Dr. William Richard Green, the former head of the eye pathology laboratory of the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins Hospital who was also a world-renowned pathologist-ophthalmologist, died July 5 from complications of heart disease and diabetes at his Ruxton home.
He was 76.
Dr. Green, the son of an Illinois Central Railroad inspector and a seamstress, was born and raised in Paducah, Ky. After graduating from Tilghman High School in 1952, he earned a bachelor's degree from Centre College in Danville, Ky., in 1955.
He was a 1959 graduate of the University of Louisville School of Medicine and completed an internship in internal medicine in 1960 at Tufts-New England Medical Center.
While working at the Howe Laboratory at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, he took postgraduate ophthalmology courses at Harvard Medical School, and he was a research fellow at the Retina Foundation in Boston.
After leaving Boston and completing a residency in ophthalmology at Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia in 1963, he entered the U.S. Public Health Service.
From 1963 to 1965, he was assigned to a research program in the division of ophthalmology at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda.
Also interested in pathology, Dr. Green was given a research fellowship to study ophthalmic pathology for four years at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.
During this time, he also taught eye pathology to residents at Wills Eye Hospital while completing an anatomical pathology residency at Temple University.
Dr. Green was recruited in 1968 to come to Wilmer to take charge of the pathology laboratory by Dr. Alfred Edward Maumenee Jr., who was a world-renowned ophthalmologist and director of the institute.
"I first met Dick when he came here in 1968 to take over the eye pathology lab. He just loved retinal pathology," said Dr. Robert B. Welch, an ophthalmologist and former director of the retina clinic at Wilmer.
"He brought not only expertise in pathology diagnosis but a strong interest in teaching and clinical ophthalmology. He also became a world authority on eye pathology," said Dr. Welch, who now practices ophthalmology in Annapolis.
"He was a wonderful born teacher and teaching was another of his major thrusts at Wilmer," said Dr. Welch. "He was a taskmaster, and when the residents finished, they knew pathology. He wanted the best out of them and that's why they went on to fill positions as professors and deans in universities and medical schools all over the world."
Dr. Welch said his friend had two passions, "research and teaching."
"He was one of the greatest teachers that Wilmer has ever had," he said.
Dr. Welch said that Dr. Green's research interest was the "clinical pathological correlation of eye disease as well as the ocular manifestations of systemic disease. His studies clarified numerous disease entities."
Dr. Green was the author of more than 700 medical papers and received more than 25 national awards, some of which included the Greatest Living Ophthalmologist Millennium Award, Arnall Patz Medal and the American Academy of Ophthalmology's Life Achievement Award.
In 1997, the eye pathology laboratory at Wilmer was dedicated as the W. Richard Green Eye Laboratory, and in recognition of his lifetime work, the W. Richard Green M.D. Professorship was inaugurated in 2007 at Wilmer.
"Dick Green always displayed integrity and fairness in all his relationships with residents, colleagues and friends. With all of his workload, he was never too busy to help out by furnishing a slide or other important piece of information to his colleagues," Dr. Welch said.
Dr. Green was an accomplished trombonist and pianist and was a member with other medical colleagues of Oriole Ophthalmic Associates, whose members attended Orioles games with their wives.
"They had seats on the third base side during the Brooks Robinson era," said Dr. Welch.
"In his retirement, he liked smoking his pipe and watching TV. That was his relaxation in retirement," said his college sweetheart and wife of 54 years, the former Janet Jones.
Dr. Green was a longtime member of University Baptist Church, where funeral services were held July 13.
Also surviving are two sons, Parke T. Green of Greensboro, N.C., and Gordon N. Green of Copley, Ohio; a sister, Betty Green Finlayson of Cocoa Beach, Fla.; and three granddaughters.