Harlan Cabot Amstutz

The world has lost an extraordinary citizen on the death of Harlan C Amstutz. MD on May 17 two month’s short of his 90th birthday. Born in Santa Monica he was an honored graduate of Marshall High School. He attended UCLA where he majored in chemistry and proudly played on its varsity basketball team. He continued his education in Westwood as a medical student and surgical resident. He followed this with an orthopedic residency at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York and went on to an NIH funded fellowship at the Royal National Orthopaedic College in London after serving two years in the US Air Force. From 1965-1970 he served on the staff at HSS prior to returning to UCLA as Chair of the Department of Orthopedics until 1989.

Over the next 40 years Dr. Amstutz had a career that is nearly unparalleled in influence and achievement; he is widely accredited as the father of surface replacement hip arthroplasty; he started the UCLA Clinical Evaluation Unit to look at outcomes of surgical procedures; he founded the bioengineering laboratories and the PHD program in Bioengineering at UCLA. He authored or co-authored 335 refereed journal articles, over 500 abstracts and 75 chapters. Several articles are in press at his death. He has over 1000 national and international presentations, 76 invited lectureships as well as 13 patents. He was elected to an honorary membership in both the Royal College of Surgeons in England and the German Orthopedic Association (one of very few). He also has garnered a Distinguished Alumnus award from Marshall High School, the UCLA Alumnae Association, HSS and most recently the UCLA Chemistry Department. He has won the John Charnley Award that commends hip research six times as well as finding time to serve as President of the ORS, the ABOS, the AOA, the Hip Society and the Bone and Joint Society. He also lead the Gordon Conference that stimulated the melding of different disciplines for the common good and travelled often to an FDA panel that comprised of government, industry and academics for similar results.

Outside of medicine he served as a Trustee of The National Tropical Botanical Garden for over 30 years; it is headquartered on Kauai where he has had a residence since 1980. Married to Patti Amstutz for 63 years they sired three children…Dr. Julie Hodge, Mark Amstutz, and Katie Rampen; he had 7 grandchildren and one great-grandson.

A first class athlete all his life he moved from basketball and volleyball to tennis, backpacking and skiing. He biked and body surfed into his eighties. To his family he was a patient teacher whether surfing, skiing or baiting a hook. His welcome smile and thoughtful counsel well be greatly missed.

The Family will host a celebration of life service for Dr. Harlan Amstutz on December 18th, 2021at 11:00 AM PST at Saint Matthews Church 1031 Bienveneda Pacific Palisades, CA

Reception to follow

Alternatively, you can view the service live online at this link: : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfTPG9Raerw