In memoriam Bernd Walter Scheithauer 1946–2011

Authors: Caterina Giannini

Publish Date: 2011/11/25

Volume: 123, Issue: 3, Pages: 461-462

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Abstract

On September 19th 2011 Professor Bernd Walter Scheithauer passed away at his home in Rochester MN unexpectedly and prematurely Bernd was born August 30 1946 in Gelenau Germany to Walter and Renate Scholz Scheithauer At the age of 7 his family migrated to the United States and he grew up in Eureka CA He graduated from Humboldt State College in Arcata CA and went to medical school at Loma Linda University School of Medicine in Loma Linda CA In 1979 after completing his Residency and Fellowship in Surgical Pathology and Neuropathology at Stanford University Medical Center Palo Alto CA he left California for the Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN where he quickly raised through the academic ranks to Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology and remained through his full careerNeuropathology was for Bernd the love of his life and to some extent his work was his life He was truly a unique surgical neuropathologist the result of his personal inclination coupled with his life long position at Mayo where he practiced as a surgical pathologist and neuropathologist Since the beginning of his career he made the tumors which were considered in some ways the “less noble” part of neuropathology the focus of his life He was very proud to be a “lumps bumps” neuropathologist and had little patience for autopsy neuropathology He wanted to help the livingDr Rubinstein who was his teacher more than once complained to him that he was not “a serious neuropathologist” because he was too much into diagnostics of tumors rather than science However in doing so not only Bernd carried the legacy of his teacher but also he was the one who “took things further” Dr Rubinstein himself recognized that when he proposed Bernd as one of the editors of the Brain Tumor WHO classification in the early 1980s Bernd was thankful to him and very proud of itBernd was extremely curious and loved beautiful things and so he was in his work He loved the shore of North of California where he would go walking finding all kind of beautiful things brought back from the ocean Because of this I think it particularly applies to him in his approach to neuropathology what Newton once said about himself “he was like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting himself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before him”Bernd was a very acute observer always full of insights He would brilliantly approach the most unusual and difficult cases and would systematically explore all the diagnostic possibilities finding the support he needed by exhausting all the available techniques from the classical histochemical stains to immunohistochemistry to electron microscopy

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