K. Leo Buxbaum M.D.

December 17, 1931 - March 12, 2023 Born in Griesheim, Hessen, Germany December 17, 1931, Leo Buxbaum died in Whittier, CA after a brief illness on March 12, at the age of 91. His father, the late Henry (Heinrich) Buxbaum M.D., was the last Jewish physician in Germany treating non-Jewish patients after this was prohibited by the Nazi regime in 1936. He immigrated to the United States in April of 1938; his mother, Hermine (Thome') and their three children (Manfred Richard, Klaus Leonhard and Ruth Marianne) were able to emigrate a month after the so-called "Night of Broken Glass" or Kristallnacht in German, the pogrom that was staged on Nov. 9-10. Leo and his family arrived in New York City on December 17, 1938, his seventh birthday.

After four years in Bombay, New York, a village of 180 people where his father served the St. Regis Mohawk (now Akwesasne) Reservation (6,000 people, one doctor), Leo and his family moved to Canandaigua, in the Finger Lakes. Leo attended and graduated from the Canandaigua Academy in 1949, where he was a state butterfly swim champion. Leo won a Regents Scholarship to Cornell University, where he majored in chemistry. Short of graduation from Cornell, Leo matriculated at the University of Rochester Medical School, from which he graduated in 1956. Leo met many lifelong friends at Rochester. After a residency in Internal Medicine and a Fellowship in Hematology at UCLA School of Medicine, he began his medical practice in Van Nuys. He also at this time worked at Los Angeles County Hospital, as Attending Physician supervising the training of residents there.

Leo first specialized in Hematology, but when Fiberoptic Gastroscopy was introduced in the United States by Dr. Hiromi Shinya, he became one of the pioneers of this field, adding significant refinements to its equipment and use. He purchased his own equipment and installed it at Whittier Presbyterian Hospital, where he founded and for 25 years was Chief of the Department of Gastroenterology and then of Medicine.

Meticulous about the role of record-keeping for diagnostic purposes, he filmed each of the several thousand procedures he performed; they still are used as a teaching tool.

On Leo's retirement from practice after 40 years he taught in the Introductory Program for Medical Students at USC's Keck School of Medicine for another ten years. During these years, his passion for teaching medical students went well beyond the program's formal requirements. Scores of power-point presentations ranged from Modern Microbiology to the History of Infectious Diseases, all focused both on the subject and to a great degree on the personalities embodying those subjects. They were much appreciated not only by his students but by colleagues of all levels of specialization.

Leo was one of the very few Cornell undergraduates whose courses included three years of Classical Greek and of Modern Literature; his fascination with the works of William Faulkner led to a constant hunt for first editions and more than one trip to Yoknapatawpha County with his family.

Leo's passions included photography, mathematical puzzles including the Rubik's Cube, and World War II history.

He was the center of an interlocking set of lifelong friendships ranging from professional circles to randomly educated eternal students first met on his own youthful itineraries around the globe: some on ocean fishing tours, some as fellow train and later fellow airplane seatmates.

Leo is survived by his wife of 51 years, Frances (Dixie) Buxbaum; sons Charles (Natasha) and James (Katrina); grandchildren Lily, Catya, Julia, Ruby and Molly; brother Richard M. Buxbaum and sister Ruth Kadish; six nieces and nephews, and 12 grandnieces and nephews.