Celebrating Dr. Butler: ILC’S Founder Dies at 83
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Celebrating Dr. Butler: ILC’s Founder Dies at 83 Compiled by INPEA Web, Lynn M. Hyland http://www.inpea.net/memorials.html#Dr_Butler * ILC’s Tribute * Memorial Service Announcement Obituaries * The New York Times * Los Angeles Times * The Guardian * The Washington Post * Time Magazine Remembering Dr. Butler * New York State Office for the Aging * MedPage Today * The Hindu * Time Goes By * Mother Jones Robert Neil Butler Other obituaries and memorials 21 January 1927 – 4 July 2010 * NewsPlurk Longevity research, policy, and education: International Longevi... http://www.ilcusa.org/pages/celebrating-dr.-butler-ilcE28099s-f... Celebrating Dr. Butler: ILC’s Founder Dies at 83 The International Longevity Center’s founding president and CEO, Robert N. Butler, M.D., died July 4, 2010 at the age of 83. A memorial service in his honor will be held on September 29, 2010. The ILC-USA was Dr. Butler’s vision when first organized in the early 1990s—and its programs on healthy aging, productive engagement and combating ageism were his driving goals. Dr. Butler was widely regarded as “the father of geriatrics,” for his leadership in the field aging and longevity. Once a bench scientist at the National Institutes of Health and originally trained as a psychiatrist, he was tapped to be the first director of the National Institute of Aging and there helped shape the nation’s aging policy for more than a generation. His seminal book, Why Survive? On Aging America won the Pulitzer Prize and was one of the first comprehensive examinations of what became the Age Wave driven by long-living Baby Boomers. A scholar and author who wrote several books ranging from popular guides on health to medical school textbooks and learned monographs, he introduced such concepts as healthy aging and ageism, among others. He also initiated the Life Review as a therapeutic device, drawing on older persons’ desire to reminisce. Contribute to the Butler Fund Members of Dr. Robert Butler's family are coordinating a Dr. Robert Butler Fund. If you would like to contribute, please make your check payable to the "Robert Butler Charitable Fund" and forward checks to: Cynthia Butler 3211 Homewood Road Davidsonville, MD 21035 For more information, email [email protected] From the NIA, he became the founding chair of the Brookdale Department of Geriatrics at Mount Sinai Medical School in New York—the nation’s first in a medical school. Subsequently, he founded and led the International Longevity Center first at Mount Sinai and subsequently as an independent non-profit in its own headquarters form 1998 to 2010. He had many honors —national and international, including the coveted Heinz Foundation Prize. He encouraged and helped organize ILC’s in 11 countries and was involved in three White House Conferences on Aging under three U.S. presidents. His most recent book, The Longevity Prescription was published in June by Avery/Penguin. He championed the diffusion of knowledge in all the aging disciplines and professions urging its practical use to solve problems. Dr. Butler is most identified with a view of aging as a great human achievement, not simply a problem to be solved. Know for his openness to all knowledge and ideas he supported work on aging not just in science and medicine, but in the social sciences and humanities as well. A public intellectual, he made frequent appearances in the media to explain new findings—and encourage the public to better understand, embrace and celebrate aging. The Board, Management and Staff of the ILC-USA, its sister centers around the world and various task forces and committees mourn his loss while saluting his monumental influence. 1 of 2 8/24/10 7:06 AM Longevity research, policy, and education: International Longevi... http://www.ilcusa.org/pages/celebrating-dr.-butler-ilcE28099s-f... Read More The New York Times Los Angeles Times The Guardian The Washington Post Time Magazine New York State Office for the Aging MedPage Today The Hindu 2 of 2 8/24/10 7:06 AM Longevity research, policy, and education: International Longevi... http://www.ilcusa.org/pages/memorial-service-for-dr.-robert-butl... Memorial Service for Dr. Robert Butler In Memoriam Dr. Robert N. Butler January 21, 1927 – July 4, 2010 A memorial service will be held to celebrate the life of ILC-USA founder, world-renowned gerontologist, and Pulitzer Prize winner Dr. Robert N. Butler on Wednesday, September 29, 2010 at 4:00 PM All Souls Unitarian Church 11 57 Lexington, corner of 80th Street New York, NY 10075 1 of 1 8/24/10 7:45 AM Robert Butler, Aging Expert, Is Dead at 83 - Obituary (Obit) -... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/health/research/07butler.h... Reprints This copy is for your personal, noncommercial use only. You can order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers here or use the "Reprints" tool that appears next to any article. Visit www.nytreprints.com for samples and additional information. Order a reprint of this article now. July 7, 2010 Robert Butler, Aging Expert, Is Dead at 83 By DOUGLAS MARTIN Dr. Robert N. Butler, a psychiatrist whose painful youthful realization that death is inevitable prompted him to challenge and ultimately reform the treatment of the elderly through research, public policy and a Pulitzer Prize-winning book, died Sunday in Manhattan. He was 83 and had worked until three days before his death. The cause was acute leukemia, his daughter Christine Butler said. Dr. Butler’s influence was apparent in the widely used word he coined to describe discrimination against the elderly: “ageism.” He defended as healthy the way many old people slip into old memories — even giving it a name, “life review.” In speech after speech, he pounded home the message that longevity in the United States had increased by 30 years in the 20th century — greater than the gain during the preceding 5,000 years of human history — and that this had led to profound changes in every aspect of society, employment and politics among them. Dr. Christine Cassel, president of the American Board of Internal Medicine, said in an interview that Dr. Butler had in effect “created an entire field of medicine.” She said he had helped change attitudes so that aging could be perceived “a positive thing.” Dr. Butler was the founding director of the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health and advocated for the aging before Congress and the United Nations. He helped start and led the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, the Alzheimer’s Disease Association and the International Longevity Center. President Bill Clinton named him chairman of the 1995 White House Conference on Aging. “He really put geriatrics on the map,” Dr. David B. Reuben, chief of the division of geriatrics at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in an interview. 1 of 3 8/24/10 12:35 AM Robert Butler, Aging Expert, Is Dead at 83 - Obituary (Obit) -... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/health/research/07butler.h... Dr. Butler challenged long-held conceptions about aging, calling it “the neglected stepchild of the human life cycle.” He helped establish, for example, that senility is not inevitable with aging. When the Heinz Family Foundation presented him with an award in 2003, it called him “a prophetic visionary.” The most noted exposition of his vision was the 1975 book that earned him his Pulitzer, “Why Survive? Being Old in America.” It went from a bleak explication of the elderly’s condition to prescriptions to improve it. “Human beings need the freedom to live with change, to invent and reinvent themselves a number of times through their lives,” Dr. Butler wrote. Dr. Butler’s mission emerged from his childhood, he wrote in his book. His parents had scarcely named him Robert Neil Butler before splitting up 11 months after his birth on Jan. 21, 1927, in Manhattan. He went to live with his maternal grandparents on a chicken farm in Vineland, N.J. He came to revere his grandfather, with whom he cared for sick chickens in the “hospital” at one end of the chicken house. He loved the old man’s stories. But the grandfather disappeared when Robert was 7, and nobody would tell him why. He finally learned that he had died. Robert found solace in his friendship with a physician he identified only as Dr. Rose. Dr. Rose had helped him through scarlet fever and took him on his rounds by horse and carriage. The boy decided he could have helped his grandfather survive had he been a doctor. He also concluded that he would have preferred that people had been honest with him about death. From his grandmother, he learned about the strength and endurance of the elderly, he wrote. After losing the farm in the Depression, she and her grandson lived on government- surplus foods and lived in a cheap hotel. Robert sold newspapers. Then the hotel burned down, with all their possessions. “What I remember even more than the hardships of those years was my grandmother’s triumphant spirit and determination,” he wrote. “Experiencing at first hand an older person’s struggle to survive, I was myself helped to survive as well.” Dr. Butler served in the United States Maritime Service before entering Columbia University, where he earned his bachelor’s and medical degrees. During his internship in psychiatry at St. Luke’s Hospital, he had many elderly patients and realized how little he had 2 of 3 8/24/10 12:35 AM Robert Butler, Aging Expert, Is Dead at 83 - Obituary (Obit) -... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/health/research/07butler.h..