Hugo V. Rizzoli

Hugo V. Rizzoli, Emeritus Professor and Chairman of Neurosurgery at George Washington University and one of the first generation of American neurosurgeons, died on December 4th at his home in Chevy Chase Maryland. He was 98.

Dr. Rizzoli was born in Newark, New Jersey on August 20, 1916, one of three children born to Italian immigrants from the town of Calabritto. He graduated from Barringer High School in Newark in 1933 and attended the Johns Hopkins University, where he received his undergraduate degree in 1936 and his medical degree in 1940. After an internship in medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital he entered the surgery program intending to become a general surgeon, but was instead assigned to the new specialty of neurosurgery. He served as a Harvey Cushing Fellow from 1942 through 1943. In October 1944 he completed his training in neurosurgery as the last resident of Dr. Walter Dandy as part of the “brain team”.

He served in the United States Army Medical Corps during World War II and was stationed at Staten Island’s Halloran General Hospital, then a major medical treatment facility for European battlefield casualties. He was later transferred to Walter Reed General Hospital, in Washington, D.C., where he served as neurosurgical section chief until his discharge from the Army in 1946.

He married Helen Hay Varga in 1949 and settled in nearby Maryland. They raised four children.

Dr. Rizzoli entered private practice in the Washington, D.C. area and joined the faculty of George Washington University. He was named the first full time chairman of neurosurgery and developed the neurosurgery training program at the Washington Hospital Center, where a neuro-ophthalmology conference is held annually in his honor. He helped develop procedures for and became especially well known for the surgical management of intervertebral disc herniations.

He treated many influential politicians and other famous figures, including Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and J. Edgar Hoover. He traveled several times to Iraq at the request of the US State Department to examine Saddam Hussein.

After twenty five years in private practice, he became Acting Chairman of Neurosurgery at George Washington University in 1969 and was later appointed Chairman in 1971. He was the first full-time Chairman of Neurosurgery at The George Washington University Department of Neurosurgery. On October 17, 1998 The Hugo V. Rizzoli Chair of Neurological Surgery was established in his honor.

In addition to over 50 journal publications he co-authored two books on post-operative complications of neurosurgical procedures that have become classics and continue today to influence surgeons in training. These frank and revealing discussions of what can and does go wrong in surgery anticipated by many years today’s climate of medical transparency.

He trained dozens of neurosurgeons over his career to whom he was a tireless and devoted mentor. Gail Rosseau, a currently practicing neurosurgeon wrote of her first time in his operating room: “I watched transfixed as the professor and chairman of the neurosurgery department, Hugo Rizzoli, assuredly performed all the moves that are now so familiar to me: incision, bone flap, opening the dura, adjusting the microscope. The surgeon’s skill, his deft use of simple cottonoids and fine microinstruments, his command of the anatomy and his confidence appealed to me as no other activity I had ever observed. The decision was simple, immediate and crystal clear. I wanted to do what he did”.

He was the recipient of many awards: He was a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and a member of the Morgagni Society (Italian-American Physicians). In 1979 he received the War Department’s Commanders Award for Civilian Service presented at the Walter Reed Army Hospital. His other awards include Honorific Award of the Status of Cavaliere by the Italian Government (1983); Meritorious Service Award, Medical Society of the District of Columbia (1985); AANS Humanitarian Award (1989); Honored Guest, Congress of Neurological Surgeons (1984). The first annual Hugo V. Rizzoli lecture, established by the Walter Reed Department of Neurosurgery, was delivered at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences by Dr. Ludwig G. Kempe on November 16, 2000.

Following his retirement from GWU, Dr. Rizzoli continued to see patients as a consultant into his late eighties and kept in touch with former students around the world. He enjoyed travel to Italy and spending time with his family and friends. He was widely known for his exacting high standards, generosity and kindness.

He is survived by his four children: Hugo Jr (and his wife Carol Eron) of Barnstable, MA, Pamela Pia (and her husband Steve Jacob) of Bethesda, MD, Paul (and his wife Martha Buckley) of Boston, MA and Robert (and his fiancé Joanne Dixon) of Gaithersburg, MD, and three grandchildren.

A wake will be held Thursday December 11, 2014 from 1-4 PM and 6-8 PM at Joseph Gawler’s Sons, 5130 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington

Funeral services will be held at the Church of the Little Flower on December 12, 2014 at noon.

Contributions in lieu of flowers may be made to Mt. St. Mary’s Seminary (Emmitsburg, MD), the GWU Department of Neurosurgery, the Neurosurgical Research and Education Foundation of the AANS.