An esteemed area physician will retire in January after 41 years at Bassett Healthcare in Cooperstown, officials said Dec. 10.

Dr. Walter Franck, 73, Bassett's senior associate dean of the Columbia-Bassett Medical School program, said he will most miss the people, including his colleagues and students, several of whom spoke fondly of Franck on Wednesday.

"His influence across the institution is extraordinary," said Dr. Henry Weil, assistant dean for education for the Columbia-Bassett program. "And it's not just me that feels this way, it's anyone he's had close contact with. He's just remarkable by any standard."

During his career, Franck has had 42 research publications, received awards for his academic excellence in teaching at Columbia and been on many important health care committees, Weil said.

AN UNCONVENTIONAL UPBRINGING

By all accounts, Franck has led an extraordinary life.

Born in Shanghai to Belgian parents in 1941, Franck was captured along with his mother and father by Japanese forces and imprisoned for 2 1/2 years at a Shanghai concentration camp (which, he said, he has since revisited).

Franck, who was a toddler at the time, said he does not remember much of the experience, but he does remember the war's end.

"It ended so suddenly and dramatically, but the Japanese guards refused to acknowledge that it was over," Franck said. "The emperor had to speak to the troops. I remember them all lined up, and they bowed and the gates were opened. I was 4 1/2 at that time."

After the Communist revolution in China in 1949, Franck's family moved to Bombay, then to Pakistan. There Franck attended challenging classes with British students, he said. At home, Franck's parents spoke French.

"I remember the classes being a lot of work, very disciplined and rigorous," Franck recalled.

After Pakistan, Franck's family moved to America and he became a U.S. citizen, he said. At age 14, he enrolled in Fordham Preparatory School on Fordham University's campus in New York City. But because of his education, Franck's parents sought greater challenges for him, and he was accepted to Yale University at 15 years old.

"I was young, but I didn't feel that young," Franck recalled. In 1964, he graduated with a medical degree from Columbia Medical University.

ANSWERING THE CALL TO SERVE

Franck always knew he wanted to become a doctor, he said.

"There was no 'aha' moment," Franck said. "I remember seeing a lot of suffering growing up, a lot of poverty and disease. In Bombay, it was not unusual to come across someone who had died on the street. I just always believed that my calling was to help those who were suffering. I never really had any doubts."

The Saturday after graduating from medical school, Franck married his wife, Linda, and the two moved to Michigan so Franck could complete his residency, he said.

When the Vietnam War broke out, Franck applied for an assignment at a hospital being built in an impoverished part of Belgium. Because of Franck's fluency in French and Flemish, he was accepted, eventually becoming the hospital's chief of medicine.

BROUGHT TO AREA BY CHANCE MEETING

After attending rheumatology school in Boston, Franck and his wife were serendipitously led to Cooperstown, he said.

"Many of my Columbia classmates had gone there for rotation, but I never did," Franck noted. However, his wife's father, a Utica-area lawyer, happened to run into an orthopedic surgeon from Bassett and asked if the Cooperstown hospital had a rheumatologist.

They did not. Franck promptly wrote the chief of medicine, who accepted Franck's offer to practice rheumatology at Bassett.

"I liked the location, the people I met, the mission and the opportunity to bring something new to the facility," Franck said. "I loved the whole area. We've never left and it's been 42 years."

Franck also served as deputy mayor and a trustee of the village of Cooperstown..

At Bassett, Franck worked as a rheumatologist from 1973 until 1980. He set up rotations for medical students and created an immunology laboratory, he said.

In 1980, Franck was appointed chief of medicine. He also served as director of medical education and managed pediatric medicine in the mid-1990s, he said.

'A MAN OF PROFOUND COMPASSION'

When Columbia University set up associate deans at its affiliate hospitals, Franck was selected to lead Bassett's program. Along with Weil, Franck worked to develop the medical school initiative, influencing generations of students who rotated from Columbia up to Cooperstown, Weil said.

"He's been an extraordinary clinician for his patients, a revered teacher of medical students and residents and a very influential chief of medicine," Weil said. "I don't think I've ever known anybody else who had the kind of deep affection and appreciation for wisdom and collaborativeness and humanity.

"He is a man of extraordinary intellect, wonderful ideas and profound compassion," Weil said.

Margaret Dowd, a fourth-year medical student at Columbia University, was lucky enough to be one of Franck's pupils, she said.

"He's such a thoughtful person," Dowd said, "He teaches you what he thinks is important to take care of people -- not just the science and medicine. He tries to identify what a student cares about ... to harness your own passion and teach with that."

When Dowd recently took a year off to research and start a family, Franck was "very supportive and congratulatory," Dowd said.

"I think he knows that the richer you are as an individual, the better you are as a doctor," Dowd said. "He's a great role model."

Weil said Franck's impact on Bassett is "really inestimable" because he "brings out the very best in the people around him."

"His qualities are very rare," Weil said, "and he will leave a huge hole. I'll miss the ability to just walk a few steps and be able to have a wonderful communion with another person."

Franck's retirement will officially begin Jan. 5, but he plans to stay involved with the Columbia-Bassett program, he said.

"The thing I enjoy the most is getting to know the students," Franck said. "I just love getting to know their stories."

Franck said retirement will also allow him to spend more time with his four children and his grandchildren.

"My wife and I have always loved to travel, so we will continue to do that," Franck said. "I'll also enjoy just being home in Cooperstown."

(c)2014 The Daily Star (Oneonta, N.Y.)

Visit The Daily Star (Oneonta, N.Y.) at www.thedailystar.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

(c) The Daily Star, Oneonta, N.Y.