Medical Staff Update


	March 2003 Volume 27 • No. 3

	PET/CT scanner offers improved cancer diagnosis, treatment SHC reports positive earnings, successful turnaround effort New medical staff Web site provides useful information School of Medicine retreat strengthens support, collaboration on strategic planning effort Principal-investigator status approved for MCL faculty members Lane Library hosts event celebrating National Doctors Day Activities planned for national Patient Safety Week New patient satisfaction survey will help improve service Surgeon and community health-care pioneer dies at 82					Surgeon and community health-care pioneer dies at 82 Robert W. Jamplis, a clinical professor of surgery at Stanford and the first president and CEO of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, died Feb. 3 at his home in Woodside after a long illness. He was 82. Jamplis, the son and grandson of physicians, was born in Chicago and educated at the University of Chicago, receiving his medical degree in 1944. He interned in Hawaii at the United States Naval Hospital and completed advanced training in general surgery and thoracic surgery at the Mayo Clinic. He completed two tours of duty as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy including serving in the Pacific. He came to California in 1952, joined the Palo Alto Medical Clinic in 1954 and embarked on a long and distinguished career as a devoted medical practitioner and administrator in the community and a teacher of surgery at Stanford. "Dr. Jamplis was an enthusiastic and extremely fine teacher. He was a true visionary, no question about it," said emeritus faculty member James B.D. Mark, a former Johnson & Johnson Distinguished Professor in Surgery. Mark noted Jamplis' stature in the profession and his dedication, recalling that he served as president of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons and that as recently as January he attended the meeting of the San Francisco Surgical Society, of which he also was past president. During Jamplis' tenure, the Palo Alto Medical Clinic became part of Sutter Health, one of the nation's largest community-based nonprofit health networks. He also led the successful fund-raising campaign that made possible the relocation of the Palo Alto Clinic to a new site on El Camino Real. The Senior Coordinating Council of Palo Alto gave Jamplis a Lifetime of Achievement Award in 1996 in recognition of his accomplishments. His numerous other honors include election to the prestigious Institute of Medicine. In 1991 he received the Mayo Foundation Distinguished Alumnus Award and in 2002 the John W. Gardner Visionary Award from the Pathways Hospice Foundation. He is survived by his son Mark Prior Jamplis, of Atherton; his daughter Elizabeth Jamplis Bluestone, of Pacific Palisades; five grandchildren; his wife Cynthia Soles, of Woodside; her three sons and their children. His first wife, Roberta Prior Jamplis, mother of his two children, died in 1995. Contributions in Jamplis' memory can be made to the Palo Alto Medical Foundation's Office of Philanthropy, 795 El Camino Real, Palo Alto, CA 94301.