LAUSR

It is a great sadness to lose your mentor, a teacher of your lifetime, particularly one who is a pioneer of your own profession. Professor Satoshi Matsumoto passed away on November 7, 2017 at the age of 90. At his bedside, he was surrounded by his family and his passing was peaceful and dignified. Professor Matsumoto is survived by his wife, Nobuko, three daughters, Nozomi Sano, Naomi Wakita, and Hitomi Ogawa, a son Chisato Matsumoto, seven grandchildren, and three great grandchildren. I was fortunate to be one of his pupils, and followed in his footsteps as a pediatric neurosurgeon. He was a quiet, kind Christian yet, very determined and devoted his entire professional life to the welfare of disabled children. We should appreciate his energy in helping to establish pediatric neurosurgery as a subspecialty not only in Japan but internationally. He helped train pediatric neurosurgeons and helped lead the effort creating the foundation of official pediatric neurosurgical societies in Japan and worldwide. From my personal point of view, I owe him for his direction and support of my career as a pediatric neurosurgeon starting from the first day of my residency interview in the summer of 1971. Professor Matsumoto was born in Himeji City, just West of Kobe, Japan, on August 30, 1927. His childhood was mostly spent in Kyushu, the southernmost island of Japan, because of his father’s work at the Japan Railroad Service. When he was in high school, Japan was in the midst of World War II. He attended the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy, one of the most elite service academies, in BEtajima.^ He graduated in the 75th and last class of the Imperial Naval Academy in August 1945 when the war ended; therefore, he never spent time on the battlefield. The Imperial Naval Academy closed permanently in December 1945. It was a common knowledge among those who knew him that his internal strength was cultivated during the vigorous physical and mental training at the Imperial Naval Academy. Following the war, Matsumoto attended Himeji School of Higher Education (College) and graduated in March 1950. He then entered the School of Medicine, at Kyoto University, in April 1950. During medical school, his interest in the central nervous system grew, because he was deeply impressed by his Professor Kow Hirasawa’s knowledge of neuroanatomy. Matsumoto’s lifetime commitment to neurosurgery was also promoted by the lectures he attended given by Professor Chisato Araki, who was the Chairman of the first Department of Surgery at the Kyoto University. In the 1950s in Japan, there were no established departments of neurosurgery, thus neurosurgerywas a small fraction of general surgery. Professor Araki, who studied neurosurgery under Harvey Cushing, Walter Dandy, and Percival Bailey in the USA before World War II, accepted Matsumoto for postgraduate training to his Department of Surgery at Kyoto University Hospital. Young Matsumoto often heard Professor Araki speak of the highquality neurosurgery training he received in the USA, which promoted his desire to receive similar training. Following completion of his 2-year internship and 4-year residency and successfully defending the Doctor of Science Thesis and passing the ECFMG examination, he applied for a neurosurgery residency in the USA andwas accepted at Northwestern University in Chicago. It was July 1962 when he arrived in Chicago. The first rotation of his residency at Northwestern was Children’s Memorial Hospital (presently Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago). At the Children’s Memorial Hospital, while he was the first year resident fresh from Japan, he met a young Italian American neurosurgeon, Professor Anthony Raimondi, who had just finished his neurosurgery residency at the University of Chicago. Raimondi joined Professor Luis Amador’s pediatric neurosurgery service at the same time of Matsumoto’s arrival. Raimondi was a very energetic, charismatic young man, albeit just a year younger * Tadanori Tomita [email protected]