Steven James Soule

Steven James Soule

Ventura, CA

Steven J. Soule died June 9, 2017 peacefully at home in Ventura with his family at his side. He underwent a 16 year battle with primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) precipitating a successful liver transplant and then died of cholangiocarcinoma , an unrelated malignancy which his long history of PSC put him at high risk of.

Steve was born in the Territory of Alaska, February 7, 1956, the first child of B. Linn Soule and Donna Brokken. An early talker, he never stopped. At 18 months and already bilingual, he translated for his parents during their one year residence in Germany. Later, in Ohio, he skipped second grade. In 1966, the family moved to Corvallis, Oregon, where Steve was an Honor Society member, a 1973 State of Oregon Scholar, and finalist in the National Merit Scholarship Program before graduating from Corvallis High School.

He did very well at Stanford University and won intramural championships in golf, free throws, and ultimate frisbee, painted houses every summer, and participated in a big brother program. He loved his time at Stanford, especially 3 months in the overseas program in Florence, Italy.

He said the best thing he ever did was to marry Marlene K. Lamp, MD, who shared his passions for sports, travel and just being outdoors. They met while they were both students at the University of Michigan Medical School in 1980. Both Steve and Marlene worked as emergency physicians in the San Francisco Bay Area. On June 20, 1987, they married and moved to Los Angeles where Steve completed a residency in Anesthesiology at UCLA. Erik was born in 1988 and Olivia arrived in 1990. Steve became board certified in Anesthesiology and their family moved to Ventura in 1991. Steve spent the next 25 years working at St. John's Regional Medical Center in Oxnard. He was active in physician leadership serving as Chairman of the Department of Anesthesia, and ultimately the President of the entire Medical Staff.

After his liver transplant on February 1, 2016, he began to recover amazingly well, golfing, snow skiing within 3 months and later learning to wakeboard. On September 11, he ran the Ventura Half Marathon. He felt better than he had in 16 years, but 2 weeks later he was stricken with widespread bile duct cancer, a completely different cancer, which came from a very small segment of his own, native bile duct. This was treated with chemotherapy which gave him several months of remission.

Steve knew that his life was coming to an end and in order to make things easier for his family, he made plans for his memorial and wrote most of his own obituary (above). He always liked to plan ahead.

Over the years the family travelled widely, attending annual Lamp reunions, hiking, biking and skiing in Europe, visiting the National Parks, and frequently visiting Steamboat Springs, Lake Tahoe and Oregon. Steve did not let his illness slow him down. In his late 50's, working on his "bucket list", Marlene and Steve climbed Half Dome and hiked the Grand Canyon's Bright Angel Trail. As late as early 2017, they took 30 mile bike trips with friend, Dan.

Steve is survived by his wife, Marlene, daughter Olivia, son Erik, mother Donna Brokken and her husband Ray, father Linn Soule and his wife Patricia, sister Linnelle Brown, brothers Charlie and Matt, many cousins, nieces, nephews and an aunt and uncle.

He and the family thank all of his many doctors and nurses that took care of him over the years. Dr. Black and the staff in the St. John's interventional radiology department went out of their way to ease his pain. Drs. Rosenberg, Pankratz and Domingo-Foraste and their staffs comforted him. Janet and others from Livingston Memorial Hospice were so helpful at the end.

His Celebration of Life will be scheduled at a later date. May he be lying in green pastures and walking beside still waters.