Bruce L. Brown MD

BROWN, Bruce L., MD
of Kalamazoo, Michigan A lifelong student, Bruce L. Brown, M.D. husband of Dorothy S. Brown, died on April 8, 2012, Easter Sunday, in Kalamazoo Michigan. The son of Hazel and H. Larry Brown, Bruce was born in Columbiana Ohio in 1923. He attended Mount Union College, entered the Navy as a hospital corpsman in 1943, and was sent to medical school at the University of Rochester, from which he graduated in 1947. In 1949, he married the former Dorothy Smith. Following training at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City and University Hospitals in Cleveland, he served two years at Camp Lejeune's Naval Hospital in North Carolina. In the early 1960's, he was Board Certified in the practice of Internal Medicine. After practicing in Warren, Ohio for 10 years, he served 10 more years in tenured academic positions at the University of Illinois and Washington University in St. Louis. This was followed by another decade with the former Upjohn Company in Kalamazoo in a research position. Throughout his life, Dr. Brown pursued a variety of physical and intellectual interests. He was an avid athlete, captained his high school football team in Ravenna, Ohio, and always took great pleasure in hiking, exercise and the stimulation of new experiences and adventures in the physical world. He climbed both the Grand Teton in Wyoming and Mount Washington in New Hampshire in the 1960's, during his travels within the United States, traveled more than once to both Europe and Africa, and spent the summer of 1967 serving as a doctor and medical advisor in rural Botswana during a three month stay there, accompanied by his daughter Rebecca Lyn. Yet Dr. Brown's life was enriched most fully, perhaps, by his intellectual and spiritual interests. He was known as an avid reader and a genuine autodidact in many areas and he had life-long interests and broad knowledge in religion, philosophy and history in particular. He remained naturally abreast of changing currents in the financial markets and national politics and music was an avocation through much of his life. Having learned to play the trumpet as a young boy, he played in his high school band and later with the Dixie Docs jazz band in Warren, Ohio during his time as a doctor there. Beyond his personal interests Dr. Brown felt a duty to contribute as he could to his communities, and he served most recently on the boards of trustees of the First United Methodist Church and the Hospice of Southwest Michigan, and as a volunteer medical advisor at the North Kalamazoo Medical Clinic. Dr. Brown is survived by his wife Dorothy of Kalamazoo, his two sons Christopher of Berkeley, California and Peter, of Providence, Rhode Island, as well as by his brother Douglas of Cleveland, Ohio. A daughter, the afore-mentioned Rebecca Lyn Brown Busch, died in 2000. In addition, he is survived by five grandchildren, two great grandchildren and ten nieces and nephews. A Memorial Service will be held on Saturday, April 21, 2012 at 11:00 AM in the First United Methodist Church, 212 S. Park St., Kalamazoo. Arrangements by Langeland Family Funeral Homes, Westside Chapel, 3926 S. 9th St.