OBITUARIES
Professor Kiyoshi Kaneda 1936-2022
It is with great sadness we have to inform that Prof. Kiyoshi Kaneda passed away on October 9, 2022, at the age of 86 years.
He served as Professor and Chairman of Orthopaedic Surgery at Hokkaido University from 1986 to 2000. As we all know, he was the father of spine surgery, especially developing anterior spinal fixation device (“Kaneda Device”), and thereby contributed to spine medicine throughout the world. Also, he realized early on the importance of spinal biomechanics to solve clinical problems. He worked with Prof. Manohar M. Panjabi and sent his spine fellows. His passion inspired his spine fellows to publish a lot of biomechanical researches.
He was a member of ISSLS since 1981, and attended the annual meeting every year. He was President of ISSLS in 1996-1997, and received the ISSLS Wiltse Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. Amazingly, even after making historic achievement, he read abstract book end to end and kept acquiring new knowledge throughout his life.
He was a great surgeon, a great researcher, and a great teacher for us.(by Masahiro Kanayama)
Read the full obituary by Masahiro Kanayama
Professor Shinichi Kikuchi 1946 – 2022
Shinichi Kikuchi, Professor of Orthopaedics, Fukushima Medical University, Fukushima, Japan passed away on February 2, 2022 at the age of 75 years, after a short illness. He is survived by his wife Yumiko and their two daughters Junko and Masako and their families.
Read the full obituary by Shin-ichi Konno and Björn Rydevik here
Dr. John O’Brien 1938-2024
It is with great sadness we have to inform that Dr. John O’Brien passed away on May 4, 2024, at the age of 86 years.
Haruo Tsuji 1933-2021
It is with great sadness that we were informed that Prof. Haruo Tsuji passed away on 7, August, 2021. He was a professor of Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Toyama Medical and Pharmaceutical University, Japan and a members of ISSLS. He was a pioneer as a Japanese spine surgeon and an Editorial Board member of Spine, Japanese edition. He was a great professor and wrote the textbook, “Principle and fundamental technique in lumbar spine surgery” which was a bible for most of the Japanese spine surgeons. We have lost a great teacher.
(by Yoshiharu Kawaguchi)
Raghu Natarajan 1940-2020
We regret to inform you that Dr Raghu Natarajan has passed away. He was a member of ISSLS since 2002 but started attending its annual meetings way before his induction.
Josef Assheuer 1941-2020
It is with great sadness that we inform that Josef Assheuer has passed away. He was a member of ISSLS since 1992. Among his friends at ISSLS, Josef will always be remembered as a gentle spirit with an unmatched pleasant disposition and zest for life, who was very approachable, modest, passionate about spine imaging, and eager to share his vast knowledge and perspectives with others. Josef will be forever missed and his memory will live on in all he touched.
Malcolm Pope 1941 – 2020
It is with great sadness we have to inform that Malcolm Pope has passed away. Malcolm Pope was born in London, UK in 1941. He graduated from the University of Bridgeport, CT, USA with a MS in Mechanical Engineering in 1969. In 1972 he received a PhD in Biomechanics from the University of Vermont and was subsequently awarded a Dr. Med. Sc. (1990) from University of Gothenburg, Sweden and a DSc. From the University of Aberdeen, Scotland (2000). He was one of the founding members of The International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine in 1974 and has served on several of the ISSLS committees. He was President of the Society in 1988-1989 and he
received the ISSLS Wiltse Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.