Dr. Yener S. Erozan
Longtime Johns Hopkins professor was renowned for his contributions to the study of diseases at the cellular level
Dr. Yener S. Erozan, a longtime professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, died July 22 after suffering a cerebral event at his home in the Cross Keys neighborhood in North Baltimore. He was 93.
The longtime physician was renowned for his contributions to the field of cytopathology, the study of diseases at the cellular level. He published over 100 peer-reviewed articles on the subject, as well as writing three books and several chapters of other scholarly works.
Colleagues at Hopkins described Dr. Erozan as a humble and supportive professor at a time when physicians could be intimidating and distant toward students.
“He taught by example,” said colleague Dr. Ralph Hruban, director of the pathology department at Hopkins. “He was a brilliant, kind teddy bear, who kindly walked students and trainees through differential diagnoses to the correct answer.”
“His defining characteristic was his kindness,” said Dr. Syed Ali, the current cytopathology director at Hopkins, who studied under Dr. Erozan for two years after he came to Hopkins in 1995. “I’ve never seen him upset or angry.”
In addition to being an internationally recognized cytopathologist and a longtime pillar of the Hopkins pathology department, Dr. Erozan was also remembered for his immaculate sense of style.
“He loved to dress nicely,” his brother-inlaw, Franklin Martin, said. “He was always dressed like he walked out of GQ.”
Born in Ankara, Turkey, to Ahmet Celal Sahir and Hatice Atiye, Yener Sahir Erozan grew up aspiring to become a doctor and never considered another profession, his family and colleagues said. He attended high school at Bogazici Lisesi in Istanbul, graduating in 1948.
He obtained his medical degree in 1954 at the University of Istanbul School of Medicine, completing a residency at Haydarpasa Numune Hospital in Istanbul before coming to Maryland in 1959 for another residency at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda.
There, he met Brenda Martin, whom he would marry in 1966 during a stint as an instructor at Hacettepe University School of Medicine in Turkey, which followed a fellowship at Hopkins, where he studied under Dr. John K. Frost, the university’s first director of cytopathology.
Dr. Erozan returned to Baltimore in late 1968 to become an assistant professor in pathology at Hopkins, where he would spend nearly four decades until his retirement in 2007.
He worked as an associate editor for Acta Cytologica, a scholarly clinical cytology journal, and served in multiple positions at the American Society of Cytopathology, including as president of the association. He received the society’s Papanicolaou Award in 1997 for his contributions to the field of cytopathology, as well as the Papanicolaou Society’s L.C. Tao Educator of the Year award and the International Academy of Cytology’s Maurice Goldblatt Cytology Award.
While his work spanned across the cytopathology field, Dr. Erozan was particularly focused on early detection of lung cancer, his colleagues said. Some of his work in China focused on diagnosing lung cancer early in people who worked in the mining industry, Dr. Ali said.
Dr. Erozan notably “recognized the potential of minimally invasive biopsy to diagnose cancer,” Dr. Hruban said. Along with his colleagues at Hopkins, Dr. Erozan used the technique of fine needle aspiration biopsy, the use of a thin needle to remove a sample of tissue or fluid, to diagnose “early, more curable, lung cancers,” he said.
In 2000, Hopkins established the Yener S. Erozan Fellowship in Cytopathology in his honor. He was named a professor emeritus of pathology at Hopkins in 2014 and became director emeritus of the university’s cytopathology institute.
Outside medicine, Dr. Erozan was a family man who enjoyed traveling around the world with his wife and retreating to their cottage in West Virginia, Mr. Martin said.
Dr. Erozan is survived by his wife, Brenda Erozan. He was preceded in death by a brother, Turkay Erozan, and a sister, Darrin Nadi. No service information was immediately available.