Eric Kahn was just 3 the summer he and his brother were away at camp and their father died of a heart attack.
Maxwell L. Kahn, the family patriarch, had been a lawyer and both his passing and the cause of his death left their marks.
"Eric adored his father," said Michael H. O'Rourke, Dr. Eric M. Kahn's partner of 33 years. "He often told me that's why he went into vascular work. "When I met him, a lot of doctors thought vascular medicine was voodoo. He was talking about taking an aspirin a day even back then."
In the late 1960s, vascular surgery was an ill-defined field. General practitioners, not specialists, treated vascular conditions. Dr. Kahn and others helped change that and played roles in gaining the recognition of vascular surgery as a specialty by the American College of Surgeons.
"Eric and other pioneers advocated the use of scraping off the thickened plaque on arteries, which often led to strokes," said his brother, Dr. Sigmund Benham Kahn, a retired internist/oncologist who is a professor at Philadephia's Drexel University College of Medicine.
"He pushed on that and wrote articles on his experiences over many years on many patients," his brother said. "He was well-trained."
On Sunday, Dr. Eric Kahn of Smyrna died from complications of congestive heart failure at his home. He was 74. A funeral will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday at the Spring Hill chapel of H.M. Patterson & Son. Visitation takes place an hour before the service.
Born in Philadephia, Dr. Kahn graduated from Olney High and the University of Pennsylvania. The 1961 graduate of Jefferson Medical College completed his residency in the Veterans Administration hospital network in Philadelphia.
It was expected that the Kahn children would either enter a profession like medicine or run a business. Their mother, the late Clara Parris Kahn, had been a pharmacist for her brother, a general practitioner.
"There were only a few tracks for young Jewish men to go into," his brother said. "Eric was quick with his hands and had good eyes. When you have blood vessels wide open, you have to clamp them, and you can't clamp arteries very long without damage to the organ. He knew how to get in quick, get it done and back out."
In the mid-1960s, he became chief of surgery for the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta. There, he once served as the trusted mediator for inmates when a prison riot erupted.
At the time, the surgeon and Joanne Kohn were married with three children. They later divorced. He joined the Georgia Vascular Clinic and retired in 1994.
A humble surgeon who cooked to relax, Dr. Kahn was said to display a pleasant bedside manner.
"In 33 years, I think I saw him get angry on the phone twice," his partner said. "That's it. He didn't care about everybody knowing he was a great vascular surgeon, which he was. I tried so hard to be like him."
Other survivors include two sons, Michael Kahn of Escondito, Calif., and Louis Kahn of Seattle; a daughter, Shari Kahn-Sanchez of Atlanta; and three grandchildren.
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