Deceased September 14, 2019
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In Memory
Bill Meadow died on Sept. 14 after battling leukemia for four years. A biophysics major at Amherst, graduating magna cum laude. He was a member of Phi Delt, the Zumbyes and the tennis and squash teams. After Amherst, he attended medical school at Penn State, and he practiced neonatology at the University of Chicago Hospitals.
In fact, he wrote the book on medical ethics for care of infants prematurely born or with significant health concerns. He, along with two coauthors, was a pioneer in the development of neonatal bioethics, the process of making medical and personal decisions for critical care newborns, changing the way neonatologists weight the decision to withdraw life support. Bill published more than 90 academic papers, 48 book chapters on neonatology and medical ethics, as well as more than 200 scholarly abstracts. He was a member of the faculty at the University of Chicago and was co-director of neonatology from 2005 to 2014.
Said one colleague, “Bill was a teacher in everything he did. He was absolutely committed to students and education, as well as to his patients. He was the only doctor I have ever met who made rounds on each of his patients twice a day, and then came back in the evening to make rounds again. Bill would also, once a year, spend a full day as a nurse, with appropriate guidance. He insisted this was the only way a doctor can know how challenging nursing can be. The NICU nurses teased him and questioned his efficiency, but they admired and appreciated the effort.”
While doing all of that, he was a dedicated family man. Said his wife Susan (a professor of psychology at Chicago), “That was really important to him. He made time despite a doctor’s schedule. He was extraordinarily generous with his family. But he was a dedicated physician. He never complained. When the urgent calls came, when his leadership was necessary for the care for a sick child, he got up and went in. He enjoyed doing that. He somehow relished odd schedules. He was a wonderful, charming man and a surrogate father to much of Hyde Park and the university community. He could be gruff, when needed, but he was loved. He was a great husband.”
It would be hard to find a more loving or more fitting obituary than that last statement.
Peter Snedecor ’69