Kenneth T. Richardson

Kenneth T. Richardson, M.D., FACS, 86, died in the early hours of Saturday, May 12, 2018, in Anchorage, Alaska. He is survived by his wife, Anne of Anchorage; and two sons, Alan of Pittsburgh, Pa. and Brian of Anchorage. He is predeceased by his mother and father, Pearl and Kenneth; and a sister, Sally.
Ken was born in Pittsburgh, graduated from Bethany College, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and served with the United States Coast Guard in Sitka, Alaska. In subsequent years he completed a residency in Ophthalmology at Eye and Ear Hospital, Pittsburgh and a Fellowship in Glaucoma with Robert N. Shaffer, M.D., in San Francisco, Calif.
He entered private practice in Pittsburgh in 1964, became Director of Medical Education of Eye and Ear Hospital in 1966 and Professor and Chairman, Department of Ophthalmology at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 1969.
In 1972, he relocated to Anchorage in a return to a state he came to love during his Coast Guard years in Sitka. In Anchorage he established a large private practice, Ophthalmic Associates, with satellite offices in Kodiak, Eagle River and Wasilla, Alaska.
During a long and outstanding medical career, Ken founded the Glaucoma Service and Research Laboratory in Houston, Texas, while a Professor of Ophthalmology at Baylor University, was a consultant for multiple pharmaceutical companies and Consultant to the Surgeon General of the Air Force. He published numerous medical journal articles, wrote academic chapters and published entire books on ophthalmology, was elected to multiple international medical education committees, became the Editor of the pharmacology section of the Archives of Ophthalmology and received numerous honors and awards for major contributions to ophthalmology.
In his later years he became a founding principal in several start-up companies investigating unexplored areas of medical therapeutics and was the coauthor of 14 patents approved by the United States Patent Office.
Although Ken was a quietly thoughtful person, he acquired an international reputation for his stunning multimedia presentations at national and international medical meetings. These skills were developed early while he was associated with Eye and Ear Hospital where he was instrumental in creating an audio-visual department using the latest teaching techniques. In doing so, he put Eye and Ear Hospital on an international stage and it became a destination for many of the world's finest ophthalmological clinicians and researchers.
Ken will be remembered by his many patients as an outstanding physician, who committed himself fully to their care and who was always available for consultation. For Ken, the practice of medicine was truly a "calling," not merely a profession.
Finally, he will be remembered by a large number of people as a great friend, an admirable role model, a man with a brilliant inquiring mind and a caring, compassionate human being.
He will be greatly missed.