Dr. Alan G. Rose, professor and director of the Medical School of Pathology teaching program at the University of Minnesota, died of pancreatic cancer on New Year's Eve while in his native South Africa. He was 69.
Rose spent the early part of his career in Cape Town, where he established himself as an expert in the field of cardiac pathology. He arrived in Minnesota in 1994 to head the Jesse E. Edwards Heart Registry, a collection of about 15,000 hearts housed at United Hospital in St. Paul. He joined the University of Minnesota Medical School in 1998. Under his leadership as director of the residency program and the pathology teaching program, the school ranked second in the nation in the number of medical students who studied pathology, said Dr. Leo T. Furcht, of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the U.
"I believe this is a testament to how interesting and engaging Alan made our teaching of pathology," Furcht said. "Alan was a most remarkable person who could lead, guide and communicate at the highest level with other physicians, students and trainees."
Rose developed his expertise while studying at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He worked with Dr. Christiaan Barnard, the cardiac surgeon who performed the world's first successful human-to-human heart transplant in 1967, said friend Joan Cockroft.
He was a professor, chairman and chief specialist in the Department of Pathology at the University of Cape Town/Groote Schuur Hospital from 1988 to 1994 before he moved to the United States. At the University of Minnesota, he was known as a scientist and scholar who was deeply invested in his resident students.
"He was a wonderful, caring, friendly guy who went above and beyond for his residents," said former student and pathologist Dr. Shanna Morgan, who now works at the University of Minnesota Medical School.
Over the course of his career, Rose authored several articles, wrote two books, "Pathology of Heart Valve Replacement" (1987) and "Atlas of Gross Pathology: With Histologic Correlation" (2008), and was active in numerous professional societies where he was respected as an international expert and as "one of the top pathologists in the world," Furcht said.
Rose was an avid traveler and liked to drive his motorhome to the many medical congresses he spoke at. He also traveled abroad to speak, most recently last fall when he went to Greece, Cockroft said.
