printable versionEran Geller dies at 71 in VA hospital he loved
BY TRACIE WHITE
Eran Geller
Eran Geller, MD, professor of anesthesia at the School of Medicine and longtime director of the intensive care unit at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, died May 11 of cancer at the same hospital where he had cared for patients and trained physicians since 1993.
He was 71.
"He had a room at the VA (Palo Alto) the last month of his life," said his wife Aliza Geller, a lawyer. "It was so symbolic. He died in the place where he worked for 17 years. His nurses, all his co-workers, everybody came to visit."
A memorial service for Geller is scheduled for 11 a.m. on May 26 in the auditorium of Building 101 at the Palo Alto VA campus.
Geller was recruited to Stanford as a professor in 1993 to serve as director of the VAPAHCS' ICU and remained in that position until two years ago when he moved to emeritus status after being diagnosed with cancer. He continued to work part-time up until the last months of his life.
"If you go into his office, his books and his papers are still there," said Kevin Fish, MD, professor of anesthesia. "It looks like he was coming right back…. He had a huge heart."
"Eran had more journals and books stacked up in his office than anyone else I have ever met," wrote Steven Shafer, MD, adjunct clinical professor of anesthesia, in a memorial to Geller. "He read constantly. He wanted to know everything there was to know about critical care."
Geller is credited with transforming the Palo Alto VA hospital's ICU into one of the finest critical-care units in the world by breaking down department barriers, and encouraging people to work together to provide the best patient care possible.
"He created a consensus," said Ronald Pearl, MD, PhD, professor and chair of anesthesia. "He involved the nurses, pharmacists, respiratory therapists, everyone working together to build a team."
Born in Israel, Geller obtained his medical degree from Northwestern University in 1969. He chaired the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care at the Tel Aviv Medical Center in Israel for 25 years before joining Stanford in 1993.
"The team of Geller, Juli Barr [MD, acting director of the VA ICU] and Ed Bertaccini [MD, associate professor of anesthesia] established the Palo Alto VA as the premier center for studying sedative and analgesic pharmacology in critically ill patients," Shafer wrote in his memorial to Geller. "However, what stands out as my singular memory was that he was kind. Always kind. I will miss him."
In addition to his clinical work, Geller was actively involved in research and published numerous scientific papers and book chapters.
Geller is survived by his wife Aliza of 33 years, and sons Ron Geller, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in biology at Stanford, and Chai Geller, a computer scientist in San Francisco.