Dr. Owen Leroy Slaughter

Dr. Owen Slaughter was the Director of the Indiana University Health Bloomington Hospital Emergency Department and on the faculty of IU School of Medicine. Dr. Slaughter served as chief of the medical staff at Bloomington Hospital from 2004 to 2005. He was recently appointed to serve on the IU Health Board of Directors.

A compassionate and committed physician, Dr. Slaughter practiced medicine in southern Indiana for more than 28 years. In addition to the thousands of patients whose lives he touched throughout his professional career, Dr. Slaughter also volunteered his time to provide medical care needed across the community. His volunteer efforts included donating time to the Salvation Army to provide underprivileged children physicals needed to join sports teams and also to the YMCA to support cardiac rehabilitation patients.

In 2000, the Bloomington Local Council of Women presented Dr. Slaughter the Humanitarian Award “for outstanding health services by a physician to the community exemplifying the highest in medical ideals, ethics, and objectives.”

Born in Evansville, Indiana in 1953, he graduated from Reitz Memorial High School in 1971, after which he attended Notre Dame University, graduating in 1976. With his father and five uncles all physicians, it was natural that he should attend Indiana University School of Medicine. Following medical school he went into a surgical residency that he had to cut short after his father and then his mother died, leaving him bearing primary responsibility for his four younger siblings. He then entered emergency medicine. After moving to Bloomington in 1983, he became a Diplomate of the American Board of Emergency Medicine.

Dr. Slaughter was motivated – and motivated those who knew him – to live life to its fullest. He was a marathon runner, qualifying for and finishing both the New York City and Boston marathons. His love of music and literature were legendary with a musical library of over 4,000 CD’s and an extensive library of fiction and non-fiction works. His sense of adventure took him from Machu Pichu, to Cairo to Angor Wat. His sense of adventure was surpassed only by his sense of humor.

His sense of adventure and humor will live on in his beloved wife Julie Slaughter and his children, Owen, Zoe, Colin, Eleanor, and Julien. He will be dearly missed by his siblings and their spouses: Ambassador Anne Slaughter Andrew and Joseph Andrew, Lynne and Christoph Hodge, Dr. Mark and Martha Slaughter, Sara Slaughter and Tom Smith and by many nieces, nephews, in-laws, and friends.

A visitation will be held from 4:00 p.m. till 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, November 17, 2011 at Day Funeral Home in Bloomington, IN. There will be a memorial service to celebrate the life of Dr. Slaughter on Friday, November 18, from 11:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater in downtown Bloomington.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions can be made to the Bloomington Hospital Foundation’s Emergency Department Fund, P.O. Box 1149, Bloomington, IN 47402

Online condolences can be made to the Slaughter Family at www.dayfuneralservices.com