Dr. Nicholas Peter Rossi Jr.
ROSSI, KENNEDY, FRANKS, MUNCH
Posted By: Sarah Fletcher (email)
Date: 11/14/2022 at 12:23:56
Dr. Nicholas Peter Rossi Jr. died in the early morning of November 5 after a short illness. Visitation will take place Thursday, November 17, 2022, from 4 to 6 pm at Lensing Funeral & Cremation Service, 605 Kirkwood Avenue, Iowa City with a vigil service at 6 PM. A Funeral Mass will take place Friday, November 18, at 11 AM at the Newman Catholic Student Center; 104 East Jefferson Street, Iowa City, with a visitation one hour prior to the service. Burial will be at St. Joseph’s cemetery with military honors. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Newman Catholic Student Center, the Oaknoll Foundation, the Helen K. Rossi Volunteer Guest House or University of Iowa Hospital Volunteer Program.
He was born in South Philadelphia, Pa. on July 17, 1925, to Nicholas Peter and Edna Noland Rossi. His mother was a homemaker, and his father was a pharmacist. Together they owned and operated a corner drugstore on 9th Street in the Italian Market. His Uncle Joe was principal of South Philadelphia High, home to notable high school heartthrobs who featured regularly on the nationally broadcast program, American Bandstand. He graduated from Central High School in Philadelphia, several classes ahead of the linguist Noam Chomsky, and was drafted immediately into the military, where his interest in dentistry motivated authorities to place him in the Army Medical Corps. He served in the Pacific Theater and at the battle of Saipan. He studied engineering in college and graduated with degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Hahnemann Medical College.
He was a professor of cardio-thoracic and vascular surgery at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine for 62 years, specializing in diseases of the lungs, coronary arteries, esophagus, big vessel ruptures, and valve blockages. For many years he served as Chief of Thoracic Surgery at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Iowa City. He helped perform the first kidney transplant in the state in 1969. His career as a surgeon and academic spanned almost the entire history of open-heart surgery. He co-published his final paper, on esophageal anastomotic leak, at the age of 93, attended his last academic conference two months ago, and remained active in his department throughout his career.
Like many first-generation cardiovascular surgeons, he originally trained in general and pediatric surgery. In Philadelphia, he studied under C. Everett Koop, gaining exposure to thoracic and abdominal procedures. His introduction to open heart surgery accompanied cold heart hypothermia techniques developed in the early 1950s to interrupt the functions of a beating heart long enough to repair it. This procedure predated the invention of the heart-lung machine and involved the immersion of an anesthetized patient into a converted horse trough of lukewarm water. Ice cubes were then gradually added and when the patient’s body temperature cooled to exactly 86 degrees, blood vessels to the heart were clamped, providing exactly six minutes of operating time on the heart before the process needed to be reversed.
Dr. Johann “Hans” Ehrenhaft recruited him to the University of Iowa in 1960 from the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Iowa was one of only three thoracic surgery programs in the country at that time. Although interested in tuberculosis research and patient care at the sanitorium on the University of Iowa Oakdale Campus, Dr. Ehrenhaft capitalized on his engineering background and directed him to go to the University of Minnesota with instructions not to return until he could explain how physicians there built the first oxygenating unit for extracorporeal circulation, a prototype of the heart-lung machine. Returning after three days with a plan, Iowa perfected its own machine and further launched into the golden age of cardiothoracic surgery.
Fellows and Residents admired him for his patience and supervision in the operating room. He mentored generations of thoracic surgeons and taught techniques of heart surgery in Japan, Singapore, the People’s Republic of China, and Argentina. Anesthesiologists and surgical staff respected him for his calm comportment and demeanor. They could foretell of surgical complications when he stopped humming during operations. Colleagues called him a surgeon’s surgeon and a conscientious clinician. He tended to his patients almost every day of his career. Hospital and University administrators regarded him as a steady and dependable team player. He published numerous academic articles, served on the central advisory committee of the American Heart Association, served as a charter member of leading surgical and thoracic societies, and was a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the American College of Cardiology, the International College of Surgeons, a former president of the Iowa Thoracic Society, and a public member of the accreditation committee of the Association of American Law Schools.
He married the girl next door, Helen Marie Kennedy, and they shared a marriage for 60 years until her death in 2015. He and Helen endowed the Center for Faith and Culture at the Catholic Newman Center on the University of Iowa campus to bring speakers to campus to discuss cultural topics that impact Catholic students. The Nicholas P. Rossi Professorship in Cardiothoracic Surgery was established in recognition of his longtime service to the Carver Medical College.
He was quiet and unassuming. He loved his family, crossword puzzles, mathematics, reading, walking the dog, and opera. His favorite aria was Ch’ella mi creda from Act 3 of Puccini’s La fanciulla del West. He said it melodically summed up his view about surgery and life: to wit, the situation is fatal, but not hopeless.
He was preceded in death by his parents and wife. Nicholas is survived by his sister, Barbara Franks of Cinnaminson, NJ; sister-in-law, Nancy Munch of Berwyn, PA; four sons, Nicholas J. of Houston, TX, Christopher (Monica) of Iowa City and Tromsø, Norway, Robert (Kimberly) of Clive, IA, and Timothy of Iowa City; and his four grandchildren, Sigrid Sophia, Nicholas Christian, Ryann Marie, and Nicholas Loren.
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