Dr. I. David Todres, at 73; pediatrics specialist at Mass. General
In 37 years caring for critically ill children at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. I. David Todres received invitations from many of those patients as they grew up to celebrate bar mitzvahs, confirmations, and marriages.
"He tended not to say a lot but you could see in his eyes and his smile, the warmth, the feeling he had that he had participated some way in enabling that child to live beyond the experience of an intensive care unit," said his son Jonathan of Atlanta.
Dr. Todres, who has been called the founder of neonatal and pediatric critical care medicine, died of lymphoma Sept. 26 at his home in Newton. He was 73.
"He left generations of parents and children who are better off because of the care he provided them," said Dr. Ronald Kleinman, who heads MassGeneral Hospital for Children.
Remembered as a kind and humble man, Dr. Todres mentored scores of critical care pediatricians and spent his life grappling with the ethics and issues surrounding dying children.
Later in his career, he became internationally recognized as an expert on pediatric ethics and was chief of the Pediatric
He was also a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical school and lectured around the globe.
"He was one of those folks who connected his left and right brain better than anyone I know.
"He was able to connect the artist and humanist side of his personality to the scientist and clinician. He served as a role model for all of us on how to be a human being first and a physician second," Kleinman said.
It was common for Dr. Todres to make references to literature, Jewish law, or the Greeks as he spoke about medicine.
"He was always connecting the worlds," Kleinman said.
Dr. Todres was an accomplished sculptor and painter as well.
He was born in Cape Town, South Africa. His parents, Daniel and Bertha, immigrated to South Africa from Lithuania in the 1920s, and his father worked as a butcher.
Dr. Todres graduated from the University of Cape Town and went to England to study anesthesia at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford and at the Hospital for Sick Children in London. An early mentor suggested he work in American hospitals to broaden his education, his son said.
In 1967, Dr. Todres went to New York City. He spent four years at Montefiore Hospital, where he was director of pediatric anesthesia and director of the Pediatric Medical/Surgical Intensive Care Units.
In 1971, he moved to Boston and began his career at MGH. He was codirector and later director of MGH's Newborn Pediatric Intensive Care Units from 1971 to 1998.
"You couldn't find a kinder, more thoughtful person," said his wife, Judith Sharlin.
"He always thought of other people before himself."
The couple met at a medical conference in 1985 in Newport where Judith, who is a nutritionist, was promoting her book, "The Romantic Vegetarian."
Dr. Todres picked up the book from a table.
"He said in his inimitable South African accent, 'This looks so interesting,' " she recalled.
They were married almost 20 years and had a son, Hillel, who is 16.
Dr. Todres had Jonathan and two daughters with his first wife, Bernice of New York City.
As a father, he often reminded his children of the privileges they enjoyed in life, especially the gift of good health.
"He was very clear in that there were always many other children in much worse circumstances, or dire circumstances, and we should learn to appreciate even the basic things," Jonathan said.
Dr. Todres was the first recipient of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Distinguished Career Award from the academy's critical care section in 1995.
The Society of Critical Care Medicine gave him its Presidential Citation Award in 1999.
Mass. General has established a lectureship in pediatric medical ethics in his honor and is raising funds to support it.
In addition to his wife and sons, Dr. Todres leaves two daughters, Rachelle Nash of Boston and Nadia of Vermont; and a grandson.
Services have been held. Burial was at Beit Olam. 