Thomas Jefferson University

Dr. Jacob W. Savacool, 91, a physician and historian formerly of Germantown and Fort Washington, died of a stroke Thursday at Brittany Pointe Estates, a retirement community in Lansdale. For more than 40 years, Dr. Savacool practiced internal medicine, specializing in chest diseases. He maintained offices in Center City and Germantown and at Thomas Jefferson University, where he was an associate professor. He was also a respiratory-disease consultant to the Philadelphia Department of Health for 31 years.

Dr. Armando Goracci, an assistant professor at Thomas Jefferson University, died Saturday. He was 69 and lived in Woodbury, N.J. Goracci was clinical assistant professor of surgery at Jefferson, where he had been since 1952. He also was on the surgical staff of Cooper Hospital- University Medical Center in Camden, and the surgical staff of Underwood Memorial Hospital in Woodbury, where he had been chief of surgery from 1969 to 1976. A 1939 graduate of the University of Scranton, he received his medical degree from the University of St. Louis in 1943.

Thomas M. Kain III, 68, of Bryn Mawr, an orthopedic surgeon who was medical director of the Comprehensive Wound Healing Centers at Abington Memorial and Bryn Mawr Hospitals for the last 10 years, died of complications from lymphoma on Thursday, April 26 at his home. Dr. Kain was the fourth generation of his family to graduate from what is now Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, where he earned his degree in 1969, his wife, Mary, said in an interview Monday.

Frederick B. Wagner Jr., 87, a surgeon who spent his medical career at Thomas Jefferson University and became the school's historian after he retired, died of a heart attack Friday at Waverly Heights, a retirement community in Gladwyne. In 1941, Dr. Wagner graduated from Jefferson Medical School. Fifty years later, he recounted his experience observing his first operation: "The surgeon made a really big incision. Blood started squirting everywhere, and I fainted. " The queasy student went on to complete his internship and residency at Jefferson and was appointed clinical professor of surgery in 1955.

Dr. Eugene Thomas Pashuck, 74, of Woodstown, the first radiologist at Memorial Hospital of Salem County, died Wednesday at the hospital after a yearlong battle with cancer. A practicing physician for 50 years, Dr. Pashuck served as the chief of radiology at the hospital for 37 years. "From the time he was a young kid in grade school, he had always wanted to be a doctor," said Marilyn Johnston Pashuck, his wife of 48 years. "It was the only thing he ever wanted to do. " Born and raised in Philadelphia, Dr. Pashuck graduated from West Philadelphia High School in 1937.

A former Villanova University quarterback lost his case against the school and several of its athletic officials yesterday when a jury found Villanova was not liable for his medical problems and thwarted career. The Delaware County Court jury held that the university and its officials were not careless or negligent in their treatment of Erik Brett Pearson, whose football career was cut short when he fell ill with an intestinal disorder during his sophomore year. Pearson, now 25, sued the university in 1996.

Robert H. Rosenwasser, an internationally prominent brain surgeon, is expected to be named chairman of the department of neurosurgery at Thomas Jefferson University as early as today when the board of trustees meets. That possible appointment has raised concern among some former Jefferson doctors because of an incident at the school two years ago. Rosenwasser brought a gun to a May 2002 meeting with medical residents, and, by some accounts, pointed the firearm at one of them. As chairman, Rosenwasser would oversee a major department at Jefferson with 13 surgeons and 12 residents - doctors getting advanced training to become neurosurgeons.

What price glory? For Raymond and Ruth Perelman, it's $5 million. That's how much they donated toward building the regional Performing Arts Center, proposed for Broad and Spruce. In return, they get a concert hall named after them. So, within a few years we'll be seeing posters for "The Philadelphia Orchestra tonight at Perelman Hall. " Who would remember Alice Tully if not for the concert hall in Manhattan? The Perelmans' generosity prompted Clout to take a look at who got the most bang for their buck in naming monuments to themselves.

Thomas A. Ravelli, a retired supervisor in the Philadelphia office of the Internal Revenue Service, musician and former mayor of South Pasadena, Fla., died Wednesday. He was 73 and lived in South Pasadena. A resident of Swarthmore before moving to Florida in 1978, Ravelli was employed by the U.S. Treasury Department for 35 years and had been an IRS agent and administrator in the Philadelphia office. He also worked as collection manager for the Chester branch. From 1980 to 1986 Ravelli served as mayor of South Pasadena.

The honeymoon is over. After two years of record profits, generated as much by windfalls from the federal government's $75 billion Medicare program as by good management, area hospitals are undergoing a wrenching transition. The powerful economic pressures squeezing hospital profits include declining admissions, rising malpractice-insurance costs, Medicare payments that are not keeping pace with inflation, and a critical shortage of nurses that is driving up salaries. Signs of economic distress dot the region: The number of hospitals reporting annual operating losses increased fivefold in fiscal 1987, ended June 30, and the average profit margin declined by more than half to 2 percent.

For years, neurologist William Young of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital's Headache Center has heard his patients say how bad they felt when other people did not take their migraines seriously. "Every day, I hear stories of the ignorant or mean-spirited things people say to them about having their disease," he said. "People make it obvious that they think they're morally weak because they're not functioning well because of a mere headache. " He says the federal government has the same attitude when it comes to researching the condition, which affects 12 percent of the adult population and can leave some people in terrible pain more days than not. So, when an intern asked about a research topic, Young jumped at the chance to study stigma in migraine patients.

Thomas M. Kain III, 68, of Bryn Mawr, an orthopedic surgeon who was medical director of the Comprehensive Wound Healing Centers at Abington Memorial and Bryn Mawr Hospitals for the last 10 years, died of complications from lymphoma on Thursday, April 26 at his home. Dr. Kain was the fourth generation of his family to graduate from what is now Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, where he earned his degree in 1969, his wife, Mary, said in an interview Monday.

Oncologist Ubaldo Martinez doesn't have enough time to address all the special needs of the growing number of elderly cancer victims who seek his help, even though he spends 90 minutes with patients the first time and 30 during subsequent visits. It's all he can do to explain their disease and its treatments to them, but so many other things can affect how they'll do. How many drugs are they taking? Are they frail? Or robust enough to race their grandkids up a hill? Do they have dementia?

After spending 40 years of his career in higher education in Philadelphia, Robert L. Barchi, the outgoing president of Thomas Jefferson University, is crossing the Delaware River. Barchi, 65, of Society Hill, was named the 20th president of Rutgers University on Wednesday. His appointment as head of New Jersey's flagship state university comes during a challenging time, as the school faces a highly contested plan by Gov. Christie to merge Rutgers-Camden and Rowan University under the Rowan banner.

The president of Thomas Jefferson University, Robert L. Barchi, said Wednesday he will step down at the end of his current term in June 2012. He will have served eight years in the job. Barchi, 64, will take a yearlong sabbatical, then become a full-time member of the Jefferson faculty. The university, which focuses on health care, includes schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, population health, and health professions such as occupational and physical therapy. It has about 3,500 students, 1,000 of whom are in the medical school.

"What do you call a frog illegally parked?" (Wait for it.) "Toad. " Antoinette Skerski, 90, groaned - and not because she was a cardiac patient at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. "That was a bad one," she told the joker, Mike Quartuccio, whose garish wig looked like a Krusty the Clown castoff. Six other clowns, squished into the small room, began administering RJT (Rapid Joke Therapy), which they warned could cause nausea. "What is Beethoven's favorite fruit?"

Thomas Jefferson University, fresh from the sale of Thomas Eakins' masterpiece, The Gross Clinic, for $68 million, has sold a second Eakins canvas, a portrait of Dr. Benjamin H. Rand, university officials announced yesterday. The as-yet-unbuilt Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, backed by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. heiress Alice Walton, has acquired the painting, which Rand donated to the university in 1877, three years after it was painted. Rand taught chemistry at Central High School, transferring later to the Franklin Institute and, eventually, to Jefferson Medical College.

Thomas Jefferson University said yesterday that efforts by the city to stall removal of Thomas Eakins' masterpiece The Gross Clinic, which the university has agreed to sell, are an inappropriate, misguided attempt to "restrict the University's control over its own property. " In a blunt, unsigned statement, the university said city actions would result in "limiting the pool of potential buyers the university may address and mandating an artificially low sale price. " On Friday, Mayor Street nominated The Gross Clinic, owned by Jefferson since 1878, for protection as a "historic object" under the city's historic-preservation ordinance.

Lewis Ballew has diabetes and is waiting for a heart transplant. He tried keeping track of his complicated 10-year medical history on computer spreadsheets and lists, but he never had all his health information in one place. Neither did his doctors - cardiology test results, glucose levels and prescriptions could be spread across several floors of the hospital - until now. Ballew now uses Thomas Jefferson University Hospital's computer software to put all his health data on his home computer.

Joey Southern wants to be a scientist, and he has a straightforward reason: "You get to figure out stuff first, before anyone else," Joey, a fourth grader at St. Peter Celestine School in Cherry Hill, said yesterday. Chalk up his career choice to the Thomas Jefferson University Science Outreach Program, which largely targets schools throughout the region that have no advanced science curriculum. By the end of the school year, the program will have touched 3,000 elementary through high school students since its inception in 2002.