Dr. Fredrick J. Montz, a Johns Hopkins professor of gynecology, obstetrics, oncology and surgery who was known for his ability to comfort his many cancer patients, died of cardiac arrhythmia Thursday evening while jogging near his Poplar Hill home in North Baltimore. He was 47.
Recruited to Hopkins in 1997, he was an authority on the use of minimally invasive techniques that preserved fertility in the treatment of gynecologic cancers.
"Rick Montz was an outstanding physician, surgeon, investigator, mentor and friend, and a source of boundless compassion, skill and energy," said Dr. Harold E. Fox, professor and director of gynecology and obstetrics at Hopkins. "His intense commitment, intellectually and emotionally, to his patients, his students and his research will go forward through the young physicians he has trained and those fortunate to have been touched by his life."
"He brought a breath of fresh air and took Baltimore by storm," said Edward K. Dunn Jr., former chairman of Johns Hopkins Medicine and a friend. "He was brilliant, the quintessential academic physician."
His greatest gift, said Dr. Montz's pastor, the Rev. Richard T. Lawrence of St. Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic Church in downtown Baltimore, was his ability to be "totally candid and totally compassionate at the same time."
"His patients trusted him immediately," Father Lawrence said. "They knew that with him, they were a patient and not just a case."
Dr. Montz's research involved efforts to preserve fertility in women with cancerous conditions of the reproductive tract. He worked to develop better, earlier screening methods to prevent death and disability from cervical, ovarian and uterine cancers. He also refined less radical surgeries for gynecologic cancers.
"Rick's contributions to the advancement and teaching of gynecologic oncology centered always on his abiding concern for the individual," said Dr. Edward D. Miller, dean and chief executive officer of Johns Hopkins Medicine. "His enthusiasm and energy for life, and his unwavering devotion to those who faced a diagnosis of cancer, will long be remembered. In his life, his work and his person, he was the very model of excellence that Hopkins most values."
Ronald R. Peterson, president of Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System, recalled Dr. Montz's fervent advocacy for his patients and "his conveyance, always, of realistic hope for those under his care."
Said Dr. Martin D. Abeloff, professor and director of oncology at Hopkins: "He was one of the most compassionate and caring clinicians I have encountered in my many years at Hopkins. In many ways, he was bigger than life and that makes his passing particularly difficult for everyone."
His colleagues at the hospital recalled his striking appearance as the pony-tailed doctor who wore an earring and projected a carefree attitude on the ABC News documentary, Hopkins: 24/7, filmed two years ago.
"There was not a single one of us who sat in our lengthy interview with him who failed to understand what extraordinary gifts he had for life and for healing," said Terry Wrong, senior producer for the ABC series. "I like to think that what we saw in that film, the compassion, the honesty, the laughter and the tears, is his true legacy."
Born in Marshfield, Wis., and raised in Bismarck, N.D., Dr. Montz earned a bachelor's degree at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn. His medical degree was from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston in 1980.
He also studied at the University of Southern California Medical Center in Los Angeles, St. George's Hospital at the University of London School of Medicine in England and at the University of Southern California Norris Cancer Center in Los Angeles.
He joined the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine in 1987, rising to the rank of associate professor in 1993.
Dr. Montz was president of the Maryland Obstetric and Gynecology Society. He was also a fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the American College of Surgeons.
He was also a Knight of Malta, a Roman Catholic society formed to honor caregivers and protectors of the sick.
Dr. Montz was the recipient of numerous local and national teaching awards and published more than 150 scientific articles. He wrote nearly three dozen chapters in medical book and edited two textbooks.
He was a parishioner and Eucharist minister at St. Vincent de Paul.
Services are being planned.
Dr. Montz is survived by his wife, Dr. Kathleen M. Ryan, a physician at Greater Baltimore Medical Center who works in the field of obstetrics and gynecology.
He has three sons, Jacob John Montz of Baltimore, Charles Robert Montz of Providence, R.I., and Richard Uwe Montz of Los Angeles; and a daughter, Rebekah Marie Montz of Baltimore.