Bruce M. Achauer, M.D.
Professor of Surgery
Irvine
1943-2002
Born in the small town of Warrensburg, Missouri, Bruce Achauer rose to the top of his profession, becoming renowned worldwide as a brilliant surgeon, superb educator and exceptional researcher—all accomplished while continuing a full-time clinical practice in plastic and reconstructive surgery. No doubt influenced by working in his father's pharmacy, at age 13 Dr. Achauer decided on a career in medicine. After undergraduate education at Stanford University, he obtained his medical degree at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston in 1967. He applied successfully for the highly competitive rotating internship at San Francisco General Hospital, and then came to the University of California Irvine to complete residencies in general and plastic surgery between 1970 and 1976. To round out his clinical training, he traveled to the Queen Victoria Hospital in Sussex, United Kingdom as a Marks Fellow in Plastic Surgery. During the tumultuous years of the Vietnam conflict, Dr. Achauer served as a captain and flight surgeon in the United States Air Force based at the School of Aerospace Medicine in San Antonio between 1968 and 1970. On return from England, he was certified by both the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Plastic Surgery and was appointed assistant professor of surgery at UC Irvine in 1977. He was promoted to adjunct professor in 1994, a position he held until his untimely death.
The milestones in his life, distinguished as they are, do not reveal the enormous impact Bruce Achauer had on the lives of his patients, fellow practitioners and family. His professional devotion was to reconstructive surgery and the Burn Unit at the UCI Medical Center. There he achieved well-deserved national acclaim for his treatment of a 6-year-old badly burned in a motel fire in 1983 and a teenage girl who had been burned severely with acid in 1984. He performed reconstructive surgery on countless numbers of burned patients at UCI Medical Center, and at the same time was widely considered a master of aesthetic plastic surgery. Dr. Achauer also had steady research support for 21 years with half a dozen active projects at the time of his death. He studied the use of cyclosporin in the prolongation of allografts, and developed non-invasive methods to accurately assess the depth of the burn wound. His curriculum vitae listed 151 peer-reviewed articles and 48 book chapters. Dr. Achauer edited and wrote four major textbooks in plastic surgery with the most recent five-volume text described as the "comprehensive bible of plastic surgery." Dr. Achauer's service to the University was unstinting, including work on most of the Hospital Committees. He was an administrative officer of the California Society of Plastic Surgeons and medical advisor to the Orange County Burn Association. Perhaps his most important service to the University was acting chief of the Plastic Surgery Division some four years ago during which time the Division began reorganization. International recognition came through many visiting professorships at universities in Ireland, Finland, Kuwait, Brazil and Mexico. At home, he had been a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Ohio State, the University of California, San Francisco, his alma mater Baylor College of Medicine, Indiana University and the University of Texas, Dallas. These many invitations and recognitions notwithstanding, Dr. Achauer made time to serve as a commencement speaker at Warrensburg High School. In his private life Dr. Achauer was an avid sailor who knew the marine charts of the coastal waters of Southern California as well as the anatomical charts for the structures of the face.
While serving as president of the board of directors of the Educational Foundation of the American Society of Plastic Surgery and a director of the American Board of Plastic Surgery, Dr. Achauer attended the National American Society of Plastic Surgeons Annual Congress in San Antonio late in 2002. Tragically, he developed a gastrointestinal bacterial infection and succumbed to bloodstream infection within 48 hours. Plastic surgeons from across the country attended the family memorial service and an honor guard of firefighters, who knew best Dr. Achauer's challenges and triumphs, paid their respects at the Medical Center remembrance. Dr. Achauer is survived by his wife, Tamara, and two grown daughters, Allison and Hilary. He will be long remembered by the many patients he restored from disfigurement, by the faculty at University of California, Irvine and most of all by his family.
Samuel E. Wilson, M.D.
Gregory R.D. Evans, M.D.
Dr. Bruce M. Achauer, director of the UC Irvine Medical Center's Regional Burn Center for 22 years and an internationally recognized expert on reconstructive surgery, has died of an unidentified bacterial infection.
Achauer would have turned 60 on Monday. "It was very unexpected and shocking for all of us," said Victoria VanderKam, the Orange burn center's program director and nurse manager who had worked with him for more than 20 years. "Bruce was an extraordinary person. We are shocked, stunned and devastated."
Dr. Marianne Cinat, the center's co-director since 1998, said, "People here are very saddened. It's a huge loss."
Achauer -- whose patients included David Rothenberg, a 6-year-old who was set afire by his father in a Buena Park motel room in 1983, and Cheryl Bess, a teenage girl who had been assaulted and burned with acid in 1984 -- died about 11 p.m. Monday in a San Antonio hospital after falling ill over the weekend.
Achauer was there to attend the annual conference of the National American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
"He was here on Wednesday, he did surgery and we all saw him," VanderKam said. "On Thursday he flies out, and on Tuesday morning we hear that he's dead. There's a lot of emotion here, a lot of grief and a lot of tears."
During his 35-year career, Achauer conducted major medical research projects, wrote more than 150 scientific articles and four books, taught at several universities, treated both famous and indigent patients and became one of the world's preeminent plastic surgeons.
He recently completed a two-year term as president of the American Board of Plastic Surgery, the field's governing body, and had published a five-volume textbook, considered, VanderKam said, "the comprehensive bible of plastic surgery" in America.
"He had a passion for burn care," she said. "He was involved in developing and refining new types of treatment."
A graduate of Stanford University and Houston's Baylor College of Medicine, Achauer -- who chose his career at age 13 after working in his father's pharmacy -- interned at San Francisco General Hospital beginning in 1967.
While there, he observed plastic surgeons reconstructing disfigured patients and decided that that's what he wanted to specialize in.
"Plastic surgery is precise and creative, and the reconstructive cases are all unique and difficult," he said. "Each presents a new challenge, [and] I'm also able to develop a long-term relationship with my patients."
In recent years, said Beverly Brenda, administrator of his private practice in Orange, those patients included many victims of life-threatening disfigurements -- often in foreign countries -- whose services were funded by the elective "aesthetic" surgeries he performed for pay.
Achauer is survived by his wife, Tamara, and two grown daughters, Allison and Hilary.
Funeral services will be private.
Bruce M. Achauer, '63 (biological sciences), of Long Beach, Calif., November 9, 2002, at 60. A member of Delta Upsilon, he served as a flight surgeon in the Air Force. He was a professor of plastic surgery at UC-Irvine and director of its burn unit as well as the director of plastic surgery at the Beckham Laser Institute in Irvine. He served as president of the Plastic Surgery Educational Foundation and chair of the American Board of Plastic Surgery. He and his wife endowed an honors research symposium at Stanford. Survivors: his wife of 34 years, Tamara; two daughters, Allison and Hilary; his mother; and one sister.
Passage: Dr. Bruce Achauer, 59
11.07.02
Achauer, who died Monday after suddenly falling ill while attending a conference, was the plastic surgeon who helped save David Rothenburg, a 6-year-old boy set on fire by his father during a bitter custody battle in 1983. Achauer performed dozens of surgeries and skin grafts on the boy, who had burns over 90 percent of his body. In private practice, Achauer, who recently completed a five-volume work on plastic surgery, worked on children with facial deformities, birthmarks and cleft lips and palates.
Professor of Surgery
Irvine
1943-2002
Born in the small town of Warrensburg, Missouri, Bruce Achauer rose to the top of his profession, becoming renowned worldwide as a brilliant surgeon, superb educator and exceptional researcher—all accomplished while continuing a full-time clinical practice in plastic and reconstructive surgery. No doubt influenced by working in his father's pharmacy, at age 13 Dr. Achauer decided on a career in medicine. After undergraduate education at Stanford University, he obtained his medical degree at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston in 1967. He applied successfully for the highly competitive rotating internship at San Francisco General Hospital, and then came to the University of California Irvine to complete residencies in general and plastic surgery between 1970 and 1976. To round out his clinical training, he traveled to the Queen Victoria Hospital in Sussex, United Kingdom as a Marks Fellow in Plastic Surgery. During the tumultuous years of the Vietnam conflict, Dr. Achauer served as a captain and flight surgeon in the United States Air Force based at the School of Aerospace Medicine in San Antonio between 1968 and 1970. On return from England, he was certified by both the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Plastic Surgery and was appointed assistant professor of surgery at UC Irvine in 1977. He was promoted to adjunct professor in 1994, a position he held until his untimely death.
The milestones in his life, distinguished as they are, do not reveal the enormous impact Bruce Achauer had on the lives of his patients, fellow practitioners and family. His professional devotion was to reconstructive surgery and the Burn Unit at the UCI Medical Center. There he achieved well-deserved national acclaim for his treatment of a 6-year-old badly burned in a motel fire in 1983 and a teenage girl who had been burned severely with acid in 1984. He performed reconstructive surgery on countless numbers of burned patients at UCI Medical Center, and at the same time was widely considered a master of aesthetic plastic surgery. Dr. Achauer also had steady research support for 21 years with half a dozen active projects at the time of his death. He studied the use of cyclosporin in the prolongation of allografts, and developed non-invasive methods to accurately assess the depth of the burn wound. His curriculum vitae listed 151 peer-reviewed articles and 48 book chapters. Dr. Achauer edited and wrote four major textbooks in plastic surgery with the most recent five-volume text described as the "comprehensive bible of plastic surgery." Dr. Achauer's service to the University was unstinting, including work on most of the Hospital Committees. He was an administrative officer of the California Society of Plastic Surgeons and medical advisor to the Orange County Burn Association. Perhaps his most important service to the University was acting chief of the Plastic Surgery Division some four years ago during which time the Division began reorganization. International recognition came through many visiting professorships at universities in Ireland, Finland, Kuwait, Brazil and Mexico. At home, he had been a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Ohio State, the University of California, San Francisco, his alma mater Baylor College of Medicine, Indiana University and the University of Texas, Dallas. These many invitations and recognitions notwithstanding, Dr. Achauer made time to serve as a commencement speaker at Warrensburg High School. In his private life Dr. Achauer was an avid sailor who knew the marine charts of the coastal waters of Southern California as well as the anatomical charts for the structures of the face.
While serving as president of the board of directors of the Educational Foundation of the American Society of Plastic Surgery and a director of the American Board of Plastic Surgery, Dr. Achauer attended the National American Society of Plastic Surgeons Annual Congress in San Antonio late in 2002. Tragically, he developed a gastrointestinal bacterial infection and succumbed to bloodstream infection within 48 hours. Plastic surgeons from across the country attended the family memorial service and an honor guard of firefighters, who knew best Dr. Achauer's challenges and triumphs, paid their respects at the Medical Center remembrance. Dr. Achauer is survived by his wife, Tamara, and two grown daughters, Allison and Hilary. He will be long remembered by the many patients he restored from disfigurement, by the faculty at University of California, Irvine and most of all by his family.
Samuel E. Wilson, M.D.
Gregory R.D. Evans, M.D.
Dr. Bruce M. Achauer, director of the UC Irvine Medical Center's Regional Burn Center for 22 years and an internationally recognized expert on reconstructive surgery, has died of an unidentified bacterial infection.
Achauer would have turned 60 on Monday. "It was very unexpected and shocking for all of us," said Victoria VanderKam, the Orange burn center's program director and nurse manager who had worked with him for more than 20 years. "Bruce was an extraordinary person. We are shocked, stunned and devastated."
Dr. Marianne Cinat, the center's co-director since 1998, said, "People here are very saddened. It's a huge loss."
Achauer -- whose patients included David Rothenberg, a 6-year-old who was set afire by his father in a Buena Park motel room in 1983, and Cheryl Bess, a teenage girl who had been assaulted and burned with acid in 1984 -- died about 11 p.m. Monday in a San Antonio hospital after falling ill over the weekend.
Achauer was there to attend the annual conference of the National American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
"He was here on Wednesday, he did surgery and we all saw him," VanderKam said. "On Thursday he flies out, and on Tuesday morning we hear that he's dead. There's a lot of emotion here, a lot of grief and a lot of tears."
During his 35-year career, Achauer conducted major medical research projects, wrote more than 150 scientific articles and four books, taught at several universities, treated both famous and indigent patients and became one of the world's preeminent plastic surgeons.
He recently completed a two-year term as president of the American Board of Plastic Surgery, the field's governing body, and had published a five-volume textbook, considered, VanderKam said, "the comprehensive bible of plastic surgery" in America.
"He had a passion for burn care," she said. "He was involved in developing and refining new types of treatment."
A graduate of Stanford University and Houston's Baylor College of Medicine, Achauer -- who chose his career at age 13 after working in his father's pharmacy -- interned at San Francisco General Hospital beginning in 1967.
While there, he observed plastic surgeons reconstructing disfigured patients and decided that that's what he wanted to specialize in.
"Plastic surgery is precise and creative, and the reconstructive cases are all unique and difficult," he said. "Each presents a new challenge, [and] I'm also able to develop a long-term relationship with my patients."
In recent years, said Beverly Brenda, administrator of his private practice in Orange, those patients included many victims of life-threatening disfigurements -- often in foreign countries -- whose services were funded by the elective "aesthetic" surgeries he performed for pay.
Achauer is survived by his wife, Tamara, and two grown daughters, Allison and Hilary.
Funeral services will be private.
Bruce M. Achauer, '63 (biological sciences), of Long Beach, Calif., November 9, 2002, at 60. A member of Delta Upsilon, he served as a flight surgeon in the Air Force. He was a professor of plastic surgery at UC-Irvine and director of its burn unit as well as the director of plastic surgery at the Beckham Laser Institute in Irvine. He served as president of the Plastic Surgery Educational Foundation and chair of the American Board of Plastic Surgery. He and his wife endowed an honors research symposium at Stanford. Survivors: his wife of 34 years, Tamara; two daughters, Allison and Hilary; his mother; and one sister.
Passage: Dr. Bruce Achauer, 59
11.07.02
Achauer, who died Monday after suddenly falling ill while attending a conference, was the plastic surgeon who helped save David Rothenburg, a 6-year-old boy set on fire by his father during a bitter custody battle in 1983. Achauer performed dozens of surgeries and skin grafts on the boy, who had burns over 90 percent of his body. In private practice, Achauer, who recently completed a five-volume work on plastic surgery, worked on children with facial deformities, birthmarks and cleft lips and palates.
Bruce M. Achauer, M.D.
Professor of Surgery
Irvine
1943-2002
Born in the small town of Warrensburg, Missouri, Bruce Achauer rose to the top of his profession, becoming renowned worldwide as a brilliant surgeon, superb educator and exceptional researcher—all accomplished while continuing a full-time clinical practice in plastic and reconstructive surgery. No doubt influenced by working in his father's pharmacy, at age 13 Dr. Achauer decided on a career in medicine. After undergraduate education at Stanford University, he obtained his medical degree at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston in 1967. He applied successfully for the highly competitive rotating internship at San Francisco General Hospital, and then came to the University of California Irvine to complete residencies in general and plastic surgery between 1970 and 1976. To round out his clinical training, he traveled to the Queen Victoria Hospital in Sussex, United Kingdom as a Marks Fellow in Plastic Surgery. During the tumultuous years of the Vietnam conflict, Dr. Achauer served as a captain and flight surgeon in the United States Air Force based at the School of Aerospace Medicine in San Antonio between 1968 and 1970. On return from England, he was certified by both the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Plastic Surgery and was appointed assistant professor of surgery at UC Irvine in 1977. He was promoted to adjunct professor in 1994, a position he held until his untimely death.
The milestones in his life, distinguished as they are, do not reveal the enormous impact Bruce Achauer had on the lives of his patients, fellow practitioners and family. His professional devotion was to reconstructive surgery and the Burn Unit at the UCI Medical Center. There he achieved well-deserved national acclaim for his treatment of a 6-year-old badly burned in a motel fire in 1983 and a teenage girl who had been burned severely with acid in 1984. He performed reconstructive surgery on countless numbers of burned patients at UCI Medical Center, and at the same time was widely considered a master of aesthetic plastic surgery. Dr. Achauer also had steady research support for 21 years with half a dozen active projects at the time of his death. He studied the use of cyclosporin in the prolongation of allografts, and developed non-invasive methods to accurately assess the depth of the burn wound. His curriculum vitae listed 151 peer-reviewed articles and 48 book chapters. Dr. Achauer edited and wrote four major textbooks in plastic surgery with the most recent five-volume text described as the "comprehensive bible of plastic surgery." Dr. Achauer's service to the University was unstinting, including work on most of the Hospital Committees. He was an administrative officer of the California Society of Plastic Surgeons and medical advisor to the Orange County Burn Association. Perhaps his most important service to the University was acting chief of the Plastic Surgery Division some four years ago during which time the Division began reorganization. International recognition came through many visiting professorships at universities in Ireland, Finland, Kuwait, Brazil and Mexico. At home, he had been a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Ohio State, the University of California, San Francisco, his alma mater Baylor College of Medicine, Indiana University and the University of Texas, Dallas. These many invitations and recognitions notwithstanding, Dr. Achauer made time to serve as a commencement speaker at Warrensburg High School. In his private life Dr. Achauer was an avid sailor who knew the marine charts of the coastal waters of Southern California as well as the anatomical charts for the structures of the face.
While serving as president of the board of directors of the Educational Foundation of the American Society of Plastic Surgery and a director of the American Board of Plastic Surgery, Dr. Achauer attended the National American Society of Plastic Surgeons Annual Congress in San Antonio late in 2002. Tragically, he developed a gastrointestinal bacterial infection and succumbed to bloodstream infection within 48 hours. Plastic surgeons from across the country attended the family memorial service and an honor guard of firefighters, who knew best Dr. Achauer's challenges and triumphs, paid their respects at the Medical Center remembrance. Dr. Achauer is survived by his wife, Tamara, and two grown daughters, Allison and Hilary. He will be long remembered by the many patients he restored from disfigurement, by the faculty at University of California, Irvine and most of all by his family.
Samuel E. Wilson, M.D.
Gregory R.D. Evans, M.D.
Dr. Bruce M. Achauer, director of the UC Irvine Medical Center's Regional Burn Center for 22 years and an internationally recognized expert on reconstructive surgery, has died of an unidentified bacterial infection.
Achauer would have turned 60 on Monday. "It was very unexpected and shocking for all of us," said Victoria VanderKam, the Orange burn center's program director and nurse manager who had worked with him for more than 20 years. "Bruce was an extraordinary person. We are shocked, stunned and devastated."
Dr. Marianne Cinat, the center's co-director since 1998, said, "People here are very saddened. It's a huge loss."
Achauer -- whose patients included David Rothenberg, a 6-year-old who was set afire by his father in a Buena Park motel room in 1983, and Cheryl Bess, a teenage girl who had been assaulted and burned with acid in 1984 -- died about 11 p.m. Monday in a San Antonio hospital after falling ill over the weekend.
Achauer was there to attend the annual conference of the National American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
"He was here on Wednesday, he did surgery and we all saw him," VanderKam said. "On Thursday he flies out, and on Tuesday morning we hear that he's dead. There's a lot of emotion here, a lot of grief and a lot of tears."
During his 35-year career, Achauer conducted major medical research projects, wrote more than 150 scientific articles and four books, taught at several universities, treated both famous and indigent patients and became one of the world's preeminent plastic surgeons.
He recently completed a two-year term as president of the American Board of Plastic Surgery, the field's governing body, and had published a five-volume textbook, considered, VanderKam said, "the comprehensive bible of plastic surgery" in America.
"He had a passion for burn care," she said. "He was involved in developing and refining new types of treatment."
A graduate of Stanford University and Houston's Baylor College of Medicine, Achauer -- who chose his career at age 13 after working in his father's pharmacy -- interned at San Francisco General Hospital beginning in 1967.
While there, he observed plastic surgeons reconstructing disfigured patients and decided that that's what he wanted to specialize in.
"Plastic surgery is precise and creative, and the reconstructive cases are all unique and difficult," he said. "Each presents a new challenge, [and] I'm also able to develop a long-term relationship with my patients."
In recent years, said Beverly Brenda, administrator of his private practice in Orange, those patients included many victims of life-threatening disfigurements -- often in foreign countries -- whose services were funded by the elective "aesthetic" surgeries he performed for pay.
Achauer is survived by his wife, Tamara, and two grown daughters, Allison and Hilary.
Funeral services will be private.
Bruce M. Achauer, '63 (biological sciences), of Long Beach, Calif., November 9, 2002, at 60. A member of Delta Upsilon, he served as a flight surgeon in the Air Force. He was a professor of plastic surgery at UC-Irvine and director of its burn unit as well as the director of plastic surgery at the Beckham Laser Institute in Irvine. He served as president of the Plastic Surgery Educational Foundation and chair of the American Board of Plastic Surgery. He and his wife endowed an honors research symposium at Stanford. Survivors: his wife of 34 years, Tamara; two daughters, Allison and Hilary; his mother; and one sister.
Passage: Dr. Bruce Achauer, 59
11.07.02
Achauer, who died Monday after suddenly falling ill while attending a conference, was the plastic surgeon who helped save David Rothenburg, a 6-year-old boy set on fire by his father during a bitter custody battle in 1983. Achauer performed dozens of surgeries and skin grafts on the boy, who had burns over 90 percent of his body. In private practice, Achauer, who recently completed a five-volume work on plastic surgery, worked on children with facial deformities, birthmarks and cleft lips and palates.
Professor of Surgery
Irvine
1943-2002
Born in the small town of Warrensburg, Missouri, Bruce Achauer rose to the top of his profession, becoming renowned worldwide as a brilliant surgeon, superb educator and exceptional researcher—all accomplished while continuing a full-time clinical practice in plastic and reconstructive surgery. No doubt influenced by working in his father's pharmacy, at age 13 Dr. Achauer decided on a career in medicine. After undergraduate education at Stanford University, he obtained his medical degree at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston in 1967. He applied successfully for the highly competitive rotating internship at San Francisco General Hospital, and then came to the University of California Irvine to complete residencies in general and plastic surgery between 1970 and 1976. To round out his clinical training, he traveled to the Queen Victoria Hospital in Sussex, United Kingdom as a Marks Fellow in Plastic Surgery. During the tumultuous years of the Vietnam conflict, Dr. Achauer served as a captain and flight surgeon in the United States Air Force based at the School of Aerospace Medicine in San Antonio between 1968 and 1970. On return from England, he was certified by both the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Plastic Surgery and was appointed assistant professor of surgery at UC Irvine in 1977. He was promoted to adjunct professor in 1994, a position he held until his untimely death.
The milestones in his life, distinguished as they are, do not reveal the enormous impact Bruce Achauer had on the lives of his patients, fellow practitioners and family. His professional devotion was to reconstructive surgery and the Burn Unit at the UCI Medical Center. There he achieved well-deserved national acclaim for his treatment of a 6-year-old badly burned in a motel fire in 1983 and a teenage girl who had been burned severely with acid in 1984. He performed reconstructive surgery on countless numbers of burned patients at UCI Medical Center, and at the same time was widely considered a master of aesthetic plastic surgery. Dr. Achauer also had steady research support for 21 years with half a dozen active projects at the time of his death. He studied the use of cyclosporin in the prolongation of allografts, and developed non-invasive methods to accurately assess the depth of the burn wound. His curriculum vitae listed 151 peer-reviewed articles and 48 book chapters. Dr. Achauer edited and wrote four major textbooks in plastic surgery with the most recent five-volume text described as the "comprehensive bible of plastic surgery." Dr. Achauer's service to the University was unstinting, including work on most of the Hospital Committees. He was an administrative officer of the California Society of Plastic Surgeons and medical advisor to the Orange County Burn Association. Perhaps his most important service to the University was acting chief of the Plastic Surgery Division some four years ago during which time the Division began reorganization. International recognition came through many visiting professorships at universities in Ireland, Finland, Kuwait, Brazil and Mexico. At home, he had been a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Ohio State, the University of California, San Francisco, his alma mater Baylor College of Medicine, Indiana University and the University of Texas, Dallas. These many invitations and recognitions notwithstanding, Dr. Achauer made time to serve as a commencement speaker at Warrensburg High School. In his private life Dr. Achauer was an avid sailor who knew the marine charts of the coastal waters of Southern California as well as the anatomical charts for the structures of the face.
While serving as president of the board of directors of the Educational Foundation of the American Society of Plastic Surgery and a director of the American Board of Plastic Surgery, Dr. Achauer attended the National American Society of Plastic Surgeons Annual Congress in San Antonio late in 2002. Tragically, he developed a gastrointestinal bacterial infection and succumbed to bloodstream infection within 48 hours. Plastic surgeons from across the country attended the family memorial service and an honor guard of firefighters, who knew best Dr. Achauer's challenges and triumphs, paid their respects at the Medical Center remembrance. Dr. Achauer is survived by his wife, Tamara, and two grown daughters, Allison and Hilary. He will be long remembered by the many patients he restored from disfigurement, by the faculty at University of California, Irvine and most of all by his family.
Samuel E. Wilson, M.D.
Gregory R.D. Evans, M.D.
Dr. Bruce M. Achauer, director of the UC Irvine Medical Center's Regional Burn Center for 22 years and an internationally recognized expert on reconstructive surgery, has died of an unidentified bacterial infection.
Achauer would have turned 60 on Monday. "It was very unexpected and shocking for all of us," said Victoria VanderKam, the Orange burn center's program director and nurse manager who had worked with him for more than 20 years. "Bruce was an extraordinary person. We are shocked, stunned and devastated."
Dr. Marianne Cinat, the center's co-director since 1998, said, "People here are very saddened. It's a huge loss."
Achauer -- whose patients included David Rothenberg, a 6-year-old who was set afire by his father in a Buena Park motel room in 1983, and Cheryl Bess, a teenage girl who had been assaulted and burned with acid in 1984 -- died about 11 p.m. Monday in a San Antonio hospital after falling ill over the weekend.
Achauer was there to attend the annual conference of the National American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
"He was here on Wednesday, he did surgery and we all saw him," VanderKam said. "On Thursday he flies out, and on Tuesday morning we hear that he's dead. There's a lot of emotion here, a lot of grief and a lot of tears."
During his 35-year career, Achauer conducted major medical research projects, wrote more than 150 scientific articles and four books, taught at several universities, treated both famous and indigent patients and became one of the world's preeminent plastic surgeons.
He recently completed a two-year term as president of the American Board of Plastic Surgery, the field's governing body, and had published a five-volume textbook, considered, VanderKam said, "the comprehensive bible of plastic surgery" in America.
"He had a passion for burn care," she said. "He was involved in developing and refining new types of treatment."
A graduate of Stanford University and Houston's Baylor College of Medicine, Achauer -- who chose his career at age 13 after working in his father's pharmacy -- interned at San Francisco General Hospital beginning in 1967.
While there, he observed plastic surgeons reconstructing disfigured patients and decided that that's what he wanted to specialize in.
"Plastic surgery is precise and creative, and the reconstructive cases are all unique and difficult," he said. "Each presents a new challenge, [and] I'm also able to develop a long-term relationship with my patients."
In recent years, said Beverly Brenda, administrator of his private practice in Orange, those patients included many victims of life-threatening disfigurements -- often in foreign countries -- whose services were funded by the elective "aesthetic" surgeries he performed for pay.
Achauer is survived by his wife, Tamara, and two grown daughters, Allison and Hilary.
Funeral services will be private.
Bruce M. Achauer, '63 (biological sciences), of Long Beach, Calif., November 9, 2002, at 60. A member of Delta Upsilon, he served as a flight surgeon in the Air Force. He was a professor of plastic surgery at UC-Irvine and director of its burn unit as well as the director of plastic surgery at the Beckham Laser Institute in Irvine. He served as president of the Plastic Surgery Educational Foundation and chair of the American Board of Plastic Surgery. He and his wife endowed an honors research symposium at Stanford. Survivors: his wife of 34 years, Tamara; two daughters, Allison and Hilary; his mother; and one sister.
Passage: Dr. Bruce Achauer, 59
11.07.02
Achauer, who died Monday after suddenly falling ill while attending a conference, was the plastic surgeon who helped save David Rothenburg, a 6-year-old boy set on fire by his father during a bitter custody battle in 1983. Achauer performed dozens of surgeries and skin grafts on the boy, who had burns over 90 percent of his body. In private practice, Achauer, who recently completed a five-volume work on plastic surgery, worked on children with facial deformities, birthmarks and cleft lips and palates.
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