Dr. Eric Kahn

Eric Kahn, a pioneer in the field of vascular surgery died early Sunday morning, October 10 , 2010 at home. He had been in questionable health and was on the kidney transplant list at Piedmont Hospital.

He was born in Philadelphia on March 10, 1936 to Clare (Parris) and Maxwell Kahn, grew up in Philadelphia where he graduated from Olney High School in 1953, followed by the University of Pennsylvania in 1957. He then graduated from Thomas Jefferson Medical School in Philadelphia in 1961 after which he did his surgical residency in the VA hospital system of hospitals in the Philadelphia area under the direction of C. Everett Koop, MD, until 1966.

On July 10, 1959 he was married to Joanne Kohn. Their first two children were born in Philadelphia. Eric was commissioned into the U.S. Public Health service on February 7, 1966 with the rank of Lt. Commander. He reported for duty in Atlanta, Georgia where he served as Chief of Surgery at the U.S. Penitentiary Hospital for two years. Their third child was born in Atlanta, becoming the only native Atlantan in the family. He and Joanne later divorced. Eric went into private practice in 1966 with the Georgia Vascular Clinic until his retirement in December of 1994.

In his early years of private practice he worked at all the Atlanta hospitals doing pioneering vascular work before it was recognized as a surgical specialty by the American College of Surgery. That changed in 1983 when he was part of the first group to be boarded in vascular surgery. His was the 198th certificate issued. In the later years of his practice he worked exclusively at St. Joseph’s Hospital.

Eric was much loved by the nurses and staff he worked with and more especially his patients. Few people could have enjoyed a surgical practice more than Eric. He thrived on it and loved working alongside so many gifted doctors at St. Joseph’s.

Eric is survived by his three children, Shari Kahn-Sanchez (Ramon Sanchez, MD of Atlanta), Michael Kahn (Pamela) of Escondito, CA. and Louis Kahn, Seattle, WA, as well as his partner of 33 years, Michael H. O’Rourke and Randall S. Anderson for 15 years and his two loving Kerry Blue Terriers, Maeve and Casey, all of whom were with him in his final hours.

Eric’s service will be Thursday at 11:00 AM at Patterson’s Spring Hill with burial in his family plot in Montefiore Cemetery, north of Philadelphia (Jenkintown, PA) on Sunday, October 17, 2010. In lieu of flowers the family requests donations to the Atlanta Humane Society, 981 Howell Mill Road, Atlanta 30318, or that their request is that friends put themselves on an organ donor list, such as your drivers’ license in Georgia.