ess B. Weiss, M.D., 1979 ASA President, a pioneer in the area of obstetrical anesthesia and unquestionably ASA’s unchallenged authority on the economics of anesthesia, died on June 28 in Holy Cross Hospital, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. As I remember my good friend Jess, his most outstanding career trait was that he was absolutely adamant that the practice of anesthesiology, especially charges for services, must be based upon ethical considerations. In recognition of his numerous contributions to the specialty, he was awarded ASA’s Distinguished Service Award in 1994.

Jess B. Weiss, M.D.

Jess was born in New York City and raised in Mt. Vernon, New York, where he played high school football. After two years at the City College of New York, he migrated to the University of Alabama, where he thought he might be able to play football at that mecca of the sport. One day of practice told him he was out of his league in both height and weight. Upon graduation, he entered St. Mungo’s College of Medicine in Glasgow, Scotland, where he reveled in the British university way of life. He was denied re-entry to the United Kingdom for his second year, since World War II was imminent. He continued his medical studies at Middlesex University School of Medicine in Massachusetts.

After internship and a year of general practice, Jess was drafted into the Navy. He was stationed in San Francisco with his new wife Shirley, whom he had met on a blind date on December 7, 1941, during medical school. With completion of his service requirements, he returned to general practice in Boston, where he was occasionally called upon to administer anesthesia. After several years, he entered anesthesiology residency at Massachusetts Memorial Hospital, Boston University.

Following residency and fellowship, Jess was recalled into the Navy and, with Shirley and four young children, was sent to Guam as Chief of Anesthesia at the U.S. Naval Hospital. The hospital served most South Pacific naval institutions and trained many native practitioners from all over the region. Though Jess and Shirley frequently recalled with fondness this tour of duty replete with a very active social life, ample time for golf and the opportunity for frequent travel all over the South Pacific, Jess declined an offer from the Navy to continue in the service at the Bethesda Naval Hospital because he wanted to work in a teaching hospital.

In 1960 he joined the anesthesia staff at Boston Lying-In Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and soon became chief of the service. It was there that his many contributions to obstetrical anesthesia began. Over time he changed obstetric anesthesia from largely inhalational, often ether, to regional, with anesthesiologists rather than obstetricians running the anesthesia show. In collaboration with others, he examined maternal morbidity and mortality in a classic study that led to significant reductions in morbidity. He strongly supported the development of fetal monitoring and modified the Tuohy epidural needle with the addition of “wings” to assist in placement and a more blunt tip, giving rise to the very popular Weiss needle, which is now used worldwide for epidural anesthesia. In 1992, in recognition of his contributions to regional anesthesia, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Award of the American Society of Regional Anesthesia.

With the merger of the Lying-In and Brigham Hospitals, Dr. Weiss became Vice-Chairman of Anesthesia at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Associate Professor of Anaesthesia, Harvard Medical School. In 1992, he received the Distinguished Service Award of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), a unique honor for an anesthesiologist. During his tenure at Brigham & Women’s, hundreds of anesthesiologists from all over the world were trained, thousands of babies were born, and not one mother died under his department’s care. Dr. Weiss’s publications in the field of obstetric anesthesia are numerous.

The other arena in which Jess made a truly significant contribution was in the economics of the specialty. He became chair of the Committee on Economics of the Massachusetts Society of Anesthesiologists and subsequently of the ASA Committee on Economics as well as a member of the American Medical Association (AMA) Current Procedural Terminology-4™ Editorial Board, ASA representative to the National Association of Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and the anesthesia representative to Massachusetts Blue Shield. His greatest role in this arena was his major involvement in preservation of the ASA Relative Value Guide (RVG) after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accused several medical societies of fixing prices and secured consent decrees resulting in cessation of publication of their guides. While ASA escaped notice of the FTC, it was accused of similar price fixing by the U.S. Department of Justice. Uniquely, upon advice of counsel, rather than agreeing to discontinue publication of its RVG, ASA (during Jess’ tenure as president) fought the suit in federal court. The court found that the RVG did not violate antitrust laws. It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of this outcome for anesthesiologists practicing today.

From his long years of numerous visiting professorships and working in ASA, AMA, the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the Council of Medical Specialty Societies, the Academy of Anesthesiology, ACOG, both the American and European Societies of Regional Anesthesia, the Anesthesia Foundation and other organizations, Jess and Shirley Weiss had many, many friends the world over — especially in Scandinavia and Scotland — but, of course, in the United States as well. In addition to his ASA presidency, Jess served a number of other organizations in a similar capacity. At dinners of many society meetings, Shirley was frequently the social arbiter, making certain that friends found perfect places at perfect tables; I was often one of them.

Jess and Shirley retired from Brookline, Massachusetts, to Pompano Beach, Florida, where she will continue to live. In addition to his wife of 63 years, Dr. Weiss leaves daughters Susan Friedman of Boston and Barbara Friedman of Los Angeles, sons Stephen of Philadelphia and Lewis of Miami, a brother Harold of San Francisco, a grandson Nick Friedman of Los Angeles, granddaughter Jennifer Friedman of Boston and great-granddaughter Cady Bubeck of Boston.