ROBERT H. MOSER

ROBERT H. MOSER

Dr. Robert H. Moser, M.D., age 90, died on Aug. 6, 2013 at Peppi's Place hospice in Tucson, AZ of pancreatic cancer. He is survived by his wife, Linda; his remaining son, Jonathan, (a second son, Steven, passed away in 2005); and four grandchildren.

Dr. Moser was born in Trenton, N.J., on June 16, 1923. He and his wife moved to Green Valley in 1999. Author, teacher, physician, administrator, Dr. Moser wore many hats in his long and illustrious career. He was a major force in improving the training and development of young doctors in the Army Medical Corps. He was one of the pioneering physicians involved in the U.S. space program "" from Project Mercury to Project Apollo "" as a flight controller monitoring the physiological and psychological performance of astronauts in orbit. He was Chief of Medicine at some of the most revered Army medical centers in the country, including Walter Reed in Washington, D.C., where he was among the team treating President Dwight D. Eisenhower, as well as at William Beaumont Hospital in El Paso, and Tripler in Honolulu.

From the start of his career, Moser made service to his country and his profession a guiding principle. Scarcely out of medical school and starting his residency at Georgetown University hospital as an Army reservist, Capt. Moser was called up to organize one of the first "MASH" (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) units in the newly declared Korean war.

As an author, he wrote several medical reference books, some still in use today. He was one of the first physician/writers to deal with the problem of drug-induced diseases and his autobiography, "Past Imperfect," remains a classic account of an adventurous life in medicine.

In 1969 he moved to Maui to begin private practice in internal medicine, and worked for several years with doctors in the Kalaupapa leper colony on Molokai. Years later he was asked to become the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association, and instituted sweeping changes in the format, overseeing an entire new look that is still current.

In the late '70s, in another of many career changes, he assumed the position of Executive Vice President of the American College of Physicians in Philadelphia, where me met his wife, Linda. While there, he was invited to the Peoples Republic of China to observe medical practice in one of the earliest signs of dtente. In the '80s, he became Director of Medical Affairs for Monsanto's NutraSweet division, a position from which he finally retired to the mountains of Northern New Mexico in the 1990s.

Not content with total retirement, he and his wife established a medical consulting company and for seven years traveled around the world to establish networks of medical experts in varying specialties for several large corporations.

A memorial service may be planned in the future. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be sent to The Animal League of Green Valley.