| Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine
The Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine is committed to caring for critically ill patients and patients with lung disease. This requires not only that we provide the best possible care, but that we convey these skills to trainees and that we develop novel approaches to understanding and managing these diseases through basic science and clinical and outcomes research.
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In Memory of Galen B. Toews, M.D.
 I
October 14, 2011
Re: Passing of Galen B. Toews, M.D.
Dear friends and colleagues,
It is with great sadness that we mourn the loss of Galen B. Toews, M.D., who passed away on October 12, 2011 after a prolonged illness. Galen has been our Division Chief and integral part of the Michigan community for nearly 25 years. Dr. Toews has been a true visionary in the pulmonary community and in building the Pulmonary Division at the University of Michigan. Galen has led with passion, professionalism, and dignity. He has forever impacted the lives and careers of all of us. We have lost a friend, a colleague, and an inspirational leader. He will be greatly missed.
While Galen has left his mark in many facets of pulmonary medicine, it is difficult to fully grasp the magnitude of his many contributions. I have highlighted but a few of his academic and personal achievements.
Brief Biography
Galen was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado on November 26, 1945. One month after Galen was born the Toews’ returned to their family farm in Kremlin, Oklahoma where they lived for the remainder of Galen’s childhood. Galen referred frequently to the many life lessons he learned while raising a flock of sheep on the farm. He graduated from Kremlin High School, then from Tabor College in Hillsboro, KS with a bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry in 1967. Dr. Toews graduated from the University of Oklahoma School of Medicine in 1971 and then completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Parkland Memorial hospital in Dallas, TX. He completed a pulmonary fellowship at what is now the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas in 1978 and continued his post-doctoral training by performing a fellowship in Immunology at that same institution. Dr. Toews joined the faculty at U.T. Southwestern in 1979, rising to the rank of Associate Professor. In 1987 he moved to the University of Michigan where he was named chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, a position he held for nearly 25 years. He was promoted to full professor in 1991. Dr. Toews has also held the appointment of staff physician at the Veteran’s Affairs hospital and served as Associate Dean for Research for the University of Michigan Medical School from 2006-2008.
Excellence in Research
Dr. Toews has been a leader in the field of respiratory research for over 30 years. Dr. Toews was truly one of pioneers of lung immunology, with his earliest research focused on phagocyte recruitment and pulmonary immune responses. Using models in the skin and lung, he was one of the first scientists to describe locations and functions of what we now know as dendritic cells. His work was seminal in describing the co-stimulatory properties of antigen presenting cells, particularly in the lung, and for understanding their role in graft rejection. He was one of the first to understand the unique immunological differences between alveolar macrophages and dendritic cells. He is well known for his work in the field of host defense against Cryptococcus neoformans which has spanned over 20 years. Starting in 1995, Dr. Toews embarked on research to unravel basic pathogenic mechanisms in interstitial lung disease, particularly idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). He fostered collaborations between basic and clinical investigators at the University of Michigan to create a Specialized Center of Research in IPF, a program which was funded for 10 years by the National Institutes of Health. As chief, he was also instrumental in the Division receiving SCCOR grants for specialized clinical research in the areas of acute lung injury and host defense and a grand opportunity RC2 grant in IPF. Indicative of his prominence in the field, Dr. Toews was selected to serve as the head of the IPFnet clinical trial consortium. His efforts have made the University of Michigan one of the premier institutions for the diagnosis and treatment of IPF. This has all be accomplished while successfully funding his own research interests for over 30 years and contributing over 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts, 47 book chapters and over 275 conference abstracts to our collective understanding of pulmonary disease. His investigative contributions were appropriately recognized by his election to the Association of American Physicians in 1997.
Excellence in Education
As mentioned above, Dr. Toews has been instrumental in guiding many of the collaborative investigative projects within the Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Division, but perhaps some of his greatest achievements have come in his role as an educator and mentor. Soon after arriving at Michigan, Dr. Toews successfully acquired a T32 fellowship training grant, a program that has been continuously funded for almost 20 years and has supported the initial careers of nearly 100 scientists. Dr. Toews was instrumental in forging a path for basic science faculty within the clinical departments at the Medical School. He recruited a number of talented Ph.D. investigators to the Division and their success and his lobbying helped change the rules within the Department of Medicine to allow the appointment of these scientists to the tenure track. Additionally, Dr. Toews had the foresight to understand the need for appropriately trained clinical investigators in respiratory research. To accomplish this, he developed a clinical research track that had at its foundation a Master's Program in Clinical Research Design and Statistical Analysis through the School of Public Health. This program has been so successful that pulmonary divisions throughout the country have used this as a template for patient-oriented research training in their own divisions. He has served as a clinical mentor for numerous medical students, interns and fellows. Dr. Toews has trained an outstanding cadre of academic researchers. He has mentored over 30 post-doctoral fellows who remain in academic medicine. Included among these are a number of trainees who are themselves Division Chiefs or Department Chairs. Galen has been a visiting professor, invited speaker or moderator at over 30 international locations and has delivered well over 100 invited talks within the United States. Clearly Dr. Toews has brought distinction to himself and the University of Michigan via his scholarship. He also served as the Program committee chair for the AII assembly within the ATS both in 1983 and 1989. In that way, he influenced the educational offerings for the international conference over a 4 year period.
Excellence in Clinical Care
As Chief of the Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Division, Dr. Toews oversaw many changes in the practice of medicine, including composition of the clinical care teams, changes in duty hours for fellows and residents and reorganization of clinical services. Throughout these changes, Dr. Toews was true to his overarching mandate that patient care comes first. His creation of multidisciplinary translational research programs facilitated the development of disease-specific clinical care programs in IPF, sarcoidosis, COPD, and lung transplantation. Dr. Toews was a skilled clinician and exceptional role model as a physician-scientist. In recognition of his major contributions to the areas of research, education, clinical care, and service, Dr. Toews was awarded the Paul De Kruif Lifetime Achievement Award from the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan and the Michigan Thoracic Society’s Bruce H. Douglas Award for contributions to pulmonary medicine.
Excellence in Advocacy
Dr. Toews has excelled in the area of advocacy. Most notably, many of these activities have evolved from his vigorous participation in the American Thoracic Society and as a member of the Allergy, Immunology and Inflammation (AII) assembly. From 1997-2000 and again beginning in 2007, he served as a member and chairperson of the ATS committee for research advocacy. From 1991-2000 he served as a member of the American Association of Immunologists Public Affairs committee. He has lobbied NIH to provide support for respiratory disease research and has been involved in national organizations to promote lung research including the American Lung Association and local Thoracic Society organizations. He has also assumed a prominent role in advocating for research and patient care through the VA system. Examples include the fact that Dr. Toews was selected as the spokesperson for the Friends of VA Medical Care and Health Research (FOVA), a collation of 79 medical research, specialty, physician, academic, patient advocacy and industry organizations committed to quality care for veterans to present testimony to Congress in 2005 to support funding for the VA missions. He again lobbied congress in 2007 to support the VA medical and prosthetic research program and in 2009 he provided testimony before the House military construction and VA appropriations sub-committee in congress to lobby against budget cuts. Because of his tireless efforts on behalf of the ATS and the pulmonary community in general, he was awarded the ATS Parker B. Francis Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Advancement of Respiratory Medicine and Science.
As a member of numerous NIH study sections, foundation and institutional scientific advisory panels, and NIH workshops, Dr. Toews has had a major impact on the direction of respiratory research, education, and clinical care in this country and abroad. Galen has led grass roots fundraising efforts to raise awareness and research dollars for lung disease, in particular, for IPF research.
Galen Toews, the Person
Galen Toews lived a very full life. In addition to his academic pursuits, he enjoyed traveling to all parts of the world, especially Ukraine, the birthplace of his grandparents. He cherished reading and collecting books particularly on Russian Mennonite history. He loved to read about history, science, the West and farming. Galen savored fine food and fine wine. He was passionate about all sports, especially football. With the notable exception of games matching his Oklahoma Sooners and the Wolverines, he was a true Michigan man. Galen enjoyed hiking the Colorado peaks near his Breckenridge home. He was happiest at high altitudes. Above all, he was a great storyteller.
Galen was a man of strong faith. He was a life-long member of the Mennonite Church and was actively involved at Shalom Community Church, a Mennonite and Church of the Brethren congregation in Ann Arbor, MI. He was also a founding member of the Dallas Peace Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to peace education, peace research and action from a Christian perspective. This venture was one of his proudest accomplishments.
He is survived by his wife Anita, son Mark Galen Toews, daughter-in-law Regan Graves Toews, three grandchildren, Henry Galen Toews, Lucas Ames Toews, Zadie Matilda Toews of Brooklyn, New York, and two brothers, Arrel (Kathy) Toews of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Myron (Barbara) Toews of Omaha, Nebraska. They will all miss this man who was full of life and filled with humor.
The Galen B. Toews Professorship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine
In honor of his innumerable contributions to pulmonary medicine at the University of Michigan, we will be working toward establishing The Galen B. Toews Professorship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. This will be the first endowed professorship established within the Division, and will be used to support an outstanding investigator who shares Galen’s passion for research, advocacy, and clinical care. There is much work to do to reach our goal, but we can think of no one more deserving of this honor than Galen Toews.
The family would like to honor Galen with a Professorship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine here at the University of Michigan; here is the link to the most recent news report: http://www.uofmhealth.org/news/pulmonary-toews-1013
The link for giving is: www.med.umich.edu/intmed You may select The Galen B. Toews Professorship in Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine.
Checks are to be made out to:
“University of Michigan” (A Michigan 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation)
For The Galen B. Toews Professorship in Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine
The address for giving is:
The Galen B. Toews Professorship in Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine
Department of Internal Medicine Development Office
1000 Oakbrook Drive, Suite 100
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-6794
A service celebrating Galen’s life was held at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, 4205 Washtenaw Ave., Ann Arbor, at 10:30 am on Monday, October 17, 2011. A reception followed at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library on the North Campus of The University of Michigan, 1000 Beal Ave., Ann Arbor, Michigan at 12 noon.
Sincerely,
Theodore J. Standiford, M.D.
Professor of Medicine and Interim Chief
On behalf of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine
Department of Internal Medicine
University of Michigan Medical Center
Ann Arbor, Michigan
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