In the current issue of Medicine at Michigan, Michigan Medicine celebrates 175 alumni and faculty who have made the University of Michigan world-renowned as the Leaders and Best. The editors “looked for clinicians and researchers who made positive contributions to U-M, to medicine in general, to their chosen field, or to their communities” and came up with many people who made wonderful contributions to the fields of medical education, scientific research, global health, drug discovery and patient care.
But one surprising 141-year old alumnus also made the Leaders and the Best list: Dr. Jack Kevorkian. A convicted murderer best known by his moniker “Dr. Death,” Kevorkian was an American pathologist who received his medical degree from the Medical School in 1952. He was expelled from Michigan’s residency program after submitting a proposal suggesting that death-row prison inmates should be used as the subjects of fatal medical experiments while they were still alive.
He was particularly interested in what he called the “moment of death” and would stare into the eyes of the dying to try and identify it. But Kevorkian is best known for his interest in euthanasia; He advocated ending the lives of vulnerable people by illness and disability and became a symbol of the physician-assisted suicide movement. His work resulted in a murder conviction and prison term…