Tom Marchioro, UW Surgeon And Teacher

The University of Washington surgeon-in-training was quite pleased the difficult spleen removal had gone so well. Tom Marchioro, his teacher and co-surgeon, walked the hospital hall with him and complimented him. But he said his own expertise had been a key factor.

"And do you know why I'm good?" the veteran surgeon asked the eager young doctor. "Because I've made every mistake you can possibly make, but I've never made the same one twice."

It was classic Marchioro: confident but always learning and teaching. Gifted with a searching mind that passed knowledge on easily, he was one of the University of Washington School of Medicine's most valued professors.

Dr. Marchioro, pioneer in transplant surgery, revered teacher to legions of young doctors, father of seven, died Sunday of heart disease and complications from surgery. He was 66.

"He was the most intellectually honest person I've ever known . . . It is a great loss," said Dr. Craig Eddy, a Missoula surgeon who once was his student and later his UW faculty colleague.

"He was the soul of integrity. He was a great teacher with the highest standards of ethics," said Dr. Thomas Starzl, with whom Marchioro did the earliest kidney and liver transplants while at the University of Colorado in the 1960s.

A native of Spokane, Dr. Marchioro grew up near Butte, Mont., the son of a copper miner. He worked in the mines himself while attending high school and college.

Dr. Marchioro earned his undergraduate degree from Gonzaga University in Spokane, and his medical degree from St. Louis University. After internships in St. Louis, he honed his surgical skills during residencies at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit; Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston; L'Hospital Laennec in Paris; and Colorado General Hospital in Denver.

At Colorado, Starzl named him assistant chief of surgery, and he helped in groundbreaking research on how best to prevent the body from rejecting transplanted organs.

Dr. Marchioro came to the UW in 1967 and quickly established the same excellent reputation. For nearly 28 years, he conducted research and performed surgery: kidney transplants and surgery on the lungs, pancreas, liver, gall bladder, just about any operation in the chest and belly. At age 63, he started the UW's lung-transplant program and only three weeks ago was still helping with those operations.

"He was both a courageous and enormously talented surgeon," said his longtime UW colleague, Dr. Roger Moe. He was often the one others called when the going got rough.

Eddy remembers a construction worker whose lungs were torn loose from their bronchi when a wall collapsed on him. The equipment keeping him alive was in the way of the surgery; four top surgeons weren't sure what to do.

"You do what you know how to do - operate," said Dr. Marchioro as soon as he arrived.

The equipment was removed and the surgeons sewed the bronchi together - in between giving the patient quick, 10-breath sessions on the respirator. The worker fully recovered.

"He always had this ability to run all these questions through his mind very quickly and see the solution," Eddy said. "While everybody else was standing there thinking, he left them in the dust."

A burly square-jawed man, Dr. Marchioro was not as gruff as he appeared. He often counseled residents on personal problems and his patients adored him because of his genuine interest in them.

"Tom came out of a little hovel in Walkerville, Mont.," said his wife, Karen, a former state Democratic Party Chairwoman. "He never forgot where he came from, and that's why he treated everyone, no matter what their station, with such dignity."

Relatives and friends also marveled at the breadth of his knowledge and interest in other subjects: history, philosophy, literature, math and motorcycles. Dr. Doug Stewart, another UW colleague, recalled how he was reading T.S. Eliot several weeks ago in his hospital bed. His wife recalled how she worried, once again, as he rode a new Harley-Davidson home last August.

Survivors include his wife Karen, of Bellevue; seven children; Thomas II, of Ames, Iowa; Kevin, of Boston; Stephen, of Okinawa, Japan; Greg, of Woodinville; Ann Ystadt, of Fevik, Norway; Kathy Johnston, of Redmond; and Joan, of Olympia; seven grandchildren; a brother, Robert, of Mascoutah, Ill.; and two sisters, Claire DeRusha, of Spokane and Phyllis Marchioro.

A vigil will be held from 7 to 8 p.m., Friday at Bonney-Watson Funeral Home, 1732 Broadway. Services will be at 9:30 a.m., Saturday, at St. James Cathedral, Ninth Avenue and Marion Street, with interment at Holyrood Catholic Cemetery. A reception follows in the Walker-Ames Room of Kane Hall, on the UW campus.

Memorials may be sent to Catholic Community Services, 100 23rd Ave. S., Seattle, WA 98144; Jesuit Retirement Fund, P.O. Box 4408, Portland, Ore. 97208; or Sacred Heart Shelter, 232 Warren Ave. N., Seattle 98109.