John Hoak

JOHN CHARLES HOAK M.D.

Hills

John C. Hoak M.D., a distinguished academic physician whose dynamic leadership and mentoring helped countless medical students, fellow doctors and researchers, died April 28, 2016, from complications of Parkinson's disease at age 87.

Born in Harrisburg, Pa., in 1928, Jack was the only child of John and Anna Belle Hoak. He enjoyed a childhood playing baseball and basketball. He met his future wife, Dorothy Witmer, when he played the villain in their high school play while she played the piano. His father worked as a supervisor in the family dairy business and his mother worked at the local YWCA. While in high school, Jack worked summers with a landscaping company and also dug graves for the local cemetery. It was there that he developed an outstanding work ethic and a lifetime embrace of academics.

Jack attended Lebanon Valley College and graduated with a chemistry degree in 1951. In 1952, he and Dorothy married and they moved to Philadelphia so that Jack could attend Hahnemann Medical College. He graduated in 1955 and commenced his internship at Harrisburg Polyclinic Hospital. Their first daughter, Greta, was born there in 1956. Following his internship, he served his mandatory physician enlistment in the U.S. Navy at the U.S. Marine Supply Base in Albany, Ga. It was there that their second daughter, Laurinda, was born in 1957. Jack and Dorothy moved to Iowa to continue his research and residency training at the University of Iowa. After completing his residency in internal medicine at Iowa, and applying his research skills to blood coagulation, he and the family traveled to Oxford, England, in 1963 where he was a visiting researcher in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Dr. Howard Florey. In Oxford, their son Thomas was born.

Jack returned to the University of Iowa and commenced a distinguished career in academic medicine from 1963 through 1984 where he was mentored by notable medical legends including Dr. Emory Warner, Dr. Elmer DeGowin and Dr. William "Bill" Connor. From 1972 to 1984, Jack served as the director of hematology and oncology. During this time, he developed international research partnerships and became friends with numerous researchers working on their mutual interests of blood coagulation, thrombosis, platelet transfusions, electron microscopy and the role of endothelium in clotting. These friendships led to opportunities to travel around the world as well as to host his international friends and their families.

In 1984, Jack took a position as the chief of medical service and department of medicine chairman at the University of Vermont. He returned to Iowa in 1987 and spent two more years in the department of medicine. In 1989, he went to Bethesda, Md., where he became the director of the division of blood diseases and resources at the National Institute of Health. In 1994, he retired and moved to Charlottesville, Va.

During his career, Jack published more than 125 academic papers and more than 30 medical book chapters. Highlights of his career were identifying the coagulant effect of free fatty acids (1970), the first replication of human endothelial cells in culture (1973), and the effect of aspirin on thrombin-induced adherence of platelets to blood vessel walls (1978). This last paper clarified our fundamental understanding of the action of aspirin on clotting mechanisms.

He received numerous awards and honors including: the Distinguished Achievement Award from the American Heart Association (1992), the Outstanding Contributions and Service to the Field of Hematology Award from the American Society of Hematology (1993), the Distinguished Achievement Award from the University of Iowa College of Medicine (1994), the Alumnus of the Year Award from Hahnemann University School of Medicine (1995), the Lebanon Valley College Alumni Citation Award (1996) and the Special Recognition Award on Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology from the American Heart Association (2000).

Jack was a generous, grateful and gentle person who expected excellence from himself and those around him. He had a clever, dry wit, an extraordinarily well-developed sense of humor and could see the humor in life and share it with others. He loved music and going to concerts and was an enthusiastic fan of the Iowa Hawkeyes. He read voraciously and instilled this love for reading in his children and grandchildren. He served as a role model for not only his students, co-workers and peers, but also for his family. Jack avidly pursued his Christian faith and particularly relished all of the books of C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity) and Oswald Chambers (My Utmost for His Highest). His faith grew from church participant to passionate faith in God when he spent time in Oxford under the preaching and tutelage of British theologian Michael Green. He lived a life of high purpose and was respected by everyone he encountered.

Jack is survived by Dorothy, his wife of 63 years; their three children, daughter Greta Reynolds, daughter Laurinda Looney (Dave), and son Thomas Hoak; grandchildren include Sarah (Tim) Morton, Matthew Looney and Glenn Looney, Elke Fairbanks and Thomas Erik (Katherine) Hoak, Emory Hoak and Lily Hoak; and great-grandchildren include Walter and Jonathan Morton.

A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 11, at First Presbyterian Church, 2701 Rochester Ave., Iowa City, with a reception to follow. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Dr. John C. Hoak Memorial Medical Scholarship Fund at the University of Iowa Foundation, P.O. Box 4550, Iowa City, IA 52244; or at www.uifoundation.org. A graveside service is planned for July in Harrisburg. Online condolences may be left for the family at www.lensingfuneral.com.