In a letter which will be printed in the April edition of AANnews, Thomas Swift, MD, AAN President, wrote: My most vivid recollection of Dr. Forster was when he visited my own institution around 1980 and showed us his movies of patients with reflex epilepsy syndromes. The movies, which must surely still exist, show patients whose seizures could be triggered by very specific stimuli, such as a certain television program or even a unique announcer's voice. I found him to be a most gracious individual with a warm sense of humor. His contributions to neurology were massive.
Aside from his fascination with neurology, Dr. Forster also had a special interest in history and worked on several historical accounts of American families, including his own, which he wrote with his wife Helen and presented to their family as a Christmas present in 1997. Other work includes a history of the St. Xavier High School Class of 1930.
In September 2005, the AAN Foundation honored Dr. Forster at a reception in Cincinnati, OH, during which it also announced the launch of the Francis M. Forster Leadership Fund to support young investigators conducting clinical research.
In addition to his AAN leadership, Dr. Foster served as President of the American Epilepsy Society, the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and the Pavlovian Society. He founded the Francis M. Forster Epilepsy Center at the Veteran's Administration Hospital in Madison, WI, in 1977 and served as its Director until 1982. His published work includes over 200 papers and five books.
Dr. Forster was preceded in death by his wife Helen, and is survived by five children: Denis; Mary Susan Cole; Kathleen Marot; Mark Forster; and Marianne Gabrielle Kopp.
For more information on the Francis M. Forster Leadership Fund visit www.neurofoundation.org

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/08/AR2006030802421.html

http://www.aan.com/go/foundation/giants/forster

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Mean distance: 106866