John Bruce Beckwith (born September 18, 1933) is an American pediatric pathologist known for helping to identify
Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, which is partly named after him. He is also known for his role as reference pathologist for the
National Wilms Tumor Study Group, a position he held from 1969 until his retirement thirty years later.
He is also recognized for his research on
sudden infant death syndrome
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden unexplained death of a child of less than one year of age. Diagnosis requires that the death remain unexplained even after a thorough autopsy and detailed death scene investigation. SIDS usuall ...
,
which he helped to define in the 1960s.
Beckwith was born in
Spokane
Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Ca ...
,
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...
, and grew up in
St. Ignatius,
Montana
Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...
.
[ A 1954 graduate of ]Whitman College
Whitman College is a private liberal arts college in Walla Walla, Washington. The school offers 53 majors and 33 minors in the liberal arts and sciences, and it has a student-to-faculty ratio of 9:1. Whitman was the first college in the Pacifi ...
, he has taught at the University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...
, the University of Colorado
The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University of Co ...
, and Loma Linda University
Loma Linda University (LLU) is a private Seventh-day Adventist health sciences university in Loma Linda, California. , the university comprises eight schools
and a Faculty of Graduate Studies. It is a part of the Seventh-day Adventist educatio ...
, among other places.[
Beckwith received the Fred W. Stewart Award from ]Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK or MSKCC) is a cancer treatment and research institution in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital. MSKCC is one of 52 National Cancer Institute– ...
in 1994. In 1998, he was named an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists
The Royal College of Pathologists (RCPath) is a professional membership organisation.
Its main function is the overseeing of postgraduate training, and its Fellowship Examination (FRCPath) is recognised as the standard assessment of fitness to pr ...
;[ the same year, he became the first recipient of the ]National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...
's Astute Clinician Award. He received the American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology
The American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology (abbreviated ASPHO) is an American multidisciplinary professional organization dedicated to improving care in the medical disciplines of pediatric hematology and oncology. As of 2018, it had 2,0 ...
's Distinguished Career Award in 2005.[
]
References
Further reading
*
1933 births
American pathologists
American pediatricians
Living people
People from Spokane, Washington
Whitman College alumni
University of Washington faculty
University of Colorado faculty
Loma Linda University faculty
Fellows of the Royal College of Pathologists
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