One of my many jobs is to write a community announcement when a faculty member passes away. This usually starts with the relevant biographical details from their official obituary, and then surveying department chairs and colleagues for anecdotes and a sense of who the person truly was. This typically evokes stories about what a gracious teacher the person was, how they mentored junior faculty, how they cared for every patient like they were family, and so on.

I decided several years ago to stop saving these stories for obituaries. People who are beloved by their community should know that while they are still alive. One of our first subjects after I made that declaration was Ed Feller, MD, PMD’03, the gastroenterologist-turned-research mentor to dozens of medical students. The resulting article, by staff writer Phoebe Hall, appeared in the winter 2017 issue of Brown Medicine and was a goldmine of alumni stories and heartfelt love for Dr. Feller. (It also began a years-long friendship between Phoebe and Ed, which often produced great story ideas about whatever fantastic students he was working with at the time.)

He sent me an email after the article appeared thanking me for having the “uber-wonderful” idea of doing the story because he had heard from so many faculty and former students. “The entire process and re-reading the article gives me flashbacks of lots of events and memories... also a nice reaffirmation of my life and choices,” he wrote.

Dr. Feller might have been 80, but I wasn’t expecting to have to write the announcement of his death on that Tuesday in July. I had just seen him a few weeks before at the Medical School, sitting at a café table meeting with a medical student. Like so many, I was shocked and deeply saddened that he was gone.

I hate that we didn’t get to say goodbye, to say thanks and tell him what he meant to our community. But then I remember that article, and the seven Senior Citations he received from graduating classes, and all the wedding invitations and birth announcements he continued to receive from alumni, and I think he knew.

I like to think he knew.

– Kris Cambra, Editor