Robert Chase

Robert Chase, MD, a surgeon and anatomist who not only repaired injured and diseased hands but also taught students and residents, led the National Board of Medical Examiners, and curated a well-known collection of anatomical images, died Sept. 9, 2024. He was 101.

In 1985, Chase founded the division of hand surgery at Stanford Medicine. The focus on hands and arms as a "regional" specialty - one that encompassed orthopaedics, neurosurgery and plastic surgery - streamlined the repair of upper limbs for physicians and patients. In 2002 it became known as the Robert A. Chase Hand and Upper Limb Center; it is now at Stanford Medicine's campus in Redwood City, California.

He also compiled and narrated an exhibit of stereo-photographs from the late anatomist David Bassett, MD, a former Stanford School of Medicine professor, and photographer William Gruber, inventor of the stereoscopic Viewmaster, creating the renowned Bassett Collection. Used by people all over the world studying to become physicians, nurses and other types of medical professionals, and digitized for stereo and 3-D use, the collection was released to the public in 2008.

"A multitalented physician and administrator, Dr. Chase effected improvements in so many aspects of medicine," said Lloyd Minor, MD, the dean of the school of medicine and vice president of medical affairs for Stanford University. "He accomplished a great deal during a long life - in operating rooms around the world, repairing limbs; at the dissection table, teaching students; and behind a desk, reimagining ways to improve medical training and patient care."

Although Chase's career took him in many directions - as a surgeon, educator, administrator and curator - the overarching theme of his work was a love of the human body. He never strayed far from surgery and, later, anatomy. "Surgeons are all anatomists," he said during an oral history interview. And anatomy is "just sort of fun."

Robert and Ann Chase in the mid-1950s.
Courtesy of the Chase family

Small-town childhood

Chase was born Jan. 6, 1923, in Keene, New Hampshire. His parents owned a general store in town. Chase helped out at the store, along with his older brother, and attended the local schools. "We never went anywhere," he said in his oral history. "Keene, New Hampshire, was it."

He met his future wife, Ann Parker, in high school. He enrolled in the University of New Hampshire, graduating in 1946, the same year the two were married.

Chase attended medical school at Yale University and stayed for a residency in surgery. After enlisting as an officer in the U.S. Army in 1949, he moved between training at Yale and serving at Army posts in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, and Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. He repaired the hands of men returning from the Korean War, some of whom, he said, had shot themselves to get out of service.

Along the way, three children were born: Debbie in 1948, Nancy in 1950 and Robert in 1952.

The U.S. Army sent Chase and his young family to work in a hospital at a military base in Livorno, Italy, from 1954 to 1957. There, he delivered babies and performed general surgeries. The family loved living in and traveling around Italy, Debbie Chase said. "He took a lot of family movies, and we watched them repeatedly."

Back in the states, Chase took a two-year teaching fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh, then returned to Yale as an assistant professor of surgery. During that time, he began his travels to underserved countries to perform surgeries. He spent three months in 1962 at Christian Medical College and Hospital in Vellore, India, repairing the hands of leprosy patients.

He also traveled to Latin America to repair cleft palates and other deformities, and he spent time in South Africa fixing the arms and hands of miners who had suffered mining accidents.

"To return people to a quality of life that's much improved is very rewarding," he said in his oral history, "...to see how grateful people are."

Robert Chase teaching in India.
Stanford Medicine

Head of surgery

Chase moved west in 1963, taking a job as chair of the Department of Surgery at Stanford School of Medicine.

"He was an excellent leader and was trusted by everyone," said Jim Mark, MD, an emeritus professor of surgery who followed Chase from Yale to Stanford Medicine. "He listened, and he agreed or disagreed in the most pleasant manner."

"He was just magnetic as a teacher," added Mark, who was an intern at Yale when Chase was the chief resident. "We interns followed him around like puppies."

At the beginning of his term as chair, the medical school had recently relocated from San Francisco to Palo Alto, California, and was growing quickly. Chase oversaw the appointments of specialties such as neurosurgery; orthopaedics; ear, nose and throat; and general surgery.

As head of surgery, he said, "Part of my job was keeping people happy. We had a Christmas party every year that was the envy of other departments. We did a big pig roast, and we would do surgery on the pig."

When Chase stepped down in 1974, he felt it would be better for him to be away while the school sought a new department chair, as he didn't want to influence the search. He took a position as president and director of the National Board of Medical Examiners in Philadelphia. But because he "couldn't stand to be away from surgery," he said, he worked one day a week at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Years after leaving the chairmanship, Chase remained a mentor to his successors. Thomas Krummel, MD, an emeritus professor of surgery who became chair of the department in 1999, said Chase "was very gracious and kind to me as an incoming department chair."

"He said, 'If you need a primal scream, just call me and we'll have a primal scream together,'" Krummel said. "I took him up on it. We screamed together on the phone. And it worked."

Digitizing anatomy

After two years in Philadelphia, Chase returned to Stanford Medicine to run the anatomy division, eventually bringing it into the surgery department. "I enjoyed teaching in the lab during dissections," he said, "because you feel like you're doing a surgical procedure."

Chase sought opportunities to expand and enhance anatomy training. He traveled around the country capturing videos of surgery and created a collection of videotapes for surgical residents that resides in the Lane Library on the Stanford University campus.

He adapted as the technology advanced, later developing an interactive system called The Electric Cadaver, a collection of interactive, color dissection slides on discs.

Robert Chase creating his video series.
Stanford Medicine

Amy Ladd, MD, now the Elsbach-Richards Professor in Surgery who arrived at Stanford Medicine in 1990, said Chase was a close mentor. "He became a sort of father figure," she said. "Much of my research today is informed by our collaborations in early days."

"He was an amazing teacher," she added. "He loved pictures, and he loved giving talks where he could use artwork, and the history of anatomy, to illustrate his points."

"He had an integrated approach to how we learn anatomy and surgery as hands-on, and that was informed by media," she said. "He believed that an old-fashioned approach of immersion - in whatever new-fangled way possible - to learning the entire human body makes you a better doctor."

Chase officially became emeritus in 1988 but remained active, giving talks, teaching, writing and developing educational tools.

A supportive dad

"My father had a curiosity about life, about people, about almost anything he encountered that was as fresh as that of a child," his son, Robert, said. "He was sincerely interested to find out about every person he encountered, and he had an equal interest in understanding and mastering whatever piqued his interest, be it woodworking, beekeeping, gardening, painting, photography and, of course, surgery and anatomy."

Debbie Chase said her father loved sports - skiing, tennis and golf - and performing magic shows for his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. "What he loved most about everything he enjoyed was sharing that enjoyment," she said. "He did so by teaching those sports, hobbies, skills and discoveries to others."

However, she said, he never revealed his secret for winning at dominos. He was playing the game and still beating his opponents at 101, her sister, Nancy Chase, said.

Robert Chase and family.
Courtesy of the Chase family

"He was always positive and encouraging toward us and whatever we were doing," Nancy Chase said. "He celebrated our achievements and supported us in our disappointments."

In 2010, the Chases moved back to New Hampshire to a farm they had owned for decades in Jaffrey Center, a small town near Keene. Every summer they visited Woodbine Farm, where Bob Chase spent his time woodworking and entertaining family and friends.

After his wife, Ann, died in 2013, Chase moved back to California to a retirement community in Grass Valley. His three children were with him when he died - on what would have been his wife's 100th birthday.

Chase was president of the American Society for the Surgery of the Hand and of the American Association of Clinical Anatomists. At Yale he earned the Francis Gilman Blake Award for teaching, and from Stanford Medicine he received the Henry J. Kaiser Award for his innovative clinical teaching. He published dozens of articles, mostly on anatomy, injuries and surgical techniques.

Chase is survived by his three children, Debbie, Nancy and Robert Chase; nine grandchildren; and 17 great-grandchildren.