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<p><em>Alan Eric Seyfer</em> was born in Fort Smith, AR to Robert P. Seyfer Jr. and Teresa Ortiz Seyfer. </p>
<p>As a teen hospital orderly evenings and weekends, Al became hooked on surgery as a vocation. But he loved football too. At Little Rock Catholic High, he was named a first team All-State lineman. Recruited by other colleges, Al chose West Point after Coach Paul Dietzel had Al and teammate Donny Dietz (also from Little Rock) visit the Point during Army’s spring football practice. Al liked the fact that, unlike other schools, the cadets seemed to rank each other by personal merit rather than by possessions. Also, since his dad had passed away recently, attending West Point would also be feasible financially.</p>
<p>At the Point, he enjoyed academics and playing on the special teams and defense (Dietzel’s “Chinese Bandits”). With classmates Dave Horton and Chris Vissers, he had much fun riding motorcycles and dating stewardesses. During Buckner summer, he and Earl Hughes were renowned for their pranks and jokes. However, the TAC discovered Al’s motorcycle, and he lost his lieutenant stripes. The ensuing “slug” forced him to study more and his grades went up.</p>
<p>After graduation, while assigned to a missile unit in Milwaukee, he met the love of his life, Glenna Stuart, on a blind date. He had reached a wrong phone number but was enchanted by her silvery voice and asked her out. Glenna and Al later kidded that they must have been pretty desperate to arrange such a date over the phone. They were married in 1968 and enjoyed living on Okinawa and in New Orleans, LA; Colorado; Oregon; Maryland; and Texas. Daughters Tara, an RN, and Jessie, a public relations exec, went on to successful careers and families, and Glenna enjoyed a distinguished career as an RN at the NIH and Red Cross.</p>
<p>In 1969, after assignments in CONUS and in Southeast Asia, Al entered LSU School of Medicine in New Orleans. He enjoyed the frantic pace at Charity Hospital, made lifelong friends, and was elected vice president of his class. Nicknamed “HyperAl” for his enthusiasm (“hyperal” also referred to IV hyperalimentation feedings for sick patients), he loved the excitement of the ERs and ORs and worked long hours. Graduating with honors, he completed a string of surgical fellowships at Walter Reed, Harvard, Sloan-Kettering, and Duke University, specializing in trauma, cancer, and birth defects. In the 1980s he was plastic surgery chief at Walter Reed, and his patients appreciated the time that he spent with them answering their every question and drawing their upcoming operations for them on paper. In 1989, he retired as a colonel and the family moved to Portland, OR, where he chaired the Plastic and Hand Surgical Divisions at the medical school (OHSU). He built two large surgery training programs, recruited 10 more surgeons and some 23 staff RNs and specialists, and his research team earned numerous grants for their work on bone regenerating proteins. He also relished pulling overnight call as a general surgeon (abdominal, chest, and vascular injuries) in the Level I Trauma Center.</p>
<p>Al chaired national meetings, authored and administered surgery board exams, and served on national committees and editorial boards with his good friends from other universities. With his colleagues, he published a multitude of articles and chapters and authored a surgical atlas on chest wall reconstruction. But it was the daily teaching of his residents, fellows, and med students, especially in the OR, that Al loved most. For decades, he also met with his faculty, residents, and students every Saturday at 0630 for bedside rounds in the ICU and then saw every patient on their busy services at three hospitals. </p>
<p>In 2002, Al reached retirement age at OHSU and accepted distinguished professorships in anatomy and surgery at the Uniformed Services University School of Medicine (USUHS) in Bethesda, MD. Glenna was enthusiastically recruited back to the NIH, and Al served as head of the USUHS Anatomy Course and consulted at Walter Reed. Over the years, the med students honored Al with numerous teaching awards, and he also lectured at Yale, Johns Hopkins, the Royal College of Surgeons (London), and other universities. Glenna usually accompanied him, and they loved their travels together.</p>
<p>In 2006, the USMA Superintendent appointed Al to the USMA Medical School Selection Board to annually select outstanding first classmen to attend medical school following graduation. For the next 10 years, he and Glenna enjoyed these annual weeklong visits to West Point, and Al interviewed and selected some 265 outstanding firsties for this program, many of whom he later taught at USUHS. He felt strongly that every wounded American warrior deserved to be treated by an American MD and that this program fostered a nucleus of career Army physicians for our country. The Army brass agreed and confirmed this with statistics on retention. </p>
<p>His happiest moments were spent with Glenna, his daughters and their families, his grandchildren, and his sisters. They all were very close, and he loved joking with them continuously. He and Glenna traveled extensively and enjoyed their evening walks, PX shopping, and dining at their favorite restaurants. He is survived by “his girls”: Glenna and their daughters and grandchildren; and by the scores of med students, interns, and surgeons that he taught over a 47-year span.</p>
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