.B. Sankey, M.D., ASA’s oldest living past president (1955), passed away on January 22, 2007, in Columbus, Ohio.

Brant Burdell Sankey was born on November 7, 1908, in New Castle, Pennsylvania, about 50 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. After graduating from New Castle High School, “B.B.” enrolled 57 miles to the north at Meadville’s Allegheny College, where he was enchanted by Helen Patterson, his future wife. After earning his B.S. there in 1929, B.B. traveled to Philadelphia’s Hahnemann Medical College for homeopathic schooling.

Brant Burdell “B.B.” Sankey, M.D. 1955 ASA President 1956-2007 IARS Trustee, then Emeritus Trustee

Young Sankey earned his M.D. there in 1933 alongside his favorite classmate, Rolland Whitacre, M.D., a future ASA President (1950) and B.B.’s future brother-in-law. B.B. graduated Alpha Omega Alpha from Hahnemann as a third-generation Sankey physician. Dr. Sankey completed internship and a one-year surgical residency at “the Hahnemann of the Midwest,” downtown Cleveland’s Huron Road Hospital. In 1935, B.B. married Helen before beginning his 1935-37 stint of anesthesia residency under Dr. Whitacre at the “new” Huron Road Hospital, freshly built on John D. Rockefeller’s former estate in East Cleveland.

With his anesthesia training supplemented by a brief tour with Hahnemann’s Henry Ruth, M.D., Dr. Sankey joined ASA and attended his first Congress of Anesthetists in 1936. After certifying that year as a Fellow of the International College of Anesthetists, B.B. formally joined the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS) in 1938. The next year, B.B. was certified as a Diplomate of the American Board of Anesthesiology. While teaching anesthesiology residents for six years at the Huron Road Hospital, Dr. Sankey published both his nupercaine/dextrose prescription for spinal anesthesia and his opposition to inhalational induction of anesthesia in the emergency patient. Leaving Dr. Whitacre behind at Huron Road in 1943, Dr. Sankey founded the anesthesiology department at nearby St. Luke’s Hospital. Working there for the next 37 years, B.B. published articles on a host of topics, including spinal anesthesia, anesthetics for orthopedic surgery, ouabain for treating shock, and cardiac resuscitation. A cofounder of the Cleveland Society of Anesthesiologists and the Ohio Society of Anesthesiologists (OSA), Dr. Sankey rose rapidly through organized anesthesiology to preside over ASA in 1955 and OSA a year later.

After Dr. Whitacre died suddenly in 1956, B.B. memorialized both him and five other fallen anesthesiologists by serving for the next 27 years as a Founding Trustee and Treasurer of the Anesthesia [Memorial] Foundation. Dr. Sankey proudly filled his late brother-in-law’s shoes at IARS as both a Trustee and an Editor of Current Researches in Anesthesia & Analgesia. The ever-faithful B.B. Sankey would toil first as an IARS Trustee, then as an Emeritus Trustee, for the next 50 years. From 1961-63, Dr. Sankey served as Vice-Chairman of the IARS Board and Chairman from 1964-65. When William Friend, M.D., passed away in September 1965, B.B. donned the hats of that IARS Trustee by serving the next 18 years as the IARS Board’s Executive Secretary and Business Manager for Anesthesia & Analgesia. Forced by retirement rules to step down at 70 years of age from heading St. Luke’s anesthesiology department (and the associated assistant professorship with Western Reserve University), Dr. Sankey merely devoted more time to his beloved IARS.

A series of deaths would disturb B.B.’s happy balance of private practice and professional service. On December 8, 1980, as the world recoiled from the murder of ex-Beatle John Lennon, Dr. Sankey reeled from the sudden cardiac death of his older son, Richard. Less than 10 months later, B.B.’s trusted brother-in-law, anesthesiologist Robert Patterson, M.D., died. In 1983, Dr. Sankey resigned from his IARS duties as executive secretary and business manager. A grateful IARS rushed to honor Dr. Sankey, saluting him as an Emeritus Trustee and as the inspiration for its annual B.B. Sankey Anesthesia Advancement Awards.

B.B. continued to revel in his hobbies and his private anesthesiology practice. From his home in Pepper Pike, Ohio, B.B. alternated racing his car a mile north to golf 18 holes at “The Country Club” or west to consult at St. Vincent’s Charity Hospital (1981-88) and then at Lutheran Medical Center (1988-89). A man of careful letters and measured speech, Dr. Sankey defined both professional industry and personal fidelity. B.B. practiced anesthesiology until 1989, when he retired to care for his greatest love, his wife, Helen. Her declining health forced them to miss the meetings they both had enjoyed at the Academy of Anesthesiology, an organization over which B.B. had presided in 1968.

During the decade that his wife was gripped by Alzheimer’s disease, a protective Dr. Sankey fended off most visitors to their Pepper Pike home. Nonetheless B.B. generously assisted the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology (WLM). Tolerated only because of shared service as Huron [Road] anesthesia faculty, the WLM’s curator was regaled by B.B. with anecdotes about Drs. Paul Wood, Rolland Whitacre and Charles Teter, B.B.’s dental-anesthetist predecessor at St. Luke’s Hospital. A widower by 1999, Dr. Sankey maintained his fierce personal independence, living alone as a nonagenarian in his Pepper Pike ranch-style home. Over the next several years, B.B. visited IARS headquarters once or twice annually.

A remarkable anesthesiologist who led both IARS and ASA, Dr. Sankey’s sage insights even helped to identify a rare antique for the WLM — the 1886 Battershall Inhaler. In addition B.B. shared his immense pride in his surviving son, Roger, and the latter’s wife, Jean. He beamed while discussing his three grandchildren who, as a physician, a veterinarian and a chaplain, all share the Sankey family penchant for professional service. An accomplished organist and oboist, B.B. increasingly preferred fingering his golf clubs, which he swang into his 94th year of life. Finally, in Columbus, Ohio, on January 22, 2007, anesthesia and, yes, analgesia lost Dr. B.B. Sankey, an independent champion of private practice and professional service.

Thanks go to IARS Membership Services Director Laura J. Kuhar for contributing to this article. The Sankey Family requests that any memorial donations be directed to the IARS, Clinical Scholar Research Award, 2 Summit Park Drive, #140, Cleveland, OH 44131.