Shared Love For Outdoors Led UW Dean, Wife To Last Trek -- Medical School Hit Hard By Death Of Couple In Mountains Of Nepal

The remote and windswept mountains of Nepal must have held a certain magic for Philip and Helen Fialkow.

The dean of the University of Washington School of Medicine and his wife of 36 years were experienced hikers who had trekked across the Himalayas on three occasions before launching their journey to an 800-year-old Buddhist monastery on Oct. 7.

Yesterday, however, rescuers found the bodies of the Fialkows and three guides buried under a crushing mound of snow at their campsite at an elevation of 15,500 feet, ending a week-and-a-half search for the missing party. The group apparently got caught either in an avalanche or up to nine feet of unseasonably heavy snowfall after descending a 17,000-foot pass Oct. 21, the U.S. Embassy in Katmandu said.

"It seems all of them died in their sleep. They were all in their sleeping clothes with no shoes on and lying in a row," said Maj. Kisendra Shahi, the helicopter pilot who brought the bodies to the district headquarters at Dunai where they were handed over to local police.

Both Fialkows were 62.

They were last seen about 10 days ago in the Shey Phoksumdo National Park in the highlands of northwest Nepal.

"They certainly enjoyed being out in the wilderness, and they knew what to do," said L.G. Blanchard, spokesman for UW Health Sciences and Medical Affairs.

The loss of Dr. Fialkow, who served as chief academic administrator for the UW Medical Center and Harborview Medical

Center since 1992, and as school dean since 1990, was felt throughout the university yesterday.

UW President Richard McCormick said the New York City native and Tufts University medical alumnus was a "supremely wise and thoughtful human being," with whom he had developed a strong relationship since taking the president's job in 1995.

"The personal loss is great for me," said McCormick, adding that Dr. Fialkow was both a cherished friend and adviser.

Dr. Fialkow, who loved his research in genetics, took the high-stress dean's position somewhat reluctantly, associates have said. But it was a good fit.

Yesterday McCormick credited Dr. Fialkow for leading the medical school through lean budgetary times while maintaining its status as one of the most highly regarded and well-funded public research-oriented schools in the country.

Under Dr. Fialkow's leadership, the school recently began its first major expansion of research space in more than two decades, with the Biomedical Sciences Research Building now under construction.

The medical school, with an annual budget exceeding $400 million, has about 1,300 faculty. One of the school's more than 600 medical students is the Fialkows' son, Michael Fialkow, who is in his fourth year.

Dr. Fialkow had considered the development of students a vital part of his work. He made the medical school one of the few in the nation to require students to produce a large-scale project related to their studies.

He also placed special emphasis on his school's role as the principal training ground for medical practitioners in Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.

A UW faculty member since 1965, Dr. Fialkow had served as a consultant to the National Institutes of Health, the Veterans Affairs Department and other organizations, and he was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 1991. He was credited with groundbreaking work on the genetic links to leukemia in the 1970s.

Dr. Fialkow's skills as an educator, researcher and clinician made him stand out on what already was a formidable faculty, said Dr. John Coombs, who has been named acting dean until a search for a permanent replacement is conducted.

The Fialkows met at Tufts University's Cancer Research Laboratory while Dr. Fialkow was a medical student. Helen Fialkow, a Boston native, had earned a bachelor's degree from Boston University.

After getting married in 1960, they developed a passion for the outdoors and became supporters of the Audubon Society and The Nature Conservatory.

Dr. Fialkow started working out the details of this latest trip to Nepal's Tse Gomba Buddhist monastery a year ago.

"He had a very special affair, if you will, with the mountains and nature," said Dr. Carlos Pellegrini, chairman of the UW Department of Surgery.

Coombs suggested that exploring the outdoors, especially isolated places, helped Dr. Fialkow temporarily escape the intensity of running a top medical program.

And, in part, it was Dr. Fialkow's love of the outdoors that kept him in Seattle, UW Medical Center Medical Director Eric Larson said.

Larson said Dr. Fialkow had been highly sought by other prominent medical schools, but his loyalty to the UW and his affinity for the Northwest had created a lasting bond.

"He and his wife were very devoted to the school," Larson said.

For her part, Mrs. Fialkow was deeply involved in the medical school's 50th anniversary celebration last year and with numerous other school functions.

As other academic medical centers struggled to keep afloat financially and in stature, Dr. Fialkow helped the UW's maintain stability, Larson said. He attributed this to Dr. Fialkow's straightforward manner, his ability to achieve consensus, and his respect for fellow doctors.

As of last night, funeral arrangements for the couple had not been set. Yesterday, their bodies were flown from the remote mountain campsite to a town in Nepal.

In addition to their son, the Fialkows are survived by a daughter, Deborah Fialkow, of Seattle.

The Nepalese guides who perished along with the Fialkows were Hem Kumar Thapa Magar, the chief guide; Jingbu Sherpa, the cook; and Nuri Sherpa, an assistant.

Material from Associated Press is contained in this report.