Dr. Jerry Quint dies at 77

Editor's note: Due to the weather, the family of Dr. Jerry Quint will not sit Shiva on Sunday, Feb. 16.

Instead, it will be held on Monday and Tuesday, Feb. 17 and 18. Additional details can be found within the obituary.

WARWICK — The world went dark Thursday, Feb. 12, 2014, when Dr. Jerry Quint died, leaving behind a vast array of family members and friends who loved him deeply, acquaintances who were charmed and amused by him, colleagues who esteemed him, and patients who revered him.

Quint was a doctor – a surgeon at St. Anthony Community Hospital in Warwick – for the better part of his adult life. But to describe him simply as “a doctor” would be to scratch only the surface of who this man was.

The essence of Quint began, perhaps, with his intense, enormous curiosity – curiosity about how things work, about why things happen, about who people are and what makes them tick. When Quint turned his attention on you, it was all consuming. You were in Quint’s spotlight, and you suddenly felt the need to bare your soul to this man whose piercing blue eyes could bore into the center of your being.

The Quint kitchen table
His patients often became his friends. They went from his surgical table to his kitchen table where Quint and his wife Terry fed them, talked with them and listened. Especially listened. Quint wanted to know what other people thought about … well, just about everything. He especially wanted to understand people who had differing opinions from his own, and he always allowed for the possibility that he was wrong-headed in his thinking.

But he rarely was.
The Quint kitchen table was also the site of Jerry’s poker games. Everyone who happened to fall into his orbit and could play a hand of cards was invited to join a game, whether it was the plumber who’d come by the house to fix a leaky faucet or a patient whose leaky faucet Quint had fixed in the operating room.

His curiosity led him to become skilled at a wide range of interests. He was a pilot who could fly both a plane and a helicopter; he was a photographer with a strong eye for composition; he was an avid sailor and a Harley enthusiast; he mastered modern technology with the same ease as youngsters who are born to it. He was an ESPN and news junkie who soaked up information like a sponge. He was able to recall in great detail the most arcane facts he learned from a Discovery Channel show he saw years ago about … anything.

His competitive nature led him to be named captain of his college tennis team and, later, a tennis instructor at Grossinger’s Catskill Resort. He excelled at basketball in high school despite his short stature. He enjoyed a night of gambling at the casinos, and he wagered with intensity on everything from the outcome of the Super Bowl to how many inches of snow would fall overnight. (He would be most interested to know that it snowed more than a foot on the day after he died, but he would want an exact inch count.)

'What would Jerry do?'
Quint was not just a doctor; he was an educator. As chief of surgery and later as chief of staff, he gave everyone who worked at St. Anthony his full attention and his home phone number. His wit and ability to crystallize pathways to success were a hallmark of his interest in helping other doctors, whether new to the profession or not.

He brought young people interested in a career in medicine into his embrace and prodded them along the way. He inspired them and respected them. In turn, they came to adore him. Said one young college student after spending a day watching Quint at work in the OR and talking with patients at the office, “I’ve decided that I’m going to be a doctor. And not just any doctor. I want to be that doctor. I want to be Quint.” He did, indeed, become a physician and says he tries each day to ask himself, “What would Jerry do?” The answer to that question is the path he chooses.

'Pain sucks'
Quint was not just a healer; he was a fixer. If you were Quint’s friend or patient, there was nothing he would not do for you, whether he was in his office, at home or on vacation at his favorite spot in Key West. He once spent two full days of a vacation on the phone, trying to clear the way for an under-insured patient to get transferred to the best hospital and receive the best treatment. He succeeded. Of course.

Although he always looked for the best in others, he was not naïve. He was a complicated man who could define others in simple terms. A person was either one of the good guys or one of the bad guys, as far as Quint was concerned. He praised the good guys at every opportunity. As for the rest … they knew where they stood.

Known for his salty language, his sense of humor, and his strong indignation at injustice, Quint practiced medicine by following a simple precept, which he expressed this way: Pain sucks. It was his job to alleviate it, and he did so incredibly well.

To be part of a community
Quint was born in Chicago, Illinois, on May 23, 1936, to Alice and William Quint. The family moved to Liberty, New York, when he was in high school.

After serving in the U.S. Army Artillery Division and completing his undergraduate work at Yeshiva University, he attended medical school in Louvain, Belgium, where he learned a foreign language at the same time he learned medicine. He graduated magna cum laude. A surgical residency at Albert Einstein College of Medicine was followed by a fellowship in transplantation surgery at Harvard Medical School.

In 1971, Quint was at the vanguard of transplant surgery as co-founder and co-director of the transplant division at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Despite that early success and an enormous potential to become something of a rock star in medicine, Quint chose instead to move from the big city to Warwick in 1973, where he became an attending surgeon at St. Anthony, a relatively small community hospital. He wanted to be part of something more important than being Doc Hollywood. He wanted to be part of a community – both that of the village and that of the hospital.

He not only quickly became part of that community, he also helped define it. Ultimately, he was appointed chief of staff at the hospital. After retiring from his surgical practice, he became chairman of the hospital board of directors.

Along the way, he was also appointed to serve as the assistant division physician for the New York State Police and a member of the New York State Counter Terrorism Task Force. He loved nothing more than hanging around with the police, and they embraced him into their brotherhood with bear hugs and undying affection. In 2009, the New York State Police Helipad at the Monroe barracks was dedicated in his honor. The dedication reads: “To Dr. Quint for the many lives he has saved, his untiring dedication to the state police, and his love of flying.”

In short, Dr. Jerry Quint was the quintessential Renaissance man.

In addition to his wife and sweetheart, Terry Quint, at home, Jerry is survived by his daughter Kellie Quint Gersh and her husband Paul of Cliffside Park, NJ; son Dr. Tim Averch and his wife Joanne of Pittsburgh, PA; daughter Lisa Kessler, Esq. and her husband Stuart of Weston, CT; grandchildren Jake Quint Averch, Lexi Quint Kessler, Cassi Brooks Kessler, Ali Scheck and her husband Andrew, and Gary Gersh; and his dog Lola, at home, who is inconsolable at the loss of her beloved Quint.

Arrangements
Burial will be private. The family will sit Shiva at home at 30 Maple Ave., Warwick on Monday and Tuesday, Feb. 17 and 18, from 3 to 7 p.m.

Funeral arrangements are under the supervision of Joseph N. Garlick Funeral Home, Monticello.

Because Quint spent more than 40 years of his life loving and caring for patients, colleagues and staff at St. Anthony, his family requests that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made in his name to the St. Anthony Community Hospital Foundation, 15 Maple Ave., Warwick, NY 10990 or by visiting www.bschsf.org/jeromequint.