Robert Leffert, 75, leading surgeon at MGH on repairing arms, shoulders

DR. ROBERT LEFFERT

A curious thing happened when former patients of Dr. Robert Leffert met one of his relatives.

"When they hear you're related to him, people burst out saying he gave them back use of an arm," said Lee Schwamm, son-in-law of the renowned surgeon on shoulders and hands. "Then, they would begin windmilling the arm around, showing you how much use they have."

Dr. Leffert, former chief of the surgical upper extremity rehabilitation unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, died Dec. 7 of complications from melanoma. He was 75 and lived in the Chestnut Hill section of Newton.

"He was spectacular," said Henry Mankin, former chief of orthopedics at MGH. "He was an excellent surgeon, very careful, and very specifically organized. He knew the anatomy very, very well and taught it very effectively. Many, many patients adored him and loved the way he took care of them."

Drawing equally from knowledge and compassion, Dr. Leffert did more than simply restore motion to shoulders and hands that, through injury or extensive use, had become all but useless.

"He was extremely intelligent and caring, and he treated people with respect," said Gary Perlmutter, a staff surgeon at MGH and an instructor of orthopedic surgery at Harvard Medical School. "He was, in many ways, the go-to guy when there was a complex problem that others wouldn't see or treat. He would take care of it. And as a physician, he was one of the best diagnosticians I have been around."

Dr. Leffert grew up in Brooklyn. His father was a physician, and he planned a similar course when he attended Dartmouth College. He left Dartmouth before graduating to begin studies at the Tufts University School of Medicine.

He graduated from Tufts in 1958, and after a few years of additional studies, he served in the Navy during the Vietnam War, from 1964 to 1966. Assigned to a Marine division, Dr. Leffert was a surgeon in Vietnam. In later years, referring to the popular TV show, he said his duty was like " 'M*A*S*H,' without the women."

"When he was there, he was committed to caring for every patient brought to him to the best of his ability, whether they were Americans, Vietnamese, or Viet Cong," said Schwamm, who is vice chairman of the neurology department at MGH. "It was a formative experience. It really tested him as an individual and a surgeon, and really helped shape him because they saw just hundreds and hundreds of soldiers with debilitating injuries to their arms and legs."

After his tour of duty, Dr. Leffert worked in New York City at the Hospital for Joint Diseases and Mount Sinai Hospital from 1966 to 1972. Then, he was recruited, along with Mankin, to work at MGH.

"People came from all over the on to be evaluated by him or to be operated on by him," Schwamm said. "He was also very much the court of last resort, so people who had had several failed surgeries would come to him for a re-do."

Dr. Leffert was chief of the department of rehabilitation medicine at MGH from 1972 until 1989, and chief of the surgical upper extremity rehabilitation unit from 1972 until 1995. He also taught at Harvard Medical School, where he became a full professor of orthopedic surgery in 1991.

"His major interest other than surgery, really, was medical education," said Linda Leffert, who would have celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary with Dr. Leffert next summer.

Relatives and friends introduced Dr. Leffert to Linda Garelik, and the two immediately hit it off.

"My kids tease me," she said. "We met in September, our next date was October, we were engaged in January, and we were married in June. But we had many long telephone conver- sations. We just loved talking to each other and being together."

Retiring from clinical practice in 2000 gave Dr. Leffert more time to spend with his grandchildren and to indulge his passion for photography.

"He was a superb photographer, primarily artistic photographs," his wife said. "I used to have to argue with him on vacation to take a picture of something that actually showed where we were. He'd be much more interested in a beautiful flower or a bridge."

Dr. Leffert's sister, Joan Bolker of Newton Highlands, recalled in an e-mail that her brother "exercised a lifelong passion for photography - at 12 he began his own business photographing babies. His portfolio includes pictures from his time serving with the Marines as a surgeon in Vietnam, from the operating room at the MGH, from his travels with his wife, . . . and from the Berkshires, where he had a country house."

She added that spending time with his two grandsons "was one of the greatest pleasures of his life."

"It was a striking contrast," Schwamm said.

"At work, he was the consummate Harvard professor. He was very exacting, he had a tremendous respect for the profession, and he felt that doctors should always be professional with the patient. At home, particularly in later life when he was a grand- father to my children, there was a playful quality that came out, and he was wonderfully attentive."

Said Dr. Leffert's wife, "he accomplished pretty much what he wanted to do and then some. He just wanted more time."

In addition to his wife, sister, son-in-law, and two grandsons, Dr. Leffert leaves a daughter, Dr. Lisa Leffert of Newton Centre; and a son, Adam, of Chestnut Hill.

A service has been held.