Terrible news greeted me this morning when I checked my email. A co-worker of mine died yesterday in a horrible freak accident - he was driving home from work when a construction crane came crashing down from the roof of a building on a busy downtown street, crushing his Honda and killing him and two construction workers who were nearby.
What the fuck???
Michael was one of the sweetest and most genuinely nice people I have ever met. Several times we came into the lab on a Saturday or Sunday to make micropatterned substrates for his research project. He was an MD and basically only had Saturday afternoons free to come over to my lab, but he was always effervescently cheerful. He'd just bought a place in Roslindale with his wife, and drove a sea-foam green scooter bike. One day he brought me sushi that he had made himself; it was salmon he'd gotten that morning; the little old man he liked to fish with hadn't caught anything good that day but some fresh salmon had arrived from Maine and he'd made the sushi that morning and brought it to me as a thank-you present for helping him make substrates. I'd never had salmon sushi before and was trepidatious, but I had to try it since he was so eager to know if it was any good, so I took a big bite. It was delicious.
I'm just in shock now, and feel a bit sick.
Links to the story are here and here.
The flag is at half-staff today in memory of Michael Tsan Ty, MD, clinicalfellow in neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women'sHospital, who died in a tragic accident on Monday, April 3, 2006. He was 28.
Dr. Ty graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1999, receiving a combinedBA in English and neuroscience and an MA in neuroscience. He joined the HMScommunity when he matriculated into the MD program at the HarvardMITDivision of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) in the fall of 1999. His HST MD thesis was conducted in the laboratory of Mriganka Sur in theDepartment of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT.
Dr. Ty modeled electrostatic scaling in vitro using micro-patternedsubstrates, constraining the interconnections of various neural networks ona fixed substrate and analyzing the resulting neuronal circuits. He receivedhis MD from HMS in 2004 and completed an internship in preliminary medicineat Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He was a clinical fellow inneurology in the combined Massachusetts General Hospital/Brigham and Women'sHospital program at the time of his death.
In addition to his MD and research studies, Dr. Ty spent a year at thePontifical Angelicum in Vatican City studying moral theology and philosophy;he received a Kennedy Sheldon Fellowship to support this effort. During his year in Italy, he took a number of courses in Italian and developed arigorous theological perspective on ethics and the meaning of suffering inclinical care.
Dr. Ty was born and raised in northern California. He had a love of the artsand was an accomplished pianist. He married his wife Robin in 2004 beforehis graduation from Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Ty is remembered for his gentle, gracious manner and his probingintellect. He was also known as a man of deep spirituality, full of humorand compassion.Michael is survived by his wife, Robin; his parents, George P. and BonnieTsan Ty; his younger sister, Monica; and many friends and colleagues.
Services are being planned.
What the fuck???
Michael was one of the sweetest and most genuinely nice people I have ever met. Several times we came into the lab on a Saturday or Sunday to make micropatterned substrates for his research project. He was an MD and basically only had Saturday afternoons free to come over to my lab, but he was always effervescently cheerful. He'd just bought a place in Roslindale with his wife, and drove a sea-foam green scooter bike. One day he brought me sushi that he had made himself; it was salmon he'd gotten that morning; the little old man he liked to fish with hadn't caught anything good that day but some fresh salmon had arrived from Maine and he'd made the sushi that morning and brought it to me as a thank-you present for helping him make substrates. I'd never had salmon sushi before and was trepidatious, but I had to try it since he was so eager to know if it was any good, so I took a big bite. It was delicious.
I'm just in shock now, and feel a bit sick.
Links to the story are here and here.
The flag is at half-staff today in memory of Michael Tsan Ty, MD, clinicalfellow in neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women'sHospital, who died in a tragic accident on Monday, April 3, 2006. He was 28.
Dr. Ty graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1999, receiving a combinedBA in English and neuroscience and an MA in neuroscience. He joined the HMScommunity when he matriculated into the MD program at the HarvardMITDivision of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) in the fall of 1999. His HST MD thesis was conducted in the laboratory of Mriganka Sur in theDepartment of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT.
Dr. Ty modeled electrostatic scaling in vitro using micro-patternedsubstrates, constraining the interconnections of various neural networks ona fixed substrate and analyzing the resulting neuronal circuits. He receivedhis MD from HMS in 2004 and completed an internship in preliminary medicineat Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He was a clinical fellow inneurology in the combined Massachusetts General Hospital/Brigham and Women'sHospital program at the time of his death.
In addition to his MD and research studies, Dr. Ty spent a year at thePontifical Angelicum in Vatican City studying moral theology and philosophy;he received a Kennedy Sheldon Fellowship to support this effort. During his year in Italy, he took a number of courses in Italian and developed arigorous theological perspective on ethics and the meaning of suffering inclinical care.
Dr. Ty was born and raised in northern California. He had a love of the artsand was an accomplished pianist. He married his wife Robin in 2004 beforehis graduation from Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Ty is remembered for his gentle, gracious manner and his probingintellect. He was also known as a man of deep spirituality, full of humorand compassion.Michael is survived by his wife, Robin; his parents, George P. and BonnieTsan Ty; his younger sister, Monica; and many friends and colleagues.
Services are being planned.
posted by Joolya at
12:03 PM
7 Comments:
What awful news. I heard that three people had died in the accident on the radio this morning, including a passer-by. How strange and terrible that it was someone you know.
I'm sorry to hear about that. It's always a shock when I come in for work and find out that someone I've worked with for the last several years is dead, which happens far more often than I'm okay with.
I hope you're doing alright.
I'm very sorry for your loss and the loss of Michael's family and other friends.
Thanks everyone. It's just such a bizarre and senseless tragedy. We're all pretty bewildered and upset. I hope his very nice wife is ... well, is not too bad.
Death is just so bizarre and strange...I am recovering from the loss of two grandparents in 2 months and in both cases, I was able to say goodbye and come to some peace with their death. Tragedy seems all the more striking and compounded with the generally raw feeling of someone's death....uggh...I'm so sorry, joolya...
Hi Joolya,
I was a resident and later first-year attending at BI when Michael was a med student and intern there. What a fine, fine doctor and an incredible person. His patients were always in excellent hands. He was always enthusiastic, always kind. Talking to him always left me feeling invigorated and inspired. I was a block away when the crane crash happened, and assumed the dead person was nobody I knew. When the late news announced it was him, it was completely devastating. If we can follow his examples and live our lives like he did, just even a little bit, we and the world will be much better off for it. Take care, John Yang, johnyang97@yahoo.com
There is no justice, and he sounds like precisely the kind of person the world can't spare.
Damn.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home